About the course

How good are you at your job? How good will you need to be to get the job you want? What’s missing from your developer toolbox?

Are you a junior developer who feels like a senior, or vice versa? How will your current job title translate to a new employer? Are you on the path to mastery, or to technical stagnation? Most importantly, what is it that you don’t know you don’t know?

Things change quickly in tech. You might have been well-qualified last year, but what with one thing and another, a few new things might have slipped past you this year. You’ve probably heard the hype: AI coding assistants like Claude, Cursor, and friends are going to revolutionize software engineering. And now the revolution is here: most software engineers are already expected to use AI tools as a key part of their workflow. Those who can’t or won’t adapt may find themselves no longer relevant.

And maybe you skipped a few fundamentals along the way: computer science, systems engineering, TCP/IP networking, Unix and OS concepts. Algorithms, software design methodologies, testing, all that stuff. You can get a long way without knowing these things, but you’ll get much further if you do.

Career, growth, and leadership

If you’re looking to start your career in tech, or transfer from another industry, I can help you figure out what kind of jobs to apply for, and how to gain the skills you need. All jobs require experience, but what if you don’t have any? Learn how to teach yourself what you need to know, and most importantly how to demonstrate that expertise to employers. What are hiring managers looking for, and how can you stand out in a highly competitive field of candidates?

If you’ve a year or two’s experience under your belt and looking to make further progress, what should you focus on? How should you negotiate the minefield of collaboration, remote teamwork, and code review? What’s the best way to talk to your boss about your plans and get their support? What really makes a great senior engineer? How will your work change, and what new skills will you need? And what does generative AI mean for us as software developers?

Coding is easy, leadership is hard. How do you deal with difficult people, and build solid relationships across teams? How can you get the best out of yourself and those you’re responsible for? What’s involved in hiring great people and developing them to senior level? What is staff engineering, and how is it different from the regular kind? Do you have what it takes to become a Distinguished or Principal engineer, and what would that look like?

If your career goals include one day running your own business, or otherwise working independently, what will that be like? Will it suit you and support your needs? How can you become a master of your craft, while juggling time and focus? How do you get from here to there? When is it time to go it alone? How do you market yourself and your services? What practical and business skills will you need to be a success?

If you’re stressed, unhappy, and feel like you’re struggling to keep up with the demands that life makes of you, you’re not alone! I’ve spent decades mentoring and counselling people in just your situation, and I’m a good listener. However bad things might seem, there is always hope, and I’ll help you take your first steps on the road back to a well-adjusted and happy life. We can talk about your career, relationships, craft, family, finance, study, spirituality—whatever’s on your mind, and whatever comes up. I’ll give you some practical thinking tools to help you relax, focus, plan ahead, and be productive.

Your regular tune-up

This is your chance to have a relaxed, friendly conversation with an expert who can help you assess your strengths, weaknesses, and current challenges. This is surprisingly hard to do by yourself: something you don’t yet know always seems intimidating and difficult, while once you do know it, it hardly seems worth mentioning. Making an accurate assessment of your own value as a developer, then, is a bit like trying to look at the back of your own head.

As a tech career mentor with many years of experience, I can give you a welcome confidence boost by identifying the skills and experience that you have already, and help you figure out how to sell those to employers or clients. Never underestimate the power of getting a professional writer to add a touch of pizzazz to your resume!

I’ll also give you critical feedback on your code and language knowledge, and help pinpoint where your skills need a bit of a boost. Better than that, I’ll help you develop a focused study plan to master the troublesome topics. And, in a world saturated with sketchy, low-value instructional content, I can guide you to the best resources for learning your craft fast and effectively. I specialise in Go and Rust coaching, but I’m also pretty familiar with most other programming languages, so we’ll work with your tech stack of choice.

If you’re unsure where your career is going, or where you want it to go, we can talk about that too. I’ll give you actionable advice about your options, whether you should stay in your current job or go elsewhere, and how to crush the technical interviews once you get them. Whether your future lies in management, senior/staff engineering, or working independently, it won’t happen unless you do something about it now—and I can help.

About me

I’m an experienced software engineering teacher, mentor, and career advisor, as well as the author of Code For Your Life, a much-praised book on surviving and thriving in tech. I’ve been, variously, an IT person, programmer, devops engineer, infrastructure consultant, technical writer, and more. I’ve worked everywhere, done everything, made every mistake imaginable, and for the last 15 years I’ve built and run a successful independent business helping people just like you.

I’ve trained developers and teams at Google, VMware, GitHub, HashiCorp, Pivotal, Gruntwork, Nginx, JPMorgan Chase, Facebook, Elastic, Grafana Labs, GoCardless, Cisco, Pythian, Intuit, and dozens of other successful companies all over the world and in every sector of industry. My training is unique because it doesn’t rely on a fixed syllabus or boring slide presentations—it’s completely bespoke, interactive, and tailored to your specific needs.

More resources

See also my team training sessions, books, and tutorials—and please subscribe to my free newsletter for lots more!

How it works

Buy as much mentoring time as you want (up to six hours in a single purchase), using the ‘Add to cart’ button above. I’ll contact you by email to say hello, find out what you’d like to learn, and give you a calendar link for booking. You can choose any available time slots that suit you, and allocate your mentoring hours to whatever number and length of sessions you prefer—I’ll let you know when you’re running low on time, so you can decide if you’d like to purchase more.

What you get

You’ll receive a one-to-one skills checkup session with me, and the option to continue with further sessions if you want to. You’ll also get access to the Bitfield Institute of Technology’s student Slack community, where you can share tips, questions, and discussions about software, infrastructure, and tech with other people of all levels of experience.

If your career goals include software engineering in Go or Rust, you’ll also have the opportunity to work toward a prestigious BIT Certificate, giving you an employer-friendly record of your learning achievements to add to your resumé.

If you have questions about the training or would like further details about what’s involved, contact me for more information—I’ll be happy to chat.

Students say

More reviews

“John is a great software engineering coach. I find his approach inspiring!”
—Hana Mohan

“The mentoring I received from John made learning more enjoyable and focused.”
—Jon Barber