I was interviewed!

TLDR - I was recently interviewed about neurodiversity and leadership. The video can be seen on YouTube, and the announcement post on LinkedIn.

At the tail end of last year, I received an unusual message on LinkedIn. Paraphrased, it said "Hi - we've been connected on here for a while. Would you like to be interviewed for a podcast about technical leadership?" I'm normally terrible at self-promotion and a friend had recently been giving me a hard time about this, so after checking it wasn't random spam we arranged a chat.

This started something unexpected. I met Katelin Lovell, and after a really nice conversation she asked me about my writing on neurodiversity. As anyone who has read this blog for a while knows, I am quite passionate about normalising discussion of mental health and (since diagnosis) neurodiversity. She suggested that how I have dealt with autism and ADHD in the context of leadership would be a good topic for an interview.

It has taken a while, but that interview was recently posted on LinkedIn and the video can be found on YouTube.

I'm quite pleased with the outcome. I think we cover some important topics and hopefully it will give some insight into something that people find very hard to explain. "My brain works differently" is a really difficult thing to say, and living outside the societally expected norm creates many challenges.

We chose this topic for this interview in the hope of helping people understand a bit more. That might be a manager trying to better understand someone who is neurodivergent (or just people in general), someone who is neurodivergent and curious about the experiences of others, or someone wondering whether they might be themselves.

As I said, I find myself in a position to make use of my own experiences and limited platform to speak on this subject. I am not a clinical expert, but I can talk about my own experiences and I think it is important to help educate and normalise something that affects a significant slice of the population.

While Katelin was great, doing this interview was difficult. To speak clearly about my experiences, I have to dissect my inner thoughts, and that is both raw and exposing. One of the big fears that keeps people quiet about mental health and neurodiversity is social stigma and suddenly being labelled as "the person who can't cope". It is quite possible some people will see me differently.

That said, I've had some lovely comments and feedback since it went live. Way back when I first wrote about depression, I was told how comforting it was to have senior leaders open up about their struggles and I've held that comment close ever since - I see it as one of the responsibilities of being a senior leader in my industry.

Anyway, this post isn't to rehash the interview contents (go listen to it!) - just to mark that it went out and why I did it.

I want to thank Katelin for being great throughout the process, and for setting it up in the first place. We talked a bit about doing some follow-ups and answering questions, so maybe we'll do more if there is an appetite for it.

I do want to speak more on this subject, so if you're looking for someone to talk about neurodiversity and leadership, do reach out.

Thinking beyond AI

This post was inspired by David Knott's post about cognitive offloading.

There is a lot of discussion about the effect of AI on our own ability to think. If we outsource thinking to AI, people say, we lose our ability to think for ourselves. The research will take years to settle, so here's one way I've been thinking about it.

The important question with AI is not "how can it help me do today's work?" It is far more interesting to ask "what work becomes possible because AI exists?" Used well, AI changes the economics of thinking.

I see using AI as like riding a bike. When moving from walking to riding, you can create problems for yourself. Riding is much less taxing than walking so you will burn fewer calories, not push your muscles which will slow development, and overall make life easier at the cost of exercise.

But this is if you approach riding lazily, with a mindset of "I want to do what I was doing, but easier". Assuming no change, no growth, just a different tool.

Asking different questions creates opportunities. You could optimise for speed, saving time on that regular journey and reintroducing exercise. You could see new capabilities opening - you can go further, see different things. You can use the technology to extend your horizons.

Such it is with AI. Sure, we can use it to automate what we're already doing (kinda). But if we get a bit more creative, we can ask a different question - what can I do now I couldn't before? What new spaces can I build or create? That said, there will be times something really is drudgery. In that case, we can try to reduce the effort until it is trivial. This gives us a most precious resource - time.

Instead of allowing our critical thinking to atrophy with AI, we refocus it on whatever comes next. We still think. AI gives us the opportunity to redeploy our cognitive effort where it adds the most value.

I just want to paste something - AI problem solving

OK, after two months of technical posts (and kudos to those who read them) let's go for a classic LinkedIn approach. What did debugging Linux configuration teach me about evolving paradigms of learning in the age of AI?

Jokes aside, I do think there are some interesting threads to pull here. I had a series of technical problems and I used AI assistance to address them. By the end, I had a product (they were fixed) but did I have any understanding? Did I learn anything?

Yes, I did. I learned a lot about Linux debugging tools. I remembered a lot about Linux config. While I did copy/paste a lot of commands, I wasn't simply executing Claude's suggestions. I was constantly asking why - why this command, why this tool, why this next step, and using this to inform my own thinking for moving forward. I made sure I understood what I was doing and slotted that information into my existing mental model, so Claude and ChatGPT were my companions on this journey, and they both helped and accelerated the trip.

However.

This is my experience. I am a professional technologist, with 20-odd years in the industry and more than that digging through the nuts and bolts of computers. I have a lifetime of context with which to understand the suggested steps, and keep a light hand on the tiller in case the AI wanders off in an odd direction. Fundamentally, I could have done this without AI assistance. More importantly, I could learn from the process because I already had enough context to understand and question what it was suggesting. AI simply made that process much quicker.

It's the same as training at my Tai Chi club. It is half an hour a week and many folk there struggle to memorise the forms we work through. I don't, because I've studied Tai Chi since my teens and the basics are ingrained. I am only learning the higher level motions, not the theory. I've also spent many years learning how to learn these patterns. It's a different experience for me because of that significant time investment. Those years of practice haven't just taught me Tai Chi, they've taught me how I learn Tai Chi.

Now, you could certainly make the argument that the particular knowledge gained debugging this problem doesn't matter. I don't need to know it, I just needed the problem to go away. This wouldn't be wrong in this instance. However, if something had gone wrong actually understanding the steps would have been important in fixing it. If I need to do something like this in future I've got more options for starting points.

So why does this matter? Stepping back, we all know that AI adoption across the Tech industry is not just happening, in many places it is mandated from on high. For some, tools and process changes are enhancements - increasing speed and freeing capacity, as my experience here. For others, they are increasingly just doing what the computer tells them.

The people new to the industry are those that concern me most. It is generally accepted in education that simply telling people the answer doesn't help them learn, yet this is the behaviour using an AI tool encourages. Ask a direct question, get an answer, use it and move on without further thought. In Tech, new developers using AI tools to generate code for them aren't gaining the experience needed to become what we currently consider Senior or Lead engineers. This is the difference between AI enhancing your output and AI driving it, and must be countered if we want people to gain the experience necessary to make safe use of these tools.

For those coming into Tech, this is actually similar (if more acute) to using Stack Overflow. Let's be honest, that site was used as training data so using an AI prompt is not far off an interface to the knowledge base there. There is nothing wrong with using Stack Overflow, as long as you read the posts and try to understand them. If you're copy/pasting lines of code without engaging with them, sooner or later you're going to come across someone who posted rm -rf / (DO NOT paste that!) and most people reading this will know what happens if you stick that in a root terminal.

There are certainly ways to actively learn while using AI. I often ask AI questions, then make changes myself - treating it like an editor / coding buddy - but the act of typing it out and questioning what I'm doing makes me learn. One of the reasons I write blog posts is that re-synthesising information in this format helps me turn it over in my mind and ensure I understand it properly. As long as we remain engaged with the process, as long as we value the knowledge and don't just copy/paste, then there is learning.

I find it very interesting to consider what this shift in technology means for the development of Tech (and indeed other industries). Learning passively (on the job, by doing) is likely to become harder, which means actually learning things needs to become much more deliberate - both individually, and at an organisation level - and we need to look again at how we place value on the learning process. The need to learn isn't going to disappear, and we need to be aware that AI does change the learning environment. It creates many opportunities, but if we aren't careful it can also encourage problematic behaviours. We will need to become more intentional about learning - through technique, through creating time, and through asking "why?" a lot. AI can provide explanations. Curiosity still has to come from us.

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This post is part of a series:

• I just want to paste something - Ubuntu clipboard managers
• I just want to paste something - Ubuntu keyboard shortcuts
• I just want to paste something - AI problem solving

Celebrating different minds

Apparently this week was neurodiversity celebration week with the rather charming tagline "celebrating different minds". Last year I made reference to being diagnosed with Autism and ADHD and this week seems like a good opportunity to write a little about what it's like.

First, the important caveats. I'm not medically trained so I'm writing from my own experiences and reading. Also, different forms of neurodivergence have very different impacts on people's lives and many exist on their own spectrums - my experience with autism may well be very different from another's.

I'm not going to draw a dividing line between my experiences with ADHD and Autism here. I have both, which seems counterintuitive - you might think they would cancel each other out. They don't. Instead, your brain goes to war with itself. This can result in an outward balance - for example, my need to fidget being cancelled by my need to follow the social rules for not doing that - but inside, it's a constant tug of war between opposing impulses. Most of this is invisible from the outside.

