My career has given me the chance to tackle the art and science of software development from within a variety of roles. But no matter what part I played, I never lost sight of the most important principle. It is simply this: For most businesses, IT is an expense, not a source of income. Unless the work I do serves the primary goals of increasing income, reducing expenses, improving compliance or enhancing transparency into key metrics, it is a waste of time and money. I try always to keep in mind the lessons of Goldratt`s The Goal and Martin`s Clean Coder as I work. I have worked for nearly twenty years to become not just a full-stack programmer, but a full-service developer. My favorite projects are the ones where I get to take the process from first meeting with the stakeholders all the way through to deployment. I have learned how to draw out information to create user stories that capture what the users really need. (Even if they didn`t quite realize at first what they needed.) I can design a data model that is flexible and adaptable, ETL that handles millions of rows efficiently, and business logic and data access layers that are clean and follow best practices for OOP and TDD. When I am not merrily munching a bowl of bytes, I recreate the Renaissance in the Society for Creative Anachronism, consume books at a rate to keep Amazon`s stock prices high, and enjoy three generations of family in the perfect location--a small, friendly town with fast broadband service. ©