Today, I’d like to share a story about how one of my wizard mentors taught me a new skill (test-driven development) and really got it into my brain. Not by lecturing me or forcing me to do it, but by patiently, persistently encouraging me to grow.

When I graduated and started at Atomic, I had a lot of anxiety because I felt like I was surrounded by wizards. I’ve spent the last three years learning to think like a wizard, to conjure joy from pain and cast protection spells over the important things. I finally feel like I’ve grown into a […]

At Atomic, our managing partners do most of our official pre-project consulting (sales) work. As a developer, I’m dedicated full-time to a client project. So I’m typically not involved in meeting new clients, and I wasn’t aware of how projects and clients come to Atomic.

Are you a software designer or developer looking to connect with others in West Michigan? How about an owner of a software consultancy who would like some exposure to potential new employees? Maybe you lead a department of software designers and developers and would like to expose them to new ideas?

I just finished my first year here at Atomic, which also happens to be my first year as a professional software consultant and developer. It was quite a year. I worked on five different projects during that time. The longest lasted seven months, and the shortest, only a week. I’ve gotten crash courses in not […]

I recently attended my first conference as a full-time developer. The conference was a great opportunity to grow my technical skills and hear what other people are doing in the industry. I also found that there was a fair bit of learning involved in navigating my first conference. Afterwards, I spent some time reflecting on […]

This year, I had the opportunity to serve on the committee for GLSEC (Great Lakes Software Excellence Conference). Originally, I thought it was just a way to help support the local development community. However, I’ve found that it has been a fantastic professional development opportunity for me.

A few months ago, I joined a project with a junior developer. The interesting part of this assignment was that the junior developer would be taking the project lead position, and I would be a worker bee. She had been on the project since the get-go, and I was joining midstream.

We’ve all been there. Your coworker is not pulling his weight. Your significant other has been acting passive-aggressively. Your friend keeps letting you down on promises. Relationships are hard. Good ones are also crucial to having a happy and productive life. So what do you do when you find yourself in one of these thorny […]