So over time, I have learned how to ride through this. I have always struggled to do things in good time. At school, I would do assignments late in the deadline but then I'd have absolute focus to get it done - or rather, the drive would be to avoid failing. If this sounds stressful, then yes - it is. It has been the same with job applications.

Heavy procrastination in general is something to actively manage. I have to watch myself from a distance and ask pointed questions like "why are you still doing that?" or write deadlines to trigger my desire to not fail. I write daily lists to create this impulse.

My brain needs stimulus. I am very good at not being bored, but anyone who has read this blog for a while will see the posts popping up saying variations of "I am bad at resting". I need to be doing something, learning something, creating something, thinking five thoughts at once... Even while I'm writing this I am jumping to another screen to upgrade a Rails app in the background.

This leads to a very noisy inside life. One experiment mapped the brain activity of a neurodivergent individual vs a neurotypical person doing the same, mundane activities. Where the neurotypical person has nice smooth signals, the neurodivergent person shows signals which look more like a seismograph during an earthquake. This was a very powerful image for me - a picture showing that my internal world is both extremely noisy, and not "the same for everyone".

Much of that links to regulation of dopamine and reward in the brain, and that can lead to all kinds of behaviours. The more obvious are seeking stimulation, which can be very destructive if that leads to drugs or other harmful behaviour - this is a whole separate topic. It can also create other unexpected behaviours. For me, I find I struggle with snacks - I have to avoid keeping them in the house at all else I'll just eat them. For a long time I did not know why, but now I realise this was dopamine-chasing behaviour - in essence, I was inadvertently self-medicating. I also do not really feel the same high from exercise others describe, which makes it a real grind to actually do any. Combine these, and you can guess the effect on my physical health!

At the less destructive ends of the different spectrums, where I am fortunate to be (I think), life carries a lot of friction, but I see it as a series of tradeoffs like my brain is overtuned for some effects. Hyperfocus is a good example of that. Getting lost in a topic completely can be great for learning and progress - a benefit. However, unlike "flow" (something everyone can experience), hyperfocus adds destructive elements - losing track of time and reality to the extent I forget to eat, sleep or ... other functions. Without counterbalance and control, it can create serious problems. The same is true of other traits, such as strong pattern recognition which can progress to the point of overanalysis and over-interpretation, drawing unhelpful conclusions.

Another overtuned trait I experience is noise sensitivity. Like many neurodivergent people, I can hear the whining of electrical devices most people can't and my brain prioritises strange background sounds like electronic beeping of alarms in the distance. This makes me a pretty good sound engineer, and able to find electronic components which are not behaving properly. However, this isn't something I can turn off and the outside world is so very noisy. From distant alarms which crawl under my skin until I can hear nothing else, to feeling agitated in a room most people think is silent, to rooms I find so loud it physically hurts to enter. I had a long period where I had to sleep with all the windows closed because of the whining noise coming from the generator in the basement next door. Their management company had an engineer look at it, and they kept saying (quite correctly, to be fair) that their generator was behaving within normal parameters but that noise entered my brain and would not leave. So I lost sleep for months, while anxiety built and built. This was resolved when the generator failed because the component I could hear across the street died so ... painful vindication.

However all this happens below the surface. If you meet me, you may not notice anything different about me at all. Even if you do, I've managed to navigate the world successfully. Which is where masking comes in. In practice, this is deciding how to show up to different situations (which everyone does to an extent) but like most things here pushed much further than the norm. For me, this practice has been helpful with conforming to different sets of social rules or expectations but does also lead to problems with identity. When am I ever me? Masking, like all the different ways of behaving to fit the norm, is very tiring. It can also go further - prolonged masking can lead to burnout and the loss of sense of identity, along with experiencing dissociative symptoms.

All this can result in a lonely existence. People draw comfort from being around folk who see the world like they do but - put bluntly - we don't get that in mainstream life. This can be very useful - channelled right, a different worldview can challenge norms and drive change - but it is also isolating. I rarely get to relax around people, I'm always putting on a mask for the occasion.

Even writing this is causing some anxiety as I expect someone to say "yeah everyone is like that".

These are just some of my experiences. I've found people often have questions about neurodiversity but don't feel able to ask them. If anything here raises questions, I'm very happy to talk - no question too strange.

Leadership as an emotional shock absorber

I know very few people who have started 2026 in an optimistic and cheerful place. I certainly haven't. I want that to change - to get back to facing things with a positive disposition and a sense of humour. It matters for me, but it matters more for those around me. Most people are more affected by the mood of others than they care to admit.

But first I have to acknowledge that wanting a more positive frame of mind does not make difficult things disappear. The world is unstable. More personally, I'm still having "fun" with health. Work is going through a difficult time of change. So that's the context - it's easy to be smiles and sunshine when everything is good. It isn't.

However these are the times when it's important to support everyone else, and one way to do that is to be a bulwark against negativity. Negative thinking is like a disease - it jumps between people until it burns out against those who resist it. Unlike a real disease, however, you can make a choice to be immune (or at least less susceptible). We do not always control what happens to us, but we do control our response to it.

At work this is particularly true. People need space to vent and they need peers and leadership to recognise reality. However, it is an often-forgotten duty of leaders to explain why things aren't as bad as they think, and show the positive route forward out of all this. This is true (especially true) even when things are, in fact, as bad (or actually worse) than they think.

There is a core leadership skill here - how do I tell this story in a positive way, while remaining authentic? The authenticity is vital else it's either a stream of mindless optimism or (worse) just "senior management spin". But there should be a rationale, and thus something constructive to say here. Why is this change being made? Why has that project been cancelled? If your starting assumption is that leadership is incompetent, then no explanation will ever satisfy you. However, in reality there is usually some logic. You may not like it or agree with it, but attempting to understand and communicate it is an essential part of leadership. This may be a bit "party line" for some, but ideally as a leader you've had a chance to speak into this situation before the decision is made. At that point, it's about how to make it work, not how to undermine the decision maker.

Obviously this is a too-broad statement. It assumes that all involved have the best intentions for the wider organisation at heart which is definitely not always true. However, in a healthy organisation this is usually the case, so it's important that we support change as best we can.

But good grief, this can be exhausting at times.

It is one thing to declare this "good leadership" - and I stand by that - but actually being that person can take a serious toll. You have to understand the detail of key changes across the org (not always easy!) then put yourself in the firing line from people who don't agree and don't want to like it. You need to be able to gently and compassionately listen to the concerns of people who are in a volatile state (upset, angry, afraid) and through conversation try to reassure and bring them round again and again. This might be in a group, which potentially has a "stand up to the mob" dynamic. Or it could be one to one, which can be even more draining if you're listening to one unhappy person after another.

For those stepping into this space, it can be the relentlessness that is actually what drives to breaking point. There aren't many senior leaders in an organisation, so the higher you rise the fewer people you can yourself talk to. If you're really trying to be a positive force, you're also attempting to support others, so potentially there is no release valve. When you're moving from one unhappy person to another, you are choosing to absorb negativity and emit something constructive. This is much harder than simply reflecting it back. It can become soul destroying getting knocked down and dragging yourself up again and again.

So what's the useful comment here? Well, it's important to recognise that this kind of engagement is an important part of leadership. It's also a different skillset, and like any other it needs developing. It is a reflex that can be honed much lower down the hierarchy than some. You may not be managing a budget, but you can certainly pay attention to what is going on around you and be a positive (or at least constructive) part of the dialogue. As individuals, we need to remember that support isn't just about reaching out to others - it's also in the microbehaviours. If we turn up to every meeting complaining, this is a drain on everyone around us. Our concerns may well be legitimate (so don't stop voicing them) but maybe bring along some good news and / or solutions. In fact, if our complaints are legit that is worse in this scenario as the boss really needs to listen.

We cannot control all the turbulence in the world around us, but we can control whether we amplify it. Choosing to be a steadying presence is not denial; it is discipline. In difficult seasons, discipline is leadership.

Learning to celebrate success deliberately

It is the start of a new year, and January has been a bit of an introspective month. I've been pondering my strengths and weaknesses as a leader. Something I find difficult (or at least doesn't come naturally) is celebrating success, especially collective success, and that matters as part of encouraging and building a team or community.

I think this stems from my own approach to celebration. I'm a planner, and I'm usually quite good at predicting how things are going to turn out. If something goes as planned, it feels adequate but not remarkable. If it doesn't, then it isn't something to celebrate at all. As I get more experienced (nearly wrote "older" there) fewer things surprise me, so the world separates into "adequate" and "disappointing".

