James Booth

James is very motivated and experienced, both as a professional and as a mentor. Unfortunately the later isn't the case for everyone. James listened to my situation, and gave me a lot of good advice and information, both during calls, and through messages.

James has a great thirty-thousand feet view of the DevOps landscape. We discussed which topics are important and how to take control of my career. He made it clear that no-one knows it all, which was a relief for me to hear! It was very useful to put a learning framework in place too. It was very useful to debate things with someone who has spent a lot of time in this space. Having a sense of perspective and some pointers about how to be a self-directed learner (and avoid burnout) really helped as well. If you want someone to give you a realistic picture of what's achievable in this arena and what is worth spending time on then definitely spend some time with James.

I had the pleasure of studying under James for over six months, during a particularly crucial stage in my development as a software engineer. He was an integral part of my transition from graduating to entering the workforce as a full-stack engineer. His knowledge of the software development life cycle, system architecture and implementation best practices, the nuances of discerning business vs application logic, and common workflows (Git, Agile, etc.) is second to none. That is a very much non-exhaustive list :-) Without the tutelage of James, I feel confident I would be finding much less success in my career. A commonly shared sentiment is that technical skills can be taught to anyone with passion and drive, but teaching interpersonal skills is much harder to achieve. James does both with masterful skill, providing a wealth of industry knowledge, and giving his mentees a top-class example to emulate in both professionalism and humility. James always went above and beyond for me, meeting with me outside of our scheduled hours when needed, taking time out of his day to work through blockers with me or do review code, and was always prompt to respond to my messages, all of this while navigating the difficulties of operating in different time zones from one another. Whether you are trying to break into the tech industry, elevate your existing career to the next level, or want to obtain a deeper understanding of programming and software development from start to finish, James is the mentor for you.