Who you are?
The name is Britton – Ryan Britton J. I have been building software for most of my life, but professionally since 1996 (before the .com crash and Y2K were “a thing”).
I have been an avid follower of Agile practices since the turn of the century, an early adopter of Test Driven Development and have cut my fingers on many leading edges in the last decade-and-a-half as the exciting science of software engineering has been growing up.
I am very proud to be a part of the revolutionary things that we are seeing coming out of the ALM/DevOps space (particularly within VSTS) at the moment.
I work for a company called .go, a part of the Mint Group of companies, focused on ISV-style development. In my role as the Delivery Lead, I specialize in “productizing” industry IP and the development and management of continuous delivery pipelines to take these products to market.
I am a certified MCSD: Application Lifecycle Management and Mint is a Microsoft Gold Partner for ALM.
I also spend a portion of my time consulting to South African Development Teams on their process and toolsets, and work closely with Microsoft SA to evangelize VSTS/TFS and ALM in DevOps-centric speaking engagements in the South African Market.
What makes you “tick”?
I love software, and programming, and changing business and society for the better with great solutions. Building software is hard though, and I have seen so many great ideas fail because of poor ideation, management, quality or delivery. There are few things as rewarding to see as a software team that is empowered to do their best because of the structures which support them.
For this reason, I have chosen to specialize in Application Lifecycle Management and find significant value in helping development teams to build better software in a faster, more reliable and altogether more delightful manner.
Where you live?
I live in Johannesburg in the very beautiful country at the very tip of Africa.
Gauteng, South Africa – to be specific.
Why are you engaged with the Rangers program?
I would love to extend the reach of my efforts and lend my voice/content/code/enthusiasm to the growing body of knowledge which is becoming the de facto standard for effective software engineering. I want to help people and teams, and extend the product/process that I have grown to love with my own humble contribution to the greater effort.
This post is part of an ongoing series of Rangers introductions. SeeRanger Index (Who is Who?)for more details.