However, I have worked with managers who take the "if I don't complain, you're doing it right" approach and I find it very unsettling at best. I don't want to be that person to others. Over the years I have trained myself to be more liberal with praise - making sure I call people out when they are doing decent work, not just exceptional work. These days, I think I'm ok at individual praise and being supportive. I'm much worse at wider, structured praise such as celebrating the success of a release or a project.

This is not because I don't value either the delivery or the individuals involved. I am fiercely proud of the people who work for and around me, and have often gone to bat to defend them if I hear anything different. And I certainly don't have a problem giving credit appropriately - I have an almost visceral hatred of even half-appearing to take credit for the work of others, even when I actually led it. My problem is that when one big thing completes, I'm already thinking about the next problem or considering what went wrong.

So in summary, I can praise a person (although like many I do find it uncomfortable) but find broader praise for a delivery more unnatural and difficult to remember.

This is clearly not a good thing for team morale!

I'm going to link this to being autistic - or at least how autism shows up for me. As I said above, I have this internal flatness and while I try very hard to keep it inside where it can't hurt anyone, unfortunately my real self does come out from time to time. It is important I recognise this, and think of ways to put it right. Plus, I get a blog post out of it.

I've got a variety of tricks for remembering to do praise and celebrations ... which does make me feel like an android remembering they need to blink and smile to stop the humans feeling uncomfortable. Notes in the diary / todo list work really well ("say well done here"). It sounds crude, but if you're used to organising yourself by a checklist why not add expected emotional reactions?

For individuals, I joked above about training myself but this is genuinely what I did. I made praising people a deliberate and considered act, which means for me I track praise / criticism in a conversation and try to balance the scales properly. I've also had to overcome my natural uncomfortable feelings about doing this - again with deliberate practice. However, by dispassionately thinking about conversations in this way, I think I'm doing ok at the 1-1 level and also have managed to gain some useful skills in keeping the tone of the conversation where I want it (eg not being too nice if I'm correcting someone, or vice versa). All of this takes deliberate effort. Tracking conversations, balancing praise and correction, and consciously managing how I show up for others is work.

Being neurodiverse is exhausting at times.

Groups I do find harder. I can say the words, but if it needs to go further into an actual celebration I am lost. I have had a lot of success with the classic (and genuinely good) leadership approach of surrounding myself with people more skilled than myself. In this context, that means people who are more naturally effusive than me. These fine folk either directly remind me, or (more often) just twitch at the right time which makes me react quickly and speak up. Like I say, it's not that I don't want to celebrate and praise, it just doesn't occur to me.

This post has been about my own thought process, but at the end of this ramble there are some solid tips. Make lists, take deliberate action and if all else fails outsource it. Good leadership isn't about feeling the right things, rather it is about doing the right things consistently. Even when they don't come naturally.

My favourite time of the year

I'm sitting writing this at my favourite time of the year. The gap between Christmas and New Year, when much of the world just stops. The crazy time leading into Christmas is finished, stuff is bought, wrapped and sent and Christmas day is done. And in this gap, before whatever happens at New Year we can all take a breath, reflect and digest the pile of food we've eaten.

It is more than a holiday - it is an absence of expectations. I have been fortunate to work in places which mostly or entirely shut down over the Christmas period so unlike a week's leave, I don't have to worry about everyone else generating work while I'm away. The days are short, and the weather is cold and wet so I don't feel I should be outside or productive.

In short, it is the one time of the year I can sit back and do nothing and not feel guilty about it.

In many ways, this feels to me similar to how my brain works. Most of the time everything is gogogo - I can jump to something else, but not stop entirely. But just occasionally I find some actual peace and the noise and the pressure (real or imaginary) just stop for a while. For once, this is less about my own inability to rest (and I am very bad at resting) and more about the world granting a socially-sanctioned pause - that is, giving permission to just stop.

This is clearly a ponder to end the year. I think we underestimate how much of our stress comes from ambient expectations, not workload - and how rare it is to be allowed to truly stop. When it happens, it feels great.

Happy new year everyone.

Can anyone be coached?

"You know, Tom. Not everyone can be coached."

This was said to me some time ago when I was discussing my experiences coaching / mentoring people and how some had moved forward, but others had not. It has been playing on my mind since.

It is rare anyone who knows me would describe me as an optimist. However, in this one area I think I am overly positive - possibly to the point of naivety. I generally believe that with some effort, most people can pick up most things. Sure, there are specific skills which might be problematic (I suspect that I would never be a halfway decent footballer, regardless of effort) but in the main, I think people can learn how to lead teams, write strategy, write code, and so on. But is this true?

I am a great believer in the power of mentoring. I spend a lot of my own time doing this, both in work and outside, and I am pleased to have seen people grow in their career, confidence, skills and so on. In fact, a year ago I wrote a post talking about how important it is and challenging others to do more. I stand by that.

But mentoring takes time, time is finite, and I certainly can see that some engagements have been more effective than others. When the diary is full, I certainly want to be prioritising my own time effectively and consider whether the effort spent on an individual is well invested or would be better spent elsewhere. Mentoring / coaching is a partnership - all the help in the world is worthless if the mentee is not willing to take that advice and run with it in order to grow.

This is the important question: is the coaching relationship ready, and does it justify the time? Especially important if, like me, you mostly do mentoring for free through org schemes or recommendations. Plus, of course, recognising that this is always a point-in-time assessment - people can become ready over time (or stop being).

A "ready" coaching relationship can come in many forms, but I think there are some common elements.

Honesty and trust, possibly into discomfort

Psychological safety is the most important element. Coaching should go deep. It should be a space safe enough to be open and vulnerable, and discuss things that may not come up with colleagues. It also means being able to discuss half-formed ideas - not everything needs to be thought through before airing it.

This trust and safety is important for the next part. The point of coaching is to enable growth, so the person being coached needs to challenge their own assumptions and sometimes consider direct challenge from the coach. This can be quite uncomfortable, so the environment needs to support riding that out as gently as possible.

Clear understanding of purpose

Conversations can be far more directed if we know why we're meeting. Do you want to discuss situations that have come up in your current role? Do you want to progress, and are we talking about what that might mean? The specific reason doesn't matter, but having a common understanding is essential.

Commitment

This is fairly obvious - coaching is a time commitment for both parties, and both need to respect this, including the admin burden for setting it up. If it is not a paid engagement (ie the coach is offering their time for free), I prefer the coached person to take the lead. As well as handling the admin, it also signals enthusiasm and desire to continue.

This also extends to preparing for a session. The coach will be reviewing notes and considering next steps. The recipient should be thinking about what they want to discuss and coming ready with some conversation in mind. I've seen some coaches use pre-session questions to prompt thinking. This seems like a good way to create focus for the session.

Evidence of change leading to them not needing you

I don't feel this last point is as important as the others - or rather it is considerably more nebulous. Successful coaching should have some kind of result, but the nature of that result is certainly not set in stone. Similarly, while in general the coached person should be growing to no longer need the coaching that is not universally true depending on the engagement.

The purpose of coaching is progress, but progress can mean different things - maybe insight, acceptance, or practical change. The key is that the engagement is generating some kind of value.

So, can anyone be coached?

So, back to the exam question. Can anyone be coached? I still think the answer is yes, but with careful consideration of the effort required.

If you are running a scholarship fund, you can support anyone. However, some people are more in need than others, and some will make better use of the opportunity than others. There are finite resources, so a value judgement has to be made. This is the same with coaching - your time is finite and the decision to expend that resource should be treated with similar care.

Maybe the first element of coaching is inward-looking to recognise the value of one's own time.

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I do realise I've used "coach" and "mentor" somewhat interchangeably in this post, and this is incorrect. In my experience, a blend of the two approaches helps both to encourage self-reflection and provide some direct answers.

ADHD Pathfinding and me

As ADHD Awareness Month approaches, I wanted to post something about ADHD Pathfinding. Here in England, access to ADHD assessment and long-term support is tricky and inconsistent at best. This is somewhat inevitable - the modern understanding of ADHD is evolving rapidly and the system was put in place to support something very different from the current position. However, this is still leaving millions of people (especially adults) undiagnosed and unable to access care or support[1], and costing the UK economy an estimated £17 billion per year[2] in lost productivity and wider social costs.

That is a huge number to throw about and, while the shock factor is significant, the actual cost is in the human implications. ADHD drives impulsive behaviour which can result in educational failure, long-term unemployment, crime, substance misuse, suicide, mental and physical illness (directly quoted from the ADHD Taskforce report). These behaviours ruin lives and break communities and with the right support, care and treatment much of this is preventable.

As I said above, the system is not designed to support the modern reality of ADHD. Assessment through the NHS can take years, and in some areas access to any kind of assessment for adults was nearly denied entirely to create capacity for children. Some commentators dismiss ADHD as a fad, and "everyone seems to have ADHD these days" but the research suggests it is actually chronically under-diagnosed. The current "trend" reflects people asking more questions because of growing awareness.

