Derek L.

Summary

I want my passion for high-quality software engineering to inspire others. I want to help create a fun and engaging work environment that everyone on the team enjoys. I want to understand what makes teams effective and experiment with evolving the team's efficiency over time. I want to build high-trust relationships within the group to allow us to do our best work with the least friction. I want to develop products that genuinely serve a purpose and that people want to use. Finally, I want to make a positive impact on the world. When it comes to product development, there are many aspects that I am passionate about, of which these are just a few: * High-Quality Software Engineering - Hunting for practical applications within the software where object-oriented design patterns, SOLID principles, code smells, and refactoring can be leveraged to improve the quality, extendability, maintainability, and understandability of the code. * Clean Code - Working with team members to determine the agreed-upon definition of clean code and building a shared desire to fight against code rot. * Building Valuable Test Suites - Constructing test suites that provide fast feedback, give confidence that the software meets the expected behavior, and are de-coupled from the implementation to allow for refactoring with minimal to no impact on the tests. * XP Values - Be mindful of how XP values and principles apply to building effective teams and highlight instances where members exhibit these behaviors. * Effective Teaching - Experiment with various approaches to teaching to match the audience's needs, whether it be a single person while pair programming or a large audience of workshop participants. * Continuous Learning - Investing in my continuing education and that of the team and organization by fostering an environment of continuous learning through knowledge-sharing events and workshops. * Facilitation - Facilitating workshops related to Lean XP practices, values, principles, and highly technical software engineering topics. * Communication - Understanding the intricacies of communication across language and culture through awareness, empathy, and mindfulness. Outside of software engineering, I have several hobbies that I also enjoy: * Drumming 30+ years (bands, live, studio, various genres) * Physical fitness: Strength training, hiking, SUP, ping-pong, rock climbing * Mental fitness: Meditation, reading, listening to audiobooks/podcasts