Would you like help skilling up your Rails team?

Would you like help skilling up
your Rails team?

Hi, I’m Jason. I’m currently looking to form a relationship with exactly one team of Rails developers who I can help coach and improve. Let me tell you a little bit about how exactly I can help.

What kind of team would make a good fit

I think we would be a good candidate to work together if your team has the following qualities:

  • You mainly work with Ruby on Rails
  • You’re able to meet during Eastern time business hours
  • You can commit to a couple hours a week working with me
  • Your technical leadership AND your developers are bought into what we’re doing

The only hard requirement is the last one. I’m of course not particularly interested in helping people who don’t want to be helped.

What we will do together

Here are some things I can help teams and individuals with:

  • Writing tests
  • Writing clean, understandable, easily-maintainable code
  • Following a structured development process
  • Breaking big, nebulous projects into small, crisp, actionable user stories
  • Developing realistic timing expectations with stakeholders
  • Developing and documenting engineering operations processes
  • Following continuous integration and continuous delivery practices
  • Interfacing between engineering and other departments in the organization

If in our engagement we could make a large number of small but meaningful improvements in developer productivity, then I think that can translate to a meaningful and lasting economic impact on the business.

I’m not looking for one specific problem to solve. I think problem-solving is overrated. Rather, I want to work with you to make a meaningful improvement in your ability to deliver software quickly and reliably.

How it works

If idea sounds interesting to you, here’s what we can do. I’ll use the term “Team Lead” below to stand in for CTO/VP of Engineering/Director of Engineering or whatever the title is of the main person I’d be working with.

  1. The Team Lead can email me and we’ll schedule a call where the Team Lead can tell me about your team and what you see as your opportunities for improvement.
  2. If things sound good on both ends, we’ll commit to an initial three-month engagement (or similar time span).
  3. The Team Lead and I will have regular brief meetings throughout the three-month period. I’ll also reach out to the development team directly as appropriate and attend any appropriate meetings. For example, if developers consistently have trouble finishing their sprints, I’ll sit in on the sprint planning meetings to help identify and address the root cause.
  4. If the three months end and we see mutual value in adding another three months, we’ll do so.

As for payment, the coaching service will be flat fee divided into monthly payments. I guarantee my work. If for any reason at all you aren’t satisfied, I’ll provide a full refund for the entire three-month period.

A little background on me

I work as a consultant and have for several years. The majority of my work since 2012 has been Ruby on Rails programming. I host The Ruby Testing Podcast, I’m writing a book called Rails Testing for Beginners, and I speak at conferences like RubyConf India and RailsConf.

How to get in touch

To get the ball rolling, just email me at jason@codewithjason.com.