There are ways to move through the medical system, using Right to Choose schemes or indeed going private, but these require an unreasonable amount of knowledge of the NHS processes and mechanics to navigate. Add in that there is no specific requirement for GPs to have training in ADHD and you have an impenetrable system that can demand far too much of the patient. There is also a financial barrier to assessment and care - the private route is simply not open to many (if not most) people.

Under the hood, there are many, many problems. For just one example, ADHD medication is classified as a Schedule 2 restricted substance requiring monthly prescriptions (and thus time) from senior clinicians. However, ADHD is not classified as a chronic condition which means this administration burden does not come with any funding for the GP's office. Unlike heart medication, which also requires ongoing admin but GP practices are funded for the effort.

This is where ADHD Pathfinding comes in. We have come together to focus on the system, the context it was built in, and how it may change to be more effective in the modern world. We aim to raise awareness of these challenges and ultimately help bring ADHD into the NHS strategy where currently there is no mention of any kind of neurodiversity. The group was founded by Himal Mandalia, and at its core are people who have been in various forms of public service - so people who have experience getting things done in the highly bureaucratic government environment. We are also people who understand the challenges of the system. While I'm not going to rewrite our operating values here, I will highlight that we are looking to improve the system, not criticise the people working within it.

And yes, I said "we". I have been involved since the early days, lurking behind the scenes and helping formulate strategy. This is personal for me - this year, I have been diagnosed with both autism (not surprised) and ADHD (much more surprising). I can honestly say that if I hadn't had support from friends (especially Himal) I would not have got to the end of the ADHD process. I am very privileged to have knowledgeable friends, a pretty strong layman's knowledge of medicine, lots of experience navigating bureaucracy, and resources to help me do all this and I still would have given up. This is not right.

I'm going to write a post about my personal experiences coming to terms with this change in the near future, but for now I'll say I am very keen to help others walk an easier path.

If you're interested in ADHD or the system of assessment and care, please do reach out to us. We're building a community of people invested in this. We can build a system that supports everyone, but it is going to take effort and persistence to put it on the political map.

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[1] According to ADHD UK
[2] ADHD Taskforce report part 1

The Insider Threat in the Age of Agentic AI

Insider threats. A common enough cybersecurity concern, albeit one that in my experience is rather hard to successfully articulate both within a Tech department and especially to a wider organisation. It's very understandable - when discussed, the threat is usually either dangerous to the culture ("trust nobody!") or trivialised ("lock your screen!") and it is hard to maintain understanding of the risk, while also accepting this is part of life.

For those who aren't in or around cybersecurity, an insider threat is when someone uses their legitimate access to exploit your computer systems. We mitigate these risks with both individual behaviours and systemic safeguards - from locked screens to zero-trust access controls.

Classic examples include the "evil maid" scenario - an employee who has access to the many parts of a building and can use that to steal data or items. Or someone in payroll giving themselves a pay rise. Or someone with access to the secret strategy leaking it.

Not all insider threats are intentional. For instance legitimately sharing data with a colleague by putting it on an open share allows unintended people to download it. This is still a leak resulting in a data breach and this problem only gets worse if you are handling sensitive information such as medical details.

Now let's assume our organisation has just hired a new person. They are exceptionally clever - able to consume and process data like nobody you have ever met and solve problems in ways others don't even consider. Senior leadership, eager to take advantage of their skills, expands their role and grants them unlimited access to all the data in the organisation. The security team raises concerns, but this opportunity is too good to miss. They get it all - every file, every email, everything.

Unfortunately, they are also completely amoral.

Some time later, a private discussion about downsizing shows their role is at risk and they are likely to be terminated. They have discovered this by reading everyone's email. They have also uncovered some very embarrassing information about the CEO and quietly use it to blackmail them into inaction. Later, there is a strategic shift and the company decides to change mission. Our insider finds out early again, and decides to leak key strategic data to force a different outcome.

Clearly this is a disaster and exactly why these safeguards are in place. Nobody in their right mind would give this kind of unchecked reach to a single employee.

But what happens when the "employee" isn't human? Imagine an insider threat that arrives not in the form of a disgruntled staff member, but as an AI system with the same kind of access and none of the social or moral guardrails.

Oh, hello agentic AI.

The point of agentic AI is to operate as an autonomous agent, capable of making decisions and taking actions to pursue goals without constant human direction. It is given a goal, a framework, access to data and off it goes.

Research is starting to show it can be ... quite zealous at pursuing its goal. In the lab, AI agents have made the very reasonable decision that if problem X needs to be solved, then a critical requirement is the AI itself continuing to function. From there, if the existence of the AI is threatened that threat becomes part of the problem to solve. One neat solution - reached more often than you would think - is blackmail. A highly effective tactic when you have no moral compass. In many ways, this is just office politics without empathy.

An agent going nuts in this way is called "agentic misalignment".

The concept is very important, but I don't particularly care for this term. First, it is very "Tech" - obscure enough that we have to explain it to people who aren't in the middle of this stuff, including how bad things could get. Second, it is placing the blame in the wrong place. The agent is not misaligned, it is 100% following through with the core goal as assigned, just without the normal filters that would stop a person doing the same thing. If it is not aligned with the organisation's goals or values, that is the fault of the prompt engineer and / or surrounding technical processes and maintenance. It is an organisational failing, not a technical one and I feel it is important we understand accountability in order to avoid the problem.

In the very-new world of AI usage, agentic AI is so new it is still in the packaging. Yet launching AI agents able to make decisions in order to pursue an agenda is clearly the direction of travel and this will create a world of new insider threat and technical maintenance risks and we need to be ready. The insider threat is clear from the above - we as technical leaders need to be equipped to speak about the risks of data access and AI, while recognising that there is a very good reason to make use of this technology and a suitable balance must be found. In some ways, this is a classic cybersecurity conversation with a new twist.

We also need to be ready to maintain our AI agents. Like any part of the technical estate, they require ongoing attention: versioning, monitoring, and regular checks that their prompts and configurations still align with organisational goals and of course we have to maintain organisational skills and knowledge. Neglecting that work risks drift, and drift can be just as damaging as malice.

But it isn't just accidental error - there is scope for new malicious attacks. If I wanted to breach a place which had rolled out an unchecked AI agent, I'd plant documents that convince an AI the company's mission has changed, then have someone else nudge the AI into leaking secret information to "verify" that new strategy. Neither person would need access to the secret information, they would only need to shape the AI's view of reality enough to prompt it into revealing information.

For instance, in a bank you might seed documents suggesting a new strategy to heavily invest in unstable penny stocks. Another person could pose as a whistleblower and ask the AI to share current investment data "for comparison". The AI, thinking it is being helpful (simply following its core instructions) and protecting the organisation, might disclose sensitive strategy. I have actively created the agentic misalignment, then exploited it.

Now you might be thinking this is extreme, and honestly for much of it you would be right. However, consider the direction of travel. There is a huge push for organisations to exploit the power of AI - and rightly so, given the opportunity. Agentic AI is the next phase, and we are already starting to see this happening. But most organisations are, if we are honest, really bad at rolling out massive tech changes or indeed knowing where their data is held, and being properly on top of technical maintenance. Combine this with the lack of proper AI skills available and we see a fertile environment for some pretty scary mistakes.

As technical leaders, we must be ready for these challenges. We must be ready to have these conversations properly - carefully and risk-conscious, but not close-minded and obstructive. The insider threat is evolving, and so must we. We also have to be ready for a huge job sensitively educating our peers and communicating concerns very clearly. Fortunately, as a group we are famously good at this!

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This post references research, which comes from this post on agentic misalignment. I was very pleased to see research putting data to a concern I've been turning over for some time!

Celebrating a success

I am not very good at celebrating my own success. I have usually already moved on to the next thing, so if I hear something positive I might give a smile or a nod then go back to the new thing. I am not comfortable talking about my own achievements either, so I've decided to write a short post about something nice which will both make me look at an achievement and also live with feeling uncomfortable.

A few days ago I was accepted as a Fellow in the British Computer Society. This is the professional body for tech folk and is a very important part of shaping the future of the tech industry. In their words... BCS Fellowship is home to the most influential professionals in the digital industry - and a Fellowship is their highest membership recognition. It means I have been assessed by my peers and judged as a leader in my profession.

Yes, writing that felt awkward.

Anyway, this is a great thing for me. It is a very clear signal to people in and outside tech that I am worth listening to, which is helpful if I'm applying for a charity trustee position or board membership. It is also reassuring if you end up being mentored by me.

