I Just Got a Real Job

July 20th, 2011

Today I am happy to announce that I have accepted a position at Scrum.org, working with the good folks there in pursuit of Scrum.org’s mission, Improving the Profession of Software Development. I have worked on several projects with Ken Schwaber and Alex Armstrong in the past few years, and I am delighted to be joining them at Scrum.org. Although I will not be leaving Idaho, I guess this means I won’t be taking in those $1 movie Tuesdays at the cheap theater anymore.

I know that many of the developers who read this blog see iterative / incremental development as very 2007, thus the whole Scrum / Kanban, east side / west side, Tupac / Biggie thing going on at conferences and on Twitter. I also know that most people who have used Scrum haven’t really. They have tried some elements of it that hurt or helped in the absence of the whole. Further, I know that other communities have much to offer and learn from.

Those who know me well know that I try to be more pragmatist than zealot, and I look forward to bringing a bit of balance to the force. I am not only a student of other communities, but I know that I must continue to learn from them in order to effectively help steward Scrum itself. In addition to Scrum, I am also passionate about issues of software craftsmanship, Lean thinking, Kanban systems, XP practices, executable specification, continuous delivery, pattern-based development, issues of software architecture and elegance, and the list goes on.

The scope of software development is huge and getting bigger all the time. I am as enthralled with it today as I was the day I first wrote programs in BASIC on an Atari 520 ST. I look forward to many years of exciting change to come, and welcome your suggestions on how the profession of software development can be improved.

David Starr

  • rob maher

    What!  You get $1 movie Tuesdays!! Jealous…

  • Anonymous

    Congratulations, man. I hope you’ll be able to leave your mark and have lots of fun while doing it. 

  • Glynn Brewer

    Congrats David!  It’s nice to see talent recognized – and get paid for it too :)

  • David Corbin

    First Congratulations on the new job.

    Now for the nitpick… Did you write BASIC for the Atari 520 ST (i.e a custom implementation of the language), or did you write programs *IN* BASIC (which is what I believe you meant).

    The main reason I even bring it up, is that in many cases, the difference in meaning of such a subtle error (unless you actually “wrote BASIC”) can be huge.

    Just recently I had a contract where the client had repeatedly used “the” in conjunction with the singular form of a noun. The entire project had been developed based on a Singleton that was always instanciated. What he actually meant was “a” which allows for one or more instances and “optional” allowing for zero instances.

    The exact same type of situation can easily arise with software methodologies, so I urge (hopefully in  helpful way) that care be taken in how things are phrased and presented.

    David V. Corbin
    Microsoft MVP / ALM Ranger

  • http://twitter.com/agilescout Agile Scout

    Congrats friend! #win!

  • John Alexander

    What a great day for Scrum.org and the community in general!!!!!!!!!!! I have very much enjoyed working with you, Ken and Alex and think this is the right direction!  Congratulations!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • Anonymous

    A perfectly valid point. In is now in.

  • Anonymous

    A perfectly valid point. In is now in.

  • Anonymous

    A perfectly valid point. In is now in.

  • Chris Brandsma

    And all this time you gave me crap for “working for the man”.   

    And congratulations btw.

  • Robert Horvick

    Congratulations.  Stick with the $1 movies, though – there are few things as nice as taking the whole family out for less than $10.

  • http://twitter.com/Scooletz Scooletz

    Congratulation David. I know that both sides of the contract will be happy after a few days of having each other

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