Software engineers spend a good part of their day writing. Whether it's design specifications, API documentation, functional requirements, email, instant messages or <gasp>code</gasp>, the number one most important tool of our trade sits between our fingers and our blank screens. While not a writer like Charles Dickens or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, all of us write for a living. Our writing looks a little funny to anyone that hasn't learned to translate it, but in the end if I were blogging in Klingon that would look a little bit funny too.
I'd been meaning to get back into the habit of blogging for quite some time, and this guy named John Sonmez came along and gave me a push. In all honesty, he didn't even realize he'd done it, because it was really someone at a super senior level in my company that told me to read John's Book. When I did, I also started following John around on Twitter, and to my appreciation, he actually writes back when you have questions for him! He pointed me to his web site (http://simpleprogrammer.com/) and his blog course, (http://devcareerboost.com/blog-course/), both of which I've actively engaged with since I discovered them.
Having a blog has allowed me to express the things I'm most passionate about as a software engineer. While you won't find any posts from me about bit twiddling or the coolest AngularJS animation ever, you will find something that most other guys tend not to talk about - money (and other business/leadership/<please make it stop> things.)
Because my majors in college had both a technical focus on the computer science side, and a business focus on the business administration side, I often act as a translator between the C-level and V-level employees at a given company, and the general engineering staff. I've learned a few things while I do that, things like how to impact ROI and how to talk about opportunity cost. While most engineers have an inherent understanding of what these things mean, I personally feel like most also don't want to take the time to try to make their otherwise busy lives also make "money" sense to the people that hired them. For most engineers I know, once the "hiring" game is over, they tend to just stick to technical problems and leave career advancement to the next time they jump a job. Most of this can be better understood in my blog throughout - but I also wanted to make it clear why I write. I write because I love the topic I write about, so I rarely find myself at a loss for what to put into the blogosphere.
I appreciate John giving me the push (sometimes more than once) that I need to keep this blog alive. And I appreciate everyone who reads my blog, because it makes me feel like what I say means something to someone besides me.