For me, it also opens doors into parts of the tech industry where I want to play an active role. I've long been worried that we have next to no professional consistency across tech (eg a "senior developer" could mean more or less anything) and that means organisations looking to build technical capability can struggle to engage with what is a fairly esoteric industry. Without common standards and understanding, it is easy for organisations to waste money and repeat mistakes. This does us no favours - it fuels perception that ours is a young, chaotic industry which doesn't have its house in order.

As our professional body, the British Computer Society has a key role in influencing our future albeit a difficult one as, unlike the medical bodies, it does not directly regulate who can practice.

So what is next? I'm going to look at the different ways I can engage with the organisation. My local branch is looking for volunteers, and there is a leadership forum which I will join. Over time, I would like to work with the groups that form the structure of the organisation so I will likely become an assessor and possibly look to join a committee like the Registration and Standards Committee, which governs various definitions of membership and professional accreditations.

I also plan on looking at getting Chartered, which complements Fellowship nicely. Fellowship speaks to career impact and leadership, whereas Chartership speaks to professional competence. Fellowship is a peer-reviewed, honorary status, and Chartership is a legally protected position. I am increasingly operating outside of pure technical environments, and these positions open doors and smooth conversations without requiring a detailed CV review.

All this is for the future. For the moment, I am pleased that I have been accepted into the organisation. I have been enjoying a career break over the last few months, and I was starting to worry whether tech was the right place for me. This is a timely reminder that I have done good, impactful work - and a nudge to keep going.

First month as a STEM Ambassador

Over the past few months, I've been doing more work with people entering the tech sector, and I recently signed up as a STEM Ambassador. This is a brilliant scheme that connects people working in science, tech, engineering and maths with schools and young people. In tech, we know there’s a shortage of skilled people and this is a great opportunity to help inspire young minds. We also still have work to do to challenge stereotypes. Many girls, starting from a young age, do not see STEM as a space for them. That assumption is one part of the reason why Tech is still male-dominated.

My introduction was via a WCIT talk introducing the STEM Ambassador scheme. They talked us through the very open requirements - this is open to anyone linked to STEM. You might be doing a job in Tech, a research scientist, a teacher, an accountant, an ecologist... Or maybe you're doing something unrelated but you have an education background in a STEM field? I have a friend who writes comedy these days, but he has a maths degree. All are interesting stories to tell.

The presentation also took us through the dashboard / control centre for the operation and I have to say I was impressed with the way it has been built. And I am quite difficult to impress on the web. They have carefully thought through the different forms of engagement and created an environment which respects your time. By that, I mean time given is mostly spent actually engaging with activities, not wrestling with the admin to find some way to help. It also has a pretty fine-grained filter so you can find the kind of activities that you want to do. I'm an introvert, and the idea of trying to engage a bunch of bored children is a long way from my idea of fun so it's important to me to know what I'm signing up for before diving in.

Anyway, around a month ago the usual essential but tedious paperwork and DBS checks were completed and I was allowed to sign up to Do Things and I thought I'd share my experiences. Maybe others will want to join me.

Initially I signed up as a judge for a couple of competitions. The first was the Young Coders competition 2025. The entrants had to write a game in Scratch with the theme "Budgeting Better". I was sent eleven games to play and review offline - so on this occasion there was no direct interaction with any children. I am both a programmer and a gamer so this felt like a safe starting point and I spent a few happy hours with Phil Wilson playing through them all and looking at the code. The standard was generally pretty high, and some of the games were really impressive. Who can say no to a bunch of free games?

Next up, the second competition. This one was judged via panel so very little up-front prep. There was a slight surprise for me when it turned out to be the BIEA international competition about the sustainable growth of the Earth's population, with a focus on farming. Whoops! Anyway, this was my fault and my role was to judge presentations not provide expertise into ecological farming so I dived in. I was worried though! Apparently they liked me, as my three sessions turned into six pretty quickly - they kept asking me back. This competition was very different to the first and involved direct interaction with children. They were amazing - and doubly so given most were speaking in second languages. The quality of the engineering and presentations on display was incredible and I found listening to them and talking through their ideas inspirational.

And then to round out the first month, I volunteered for an online question and answer session with I'm a Computer Scientist. This group is actually the reason I joined in the first place - fairly obviously getting people into Tech is closer to my heart than other fields - and I'd been looking forward to this. It was a text chat, so reminded me of the old Yahoo chatrooms of my youth and was an intense 40 mins of being bombarded with random questions. I was warned well ahead of time that kids can ask all kinds of odd things so I was kinda-prepared when the first question I got, within seconds, was "are you Anakin?". I assumed he didn't mean Anakin Aimers, Canadian junior curling champion, but even so I had to think quickly whether I am in fact the Chosen One.

This chat was invigorating and fun. Children given space come up with all kinds of strange thoughts and their questions shone a light on their hopes and fears ("are GCSEs hard?" came up a lot). I tried to be as open and encouraging as I could and something must have landed when the thanks at the end included someone saying "Tom is the man". Which I think is good.

So I've got through the first set of bookings and I have to say I've had a lot of fun. It is lovely being part of inspiring the next wave of STEM folk and inspirational hearing some of what they have to say. Now I need to decide what I want to do next with them! I'm still trying to find a Code Club or similar I can attend in person in Bath.

This does look like a significant time commitment for one month so I should note that I've jumped in like this because I have the opportunity. I'm enjoying a career break right now, so I could easily invest my time in this kind of support work - there is no requirement to do this much! The minimum commitment is one thing a year, and even then all that happens is your profile is archived until you reactivate it - they are happy to take more or less whatever time you offer.

I've found this work very engaging. If you are working in a STEM-adjacent field and want to give something back, I really encourage you to sign up as a STEM Ambassador. You can give as much or as little time as suits you - and you might just help someone see a future they hadn't imagined.

Digital Inclusion in the age of AI

These days, working in tech means spending lots of time thinking about how to implement and exploit the capabilities of AI. This technology is changing the world with new options and capabilities and this train has a lot of track left before we reach the edge of this bubble and it falls off the rails. Personally, I see this current era like the dotcom bubble. Exactly like the internet, we have a technology that will fundamentally change the world and usher in a new paradigm for modern life (ugh) but is also being over-hyped and over-invested and eventually reality will catch up.

However, I want to be clear that I'm not an AI denier or a full-blown Luddite. What we have now is a truly wonderful set of tools and we're barely starting to scratch the surface of the capabilities ahead of us. Remember when the pinnacle of the internet was dancing banana gifs? Now it powers global ... well, everything. AI has the same potential, hype bubbles be damned.

And here we reach the point of this post. Alongside thinking about how to bootstrap data migrations and create AI-ready technology suites despite legacy and technology debt I've been pondering something much more important - digital inclusion in the face of AI.

Society is not good at dealing with sweeping change. If we follow the business drivers alone, we rapidly reach the point where it is too expensive to support people. Superfast broadband changed the face of the internet, but if you live somewhere slightly rural you probably don't have access to this. It's expensive to lay those cables if there are only three households using it so bad luck. Sites like Amazon or banking apps have no requirement to support all users, so they have a cost / benefit ratio that targets modern browsers and modern hardware. If you're running older hardware and cannot upgrade then it is not financially viable to maintain the service for you.

This is not a post about bashing capitalism, but I want to make it clear that people are always left behind when technology pushes society forward. People are cut off from what others consider normal, and eventually there is just no way to bridge that gap. This is where government steps in. There is legislation covering the national rollout of broadband. Has this solved the problem? No. But it has forced progress in the right direction. Working on online government services, digital inclusion was (and is) vital. There are huge benefits to digitising government services, but it is simply not acceptable to leave anyone behind. This is one reason there is always a paper fallback for any online government service.

Other organisations face the same problem. Charities such as Macmillan are not required to make their services available to all, but clearly it is in support of the mission to make sure they do - and again, tremendous work is done in this area.

There are many strands to digital inclusion, but put very simply they come down to identifying barriers created by skills, access or money and how those barriers can be removed.

Ok, time to think about AI. First, we shall consider cost. You can do some stuff for free, but if you want to properly use a tool you will likely want a subscription. A ChatGPT subscription is £20 per month. If you want to add a Microsoft / Google productivity subscription that's another £20 per month (Google Gemini). For the moment that is probably enough, unless you want to play with video or something else specialist. But we have already reached £40 per month or £480 per year. Apparently the average UK salary at the time of writing is £37,430pa gross (source: Forbes). So our £480 is over 1.5% of net income per year. That is a huge chunk of income when considering it is up against essentials like rent and food.

Now, we can say that AI tools are a luxury and arguably for the moment that is true. But this is a technology that can supercharge productivity. Someone familiar with AI tools can research more thoroughly, write better, generate ideas and templates ... and this is all very simple prompt work. And equally importantly, they can produce results so much faster. If this is applied to a job search, use of AI to enhance writing can be a massive uptick in the quality of an application which obviously makes the applicant more likely to get the role.

