We need uniquely human skills and better ways of working more than ever.

Developers: the human skills many of us have been taught to ignore or dismiss as “soft skills” are essential tools for doing excellent technical work and avoiding burnout, plateaus, and isolation.

Building trust and influence. Handling complexity and ambiguity. Systems thinking. Intuition and judgment based on experience. Collaboration and communication. Empathy. Creativity.

Over the past 25 years, as I’ve progressed from developer to tech lead and application architect, the skills I’ve needed have increasingly been about more than just writing code. I’m now writing a book about how our humanity helps us thrive as developers, teams, and organizations.

Come join me on this adventure. Sign up below for weekly reflections on working better and happier and what it means to be human in the age of AI:

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In addition to the newsletter, I also write blog posts here (mirrored on Medium, Substack, and Bluesky) and share occasionally on Instagram.

Glad you’re here!