Jareth van Bone

About Me

I’m a software developer with degrees in software engineering and graphic design. I’ve spent most of my career leading agile software development teams from within. I approach software engineering and team leadership with a guiding principle of empathy.

Empathy is a core life skill and it benefits software development as much as any other aspect. Software development is about solving problems, and the majority of those problems exist for someone other than the developer. Understanding why the problem exists and how it affects that person are key to solving the problem.

Empathizing with users leads to better product outcomes, driving interest in user experience research and agile product management. Empathizing with support staff leads to better quality, driving interest in testing, continuous integration and devops. Empathizing with future developers leads to better maintainability, driving good documentation, simple tooling, and code readability. Empathizing with the team leads to better teamwork, fostering committed developers who support each other and work together.

I am also comfortable stepping outside the developer role and at various times I have performed:

• project management
• creative direction
• technical consulting
• design
• animation
• systems administration
• experience design
• client management

I’m never afraid to get my hands dirty or try something I’ve never done before. I would describe myself as creatively logical. I love trying to find the best way to approach a problem or optimise a process, but I know that doesn’t mean everything has to be done the same boring way. Most people would describe me as helpful - I’m always willing to do that little bit extra if it makes someone else’s job easier.