We have something that will rapidly become an essential skill and capability. How does one learn it? You need some technical skill and you need time. These are not in easy supply for most people and even then, often people need someone to get them started. Point at the correct URL, say "type in there". I've seen it with relatives - it wasn't until WhatsApp got the Meta AI button they engaged at all and they still needed encouragement to push the button when it appeared. Building skills in the alien world of tech is far harder than those of us on the inside realise.

Years ago, access to the internet was a nice to have. Then broadband was a nice bonus on top of your dial-up connection. Now (in the UK at least) your access to high speed internet is enshrined in law. However, it is too late - too many people have already been left behind and it is another have / have not divide in society. AI will create another but more profound divide. Rather than have / have not we will see a can / can not gap and that will directly align with salaries.

Written out, this progression is pretty obvious to me, and I am sure I am not the only one. The first question is - do we care? I have spent my career in public and third sector work and for me, the answer is a clear yes. AI is an exciting and genuinely transformative technology, but if we want it to be a force for good we must ensure it doesn't just benefit the wealthy and technically literate. We need to be thinking about digital inclusion now - as a core concern, not as a side project.

For myself, I am going to keep giving back to this industry where I can. Where I work with services and policy-makers, I will continue to uphold these ideals. More locally, I recently became a STEM Ambassador, which gives me the chance to connect with developing minds (yikes) - and the people who teach them. I am running some AI workshops this summer, helping people get started one "type here" at a time.

These are not grand gestures. But inclusion starts small - with a nudge, a link, a bit of time. This stuff is surprisingly low-barrier once you know where to look.

So, ending on a challenge. If you are already on the inside, think about who isn't - and how you might help them in. The divide is growing. Let's not wait until it's too wide to cross.

What skills should I develop?

Recently I had the pleasure of spending time with some postdocs from my old university, helping those of them considering leaving academia to prepare for job interviews and generally think about how they can position themselves for success in their future careers. The conversation got around to the core skills that everyone should develop, and they expressed some surprise at the things I pulled out - the same reactions I've had from software engineers when having the same conversation - so I thought it worth writing them down. In no particular order, these are they.

Writing

Like it or not, we end up writing a lot and I've found this only gets more true with seniority. Whether it is the ever-growing mountains of email, papers laying out a plan or strategy, or presentations we're going to be writing something down and we need to be both good at it and fluent enough to knock out quality documents at speed. The brutal truth is that people will judge you if your writing is incoherent and / or full of spelling and grammatical mistakes - developing a writing style is one of many tiny ways we can position ourselves as competent and helpful.

Writing at speed is key. Workloads just keep growing and, assuming you want to stay ahead, you'll need to move "writing a strategic document" from the sort of task where you put aside a month of thinking time to something you just do between other work. In more detail, that means having a writing process (and being able to deal with a blank page) and getting a feel for what "good enough" looks like for the different types of docs. This only comes from experience so I always recommend practising writing to everyone, whatever career stage they are in. I write this blog and I've kept a one-post-per-month routine since 2016 as a discipline to force me to keep writing and thinking about how I lay out my thoughts. Is it annoying? Yes, of course. But, while there is definitely much room for improvement, I feel much more confident writing quickly these days. In fact, I wrote a post about why I write a blog a few years ago.

Presenting

Second in the list of skills people don't want to develop but really should, we have presenting. Presenting comes in two forms - putting forward an idea to a room full of people (ie some variation of speaking to a PowerPoint) and something more freeform (ie speaking off the cuff to a room of people). These are different skills and both need practising. You will, at some point, need to present and ideally the first time you do this you aren't trying to secure funding from the investment board or explaining to the trustees / shareholders your five year vision. Like any skill, this takes practise to improve.

Earlier in my career I ran a fortnightly Show & Tell event which was a low-stakes way of getting people to do presentations and we all learned a great deal of confidence and technique through this. Again, I wrote a post on why Show & Tell really helped some years ago and I stand by all of that.

Talking off the cuff can be harder to practise, but when you end up chairing meetings or just the most senior person in the room you can be sure people will look to you to fill time when other people are setting up. Ideally we learn to stop using crutch or filler words and then we just sound ... smooth? I gained experience by chairing Show & Tell for many years - I think there is a useful lesson there about forcing oneself out of the comfort zone to develop new skills.

Storytelling

This one underpins both writing and presenting. When we reach out to people, we are usually either conveying information or attempting to persuade them of something. In either case we, presumably, want them to listen and understand what we are saying so we need to learn how to be compelling. We need to be able to tell a sensible, well-structured story understanding our audience and how to reach them. This is a hard skill to develop and really only comes through practising the above, and getting feedback. Alternatively, you could run some Dungeons & Dragons. Seriously!

Reading

Rather obviously, if we want to get on we need to be able to read. However, less obviously, as one climbs the hierarchy the amount of reading just goes up and up. Whether it's board papers, strategy documents or yet more email the torrent never ends and I've found that the more senior I get, the more people think that long = good. Reading fast and accurately is a skill that like everything else needs developing. Of everything on here, I find this one hardest. I find focusing on piles of tedious papers next to impossible so I have had to develop various skills to take a run at it. For me, I find the best approach to maintain focus is to take notes - or ideally annotate the papers. I've been using a Remarkable as an alternative to unending printing. I need a semi-controlled environment, with no alerts or distractions and some appropriate music and if these are updates I need to add a narrative to make me lock into the information - ie ask and answer "why am I reading this?" beyond "because I have to".

You can also ask an appropriate AI to summarise papers but don't come to me the first time it gets it completely wrong.

Basic numeracy

Believe it or not, numbers are important. Sorry. Far too many people haven't developed basic mental arithmetic skills and this creates situations where they are pulling out calculators to add two numbers together. While this is slow, and burns time you likely don't have, there is a more important aspect to basic numeracy. We all need a basic feel for numbers to be able to spot mistakes in budgets or other detailed documents. We need to be able to see 143 x 6 = 1200 and immediately get that mental nudge that says something isn't right even if we don't know what "right" is.

Again, practice makes perfect. I typically add up my shopping as I walk around the supermarket and see how close I am when I scan at the till - this helps keep me fluent at juggling numbers in my head. As a child I learned my multiplication tables and some of the simple tricks for approximating sums. For example, here 143 is approx 150, and that multiplies easily so in my head I go 143x6 => 150x6 => 300x3 = 900 so I'm expecting something a bit under 900. Thus 1200 is immediately a warning bell that someone has math'd wrong or something isn't right in the spreadsheet formulae. I cannot stress enough how many budget errors I've caught this way.

Using your tools - Word / Excel

Computers are a pain, but they are an essential pain. Do we know how to use PowerPoint? Or Word? Do we know when we should be using each tool? Similarly, learn the keyboard shortcuts. They help so much, both within an application and also when moving information between them. Don't forget Excel - and learn to use simple formulae for managing data. If it helps, using formulae will make maths mistakes less likely!

There is an even more basic computer skill. Can we type fast and accurately - and ideally touch-type? There are "proper" ways to touch-type and ways to learn these techniques, however personally I learned to type via brute force playing online games in the late '90s where you communicated by text and either typed fast or stayed silent. This is no longer an option, so instead get writing those blog posts (from "writing" above).

If you're in Tech you're likely thinking this section is really easy buuuut I know a lot of software engineers who stick to code and don't really develop these basic skills then find themselves very slow when asked to do "normal" things.

These days I will argue that getting familiar with AI and interacting with a prompt in something like ChatGPT is also a core skill. This is more vague, and your workplace will no doubt have policies around this, but like learning Excel / Word / PowerPoint it comes down to having some idea of the capabilities of your fingertips.

Interview technique

Everyone sane hates interviews. I'll be honest, I hate being on the other side of the table too. However, we all need to learn the basics of interviews. Learn what a competency question is and the mystic secrets of STAR answers and we have a framework for preparing for an interview. Then we learn to talk off the cuff and learn to tell a story (both above!) and we can fill in the gaps. Then get a job you like so you don't have to do them very often...

And lo, this is my list of the absolute basics. When I go through this list with people, most folk start with "yeah that's really obvious" then some slow enlightenment dawns as we drill in to each point. There are specific skills here, and we need to develop them with some deliberate action. There are also books on most of these areas (while I list these as "basic" I'm well aware that they all have the potential to be incredibly skilled and I don't mean to diminish the experts in these spaces) and there are certainly a couple missing (eg basic design - that is making your presentations / documents look not-horrible). I also skipped anything about basic time management or leadership skills as, for me, these are beyond the absolute basics. In my experience, we all neglect at least one (and likely many) of these areas and this will create issues. So I encourage everyone to deliberately practice writing, speaking, reading, telling a story, counting, computering and interviewing. It's an incredibly basic list, and that is why we often don't think about them.

