I’m not sure when I first came across software craftsmanship, but I know that Dave Hoover’s early blogs about apprenticeship patterns were some of the posts that made it really start to resonate with me!

In 2005 I read one of Dave’s posts - A Thread of Patterns - and I started to recognise some of these patterns in my own experience. This post prompted me to email Dave and tell him a little of my story.

Reading back over those emails today its striking that I had started to look for a mentor. That I felt that there were serious problems with the way the company I worked for approached software, but I didn’t feel I had the experience to fix those problems, and that I needed to move and take the next step in my career.

I think one area that your patterns need to touch upon is getting the culture right. This is an area that I think is making my life more difficult. There isn’t a culture of developing software in this company. Most of the programming here is about quick and dirty solutions to solve one time problems for production.

This was 2005 - it was two more years before I left that company, and the move I made then didn’t work out the way I hoped. I learnt alot along the way, but have never really found the culture I was looking for.

Fast-forward to today - after 5 months at Eden Development I feel that I have finally found a company with a culture that I share. The company itself has been on a bit of a voyage of discovery and growth and I am really excited to be part of its future. Not only did we leave our old office for the first time today, but the company started its new formal apprenticeship scheme.

I’m pleased to say that I was offered, and have accepted, an Eden Development apprenticeship under the guidance of Todd Anderson. I’m excited to see how this program develops, and look forward to sharing my experiences.