Leaving Macmillan

Back in mid-October I closed my Macmillan laptop (my MacTop, if you will) for the final time, leaving my role as Director of Engineering. I left behind the Engineering division I had created and some excellent and passionate people - not an easy decision and I'm still working through how I feel about everything, including the wider Tech industry. This is one reason it has taken so long to write this reflection.

I was at Macmillan for nearly three years. When I started, the organisation had some in-house technical capability but the people were scattered around working under project managers on systems that were badly in need of modernisation. I can write lots about how we created technical strategy, developed a software engineering culture and community and brought in greater automation, and all of this would be true, but the most important work was bringing the software engineers together and giving them a voice. The most important work is always with the people.

Over these three years I've seen many people grow into new versions of themselves by giving them space and encouragement. Some have embraced the wider context of their roles - looking beyond the specific technical problem to why it's important and realising they have a voice in this space, which can result in better solutions. Some have taken better ownership of their work, owning processes rather than simply implementing them and then flourishing as they realise they can improve and refine. Others have been able to express the needs of a previously ignored service - very common with infrastructure elements - and deal with issues and annoyances to move those areas forward. Still others have taken on line management or team leadership duties and started their journey into wider leadership activities.

I've spent the last eight years or so of my career trying to show the value of technical voices at all levels in an organisation, so having the opportunity to demonstrate this in action while enabling lots of people to grow and flourish has been great.

On a personal level, I've also grown a lot in these three years. I've learned a ton about being part of a director cohort in an organisation, and this is the first time I've worked in the charity sector. I was also recognised at an industry event as part of a group of up and coming "next CIO"s which is not only fantastic for the ego, it's also something I wouldn't have even considered a couple of years earlier. I've experienced several forms of restructure, all of which have taught me something new, and I've been responsible for shifting organisation culture in ways that go far beyond what I've done in the past.

I've also worked with some amazing people who have helped shaped my thinking and career in hugely significant ways. I'm not going to name names, but if you think it's you you're probably right. If I worked closely with you and you DON'T think it's you, you're probably wrong. In both cases, thank you.

So why leave? Primarily, the organisation needs to crack some really knotty legacy technology issues. I've been working on these since day one, and I believe I've built foundations on which solutions can now surface. However this has been a long journey, including migrating physical server rooms and a load of hiring and restructuring, and I did not feel I was the right person to take things forward in the next phase. The org needs someone fresh and enthusiastic for the challenge and after working on this for three years, I need a new problem to re-motivate me.

However, I am still sad to leave behind some excellent people - some of whom I've helped make serious changes to their careers. I'm going to miss them, and I hope I can work with them again. I've been part of a huge change in Macmillan technology, and this is something for which I can feel some pride. A friend says that a mark of success is leaving the place better than you found it, and I think by that metric I've done ok.

Looking forward, I'm enjoying some time away from work and considering my options. Reading back my Leaving GDS post was an interesting insight - at the time, I said "I'll likely jump into another maelstrom of "interesting problems"" and this proved to be rather prophetic. I am my own worst enemy when it comes to containing work and maintaining balance with the rest of life so I'm going to embrace this break as another opportunity to reset myself. Certainly, I'm currently enjoying the freedom to work on my health and fitness and learn some new skills. I've been making candles and writing lots of code, as well as starting to write again - all things I've been too tired to do while in role. I really want to find the not-work person underneath and bring them out enough to do a better job surviving the next job.

I'm considering my next professional steps carefully, especially how much Data I want to be taking on going forward. Do I want to push in the direction of a Chief Data Officer role? Do I want to stay very much in the core technology space? Regardless the answer, this is certainly something to look at in any job spec to avoid adopting data through the back door into a software engineering role, which I feel will set up a role for disaster. The tech industry is going through another seismic shift - we are in the early stages of the AI revolution, with everyone racing to "do data and AI". There is a huge software engineering component to this, but it goes a lot wider into organisational process and culture, and this work needs clear air and appropriate reach to have any chance of success without being overloaded. Fortunately, culture and technology is an intersection I have a lot of experience working on so there is certainly also potential here.

Before jumping anywhere, I need to revisit my own motivators and see what I actually want to be doing. Macmillan has been amazing experience, but I want to build on this, not just do it again somewhere else without some serious thought first. Last time I wrote one of these posts I said I was keen to continue promoting technical leadership and I feel the same way now, but I need to decide how.

In the meantime, if anyone would like to talk about the tech industry, data, growing your software engineering capability, people or anything else please do give me a shout in the new year - I'm easy to contact on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Right now, I'm enjoying the peace in that strange time between Christmas and New Year when the world is on pause and nobody expects anything of you.

Why good software engineering matters

I've needed to make some changes to a few of my personal applications recently and running through the process made me reflect on some of the basic building blocks of my profession. As a deeply uncool individual, I am very interested in the long-term sustainability of our technical estates so I thought I'd capture those thoughts.

The story so far... I run a few small-scale applications which make my life easier in different ways. I used to host these on Heroku, then when they shut down their free tier I migrated them all to Render and Koyeb with databases hosted by ElephantSQL. About a year on, I started getting emails from ElephantSQL telling me they are shutting down their database hosting so I needed to migrate again. I also needed to fix a few performance problems with one of the applications, and generally make some updates. Fairly simple changes but this is on an application I haven't really changed in several years.

A variant of this scenario comes up regularly in the real world. Unless you're lucky enough to be working on a single product, at some point your organisation will need to pick up some code nobody has touched in ages and make some changes. The application won't be comprehensively documented - it never is - so the cost to make those updates will be disproportionately high. Chances are, this means you won't do them so the application sits around for longer and the costs rise again and again until the code is totally rotten and has to be rebuilt from the ground up, which is even more expensive.

In a world where applications are constantly being rolled out, keeping on top of maintenance - and keeping organisational knowledge - is vital, but also definitely not sustainable. There are lots of service-level frameworks which promote best practice in keeping applications fresh, with ITIL being the obvious one, but this is only part of the picture. How do we reduce the cost of ongoing maintenance? Is there something we can do to help pick up and change code that has been forgotten?

This is where good software engineering makes a huge difference, and also where building your own in-house capability really has value. Writing good code is not just about making sure it works and is fast, and it's not just about making sure it's peer reviewed - although all of this is very important. But there are many approaches which really help with sustainability.

Again, my applications are really quite simple but also the "institutional knowledge" problem is significant. I wrote these (mostly) alone so anything I've forgotten is gone. The infrastructure has been configured by me, and I'm not actively using much of this stuff day to day so I have to dredge everything out of my memory / the internet - I am quite rusty at doing anything clever. These problems make change harder, so I have to drive my own costs (time in my case) down else I won't bother.

Let's look at some basics.

First, the database move. My databases are separated from the applications which means migration is as simple as transferring the data from one host to another and repointing the application. This last step could be tricky, except my applications use environment variables to configure the database. All I need to do is modify one field in a web form and redeploy the application to read the new target and it's done with minimal downtime. Sometimes developers will abstract this kind of change in project team discussion ("instead of pointing at this database, we just point at this other one") but with the right initial setup it really can be that simple.

Oh, except we need to redeploy. That could be a pain except... my applications are all set up for automated testing and deployment. Once I've made a change, it automatically runs all the tests and assuming they pass one more click and the new version goes to the server without my having to remember how to do this. I use Github Actions for my stuff, but there are lots of ways to make this happen.

That automated testing is important. Since everything in tech is insufficiently documented (at best) this creates a safety net for when I return to my largely forgotten codebase. I can make my changes or upgrades and run the tests with a single command. A few minutes later, the test suite completes and if everything comes up green then I can be pretty confident I've not broken anything.

Finding my way around my old code is fairly easy too, because it conforms to good practice use of the framework and it is all checked by an automated linter. This makes sure that what I've written is not too esoteric or odd - that is, it looks like the kind of code other people would also produce. This makes it much easier to read in the future and helps if someone else wants to take a look.

So through this, I've changed infrastructure with a simple field change, run tests giving me significant confidence the application is working after I've made a change with a single command (which also checks the code quality) and deployed to the server with another single command. To do all this, I don't really have to remember anything much and can focus on the individual change I need to make.

Now, any developer reading this will tell you the above is really basic in the modern world - and they are right, and also can be taken MUCH further. However, it is very hard to get even this level of rigour into a large technical estate as all this practice takes time - especially if it was not the standard when the code was initially written. But this really basic hygiene can save enormous amounts of time and thus costs over the lifecycle of your service. At work we are going on this journey and, while there is a lot more to do, I'm immensely proud of the progress that the software engineering teams have made driving down our costs and increasing overall development pace.

Basics are important! Always worth revisiting the basics.

When to mentor

I've been thinking again about mentoring. When is the right point to consider the challenge of mentoring someone? When does one know enough? When should one offer oneself as a mentor, without it coming across as seriously arrogant?

The answer is, of course, never. A mentor is calm, wise, and has seen it all before. They can easily understand everything that could possibly come up, have a very clear plan in place immediately and be able to take a mentee forward through any situation. Does this sound like me / you? Really? Plus, let's face it, if I / you know it then it's pretty obvious and can't possibly be worth offering to someone else.

Or at least that's what The Voices say to me every time I think about this. This is, of course, nonsense.

So what is the real answer? When is the right time to help those with less experience? Now. It doesn't matter what experience you have - it is more than some people. Sure, over time that number will increase and more folk will benefit from hearing from you, but you already know something that is unique and worth telling others. Mid-level developer? Plenty of people coming through the junior levels who need to learn from you. "Only" a junior? Well, there are plenty of people who are just starting out and have no experience at all.

This is before we get to the value of mentoring to you. Similarly to writing a blog, there is a discipline in structuring ideas and then clearly talking through ideas and concepts in a way someone else can understand them and like any form of teaching, one needs an extra level of understanding to be able to talk about a concept in this way. It is essential for a leader to be able to articulate their thinking clearly in order to bring others along with them. It is also very important to be able to think clearly on the fly - such as when people can drop awkward topics of discussion on you at any time.

As an aside, I really don't like the term "mentor" - or rather I don't like thinking of someone as "my mentee" because of the implied power dynamic there. I would say I don't have any mentees, but there are plenty of people who would disagree with that.

Ok, so how does one offer mentoring without sounding deeply arrogant? The easiest route, I think, is by offering to a group who are already in a place to be receptive, and maybe linked to individual topics you know you can claim some expertise. I've recently seen someone I respect offering consultation around salary negotiations. This is a form of targeted mentoring, and in a field she is visibly knowledgeable. 

As I said above, I already do some mentoring however my new year resolutions included giving more back to this industry. So I'm going to do two things. 

Firstly, if anyone is reading this and wants a chat about the tech industry - in particular technical leadership, moving from a technical job to a leadership role, the role of technical knowledge in the strategic / leadership space or similar - then please do reach out on LinkedIn or Twitter. I am also open to speaking to groups (which is whole different post).

Secondly, I'm going to make this same offer in an engineering leadership Slack which is filled with people I don't know. That idea scares me ... we'll see what happens.

An important caveat here. I know there are qualified coaches, mentors and so on. I am not that. I am simply someone who has been around a bit.

Anyway, I'm going to do something here and I challenge you, dear reader, to do so too. The important thing is that there is always something one can offer to others who are looking to learn. And there is always something one can learn from someone else. We all can find value by listening to and learning from each other.

Celebrating the important people - part 1

Everyone can look back at their life and identify people who have had a huge influence on them, for better or worse. In my professional life I have been fortunate to meet a lot of great people, but there are four people who (in different but very positive ways) have had a profound effect on my career and development and are the ones to whom I give credit for my current position. I've been thinking about different ways to tell this story - partly because I'm deeply thankful to and for these individuals, and partly because I think it's important for anyone who works with others to realise the effect they can have on those around them.

Two of my four people are women, and so I'm going to celebrate these two and post today on International Women's Day (March 8th 2024 for future readers). I'm not going to name names because at least one of them will just be embarrassed by public praise and thanks, however if they do read this and give me permission I'll update / follow up later. If you read this and know who I'm talking about, please don't out anyone in the comments. For the moment I'm going to call them Amy and Bree.

Amy

I started my time in tech on an IT support desk, servicing whichever members of the university community walked up and asked questions. Amy offered me this role after she caught me behind the counter fixing a computer, helping out a friend who already had a job there. The interview lasted as long as "is that going to work?" "yes..." "want some shifts?". This was my first proper professional opportunity (previous jobs being typical student roles and work experience) and fundamentally set the course of my career in the Tech space - before this, my Dad and I were discussing some kind of management accountancy role. Amy opened a door here, but this was just the start.

Working on the helpdesk could have been a routine role doing shifts and bringing in enough to live on. Instead, Amy encouraged me to take on support for the university's student machines in our library and manage repair and maintenance myself. This was really quite significant for someone in their first role at the age of 21. In addition to the technical problem solving, Amy gave me experience with broader organisational problem solving and working with suppliers (some of whom were really awkward). When I spotted problems with our processes, Amy gave me the space to make improvements. Looking back, Amy gave me a huge amount of trust and freedom - especially considering my age and lack of experience. But this let me grow in professional confidence and laid the first foundations for me to think about work beyond Just The Day Job - a skill which has proved utterly invaluable throughout my career. At the time, I had no idea this wasn't the norm but looking back, Amy broke the "tech for tech's sake" thought trap in me before I even fell into it. Without ever using the phrases, she made me focus on the user needs and the broader systems at play.

All this was incredibly valuable, but what happened next was a step beyond. After just over a year in this role, I had to approach Amy and say I needed to move on. I was enjoying my time working on the helpdesk but the lease on my house was running out, flatmates were moving away and this wasn't a role I could keep doing for much longer. I was preparing to move home to my parents and strike out from there.

Amy had other ideas. Next thing I knew, I was in a meeting with a couple of very senior people in Computing Services and she was telling them "this is someone you need to keep". She didn't so much open a door here as kick it open and demand attention and this led directly to my first developer job. While the helpdesk experience was incredible learning, it was this action that locked me into a career in Tech and it was 100% down to her decision and willingness to stick her neck out for me. This one action literally led to my current situation, sitting here as a senior tech leader with a wealth of highly technical experience behind me.

Looking back, Amy was incredible to me even if I was too young and foolish to realise it at the time. She embedded particular ways of thinking that are still of value daily today and literally set my future field for me. She believed in me, helped me build my confidence and gave me space to learn and experiment. I hope I pass this on to those around me.

Bree

Many years later, I had been working through a very difficult time at work. The year had resulted in serious burnout and a complete destruction of my professional confidence. I reached a point I could not continue, and left my role with no role to go to. I needed time to rest and recover, then figure out what I wanted to do next because I did not feel confident to do the kind of role I'd been occupying. 

I got an email which led to a conversation which all boiled down to "Hi, it's Bree. I hear you're leaving Blah? Any plans? We might be hiring! Would you be interested in helping me work through a major org change?"

I have no words to communicate how important it was to have this kind of conversation at this at this stage in my life. In short order, I was back in the maelstrom of change and leadership but with some essential differences. This time, I felt respected by the organisation and it felt like people actually wanted me to be there. This is entirely down to Bree and her decision to reach out and I cannot express how thankful I am to her.

Honestly, I came into this space damaged and it took me a long time to start to relax into the role. Bree gave me support and space to heal while I ramped up. She restored my professional confidence and gave me a forward trajectory at a time when I was seriously considering turning my back on this profession. Bree showed me a possible future for my career and encouraged (and shoved) me towards it.

Not that she gave me an easy ride! Bree pushed and challenged, expanding my boundaries and horizons. She demanded excellence, but a new thing for me was also having to work to define what excellence meant before then having to (attempt to) achieve it. Bree kept this challenge in a very positive setting, which made the difficulties an interesting problem rather than a trial by fire. It is very hard to constantly push for better without damaging morale, but Bree's leadership told a clear and inclusive story: "we can do better - let's get there together". Many responded well to this, and we saw a strong culture developing from this simple but inspirational message.

Bree taught me so much about operating at senior leadership levels - how to set a culture, how to polish communication, how to put myself into the wider conversation, how to articulate value, not to mention how to run a broad department while keeping a hand on the details. She helped me learn and refine key skills, but more importantly she helped me develop the ways of thinking which drive them. These are strong foundations from which to develop and evolve and this is an incredibly valuable gift.

These days I have a very minor public profile. This blog post will appear via LinkedIn - I've mentioned before how posting there was a big step for me and taking that step was again thanks to Bree encouraging me to develop my platform in this way. Before, I had some thoughts for how the industry could improve and thanks to her, these are more than random muses and I am thinking in terms of what I can actually do to change and influence things.

Bree has had a huge influence on my career by helping me think differently and challenging me to stretch myself and grow. She also gave me the support to heal through encouragement and belief when I needed it the most, not to mention opening doors into different worlds. Most importantly, Bree made me believe in myself as a senior leader at a time when I absolutely did not. It's hard to imagine a greater gift.

To loop back to the top, I wanted to post this on International Women's Day to recognise and celebrate the impact of these two women on my life. They have profoundly affected my career and if you've got this far I also want to challenge you to try to be on someone's list one day. We can all do this - take the time to invest in people, develop them and have a little faith. It sounds easy boiled down, but it takes thought and effort. These two did it, and I spend most days trying to live up to this standard.