Sharpen the Axe: Training and Conferences

In this episode, Jeff and Luca tackle the unique challenges faced by solo embedded developers. Drawing from their own experiences as consultants, they explore why working alone makes it harder to maintain good development practices - from the constant pressure to multitask across different stakeholder demands, to the difficulty of wearing multiple hats as leader, manager, and contributor simultaneously.

The conversation moves through common pitfalls: skipping documentation because "it's all in my head," letting code reviews slide, making questionable architecture decisions without a sounding board, and neglecting tools like simulators under time pressure.

But this isn't just a catalog of problems - Jeff and Luca share practical strategies for staying disciplined, from creating mastermind groups with fellow solo developers to strategically hiring third-party reviewers for architecture decisions. They discuss how to push back on arbitrary deadlines, the value of enforcing process on yourself, and why sometimes the best productivity hack is spending money on training to force yourself to sharpen your skills.

Whether you're a solo consultant, the only developer at a startup, or part of a small team, this episode offers honest insights into maintaining quality and sanity when you're working largely on your own.

Key Topics

• [00:00] Introduction: Can you do agile as a solo developer?
• [03:30] First principles of agile development and why they work for solo developers
• [06:15] Unique difficulties: Making progress in only one area at a time
• [10:45] Wearing three hats: Being leader, manager, and contributor simultaneously
• [15:20] Budget pressure and the challenge of 'nice to haves' that actually matter
• [22:30] The importance of delivering something palpable after the first sprint
• [28:00] Bad habit #1: No documentation because 'it's all in my head'
• [35:45] Bad habit #2: No code reviews and potential solutions
• [40:15] Using LLMs for code review: What works and what doesn't
• [44:30] Bad habit #3: Idiosyncratic or terrible code architecture
• [50:00] Bad habit #4: Not making it easy for other developers to take over
• [53:20] Bad habit #5: Neglecting simulators and development board support
• [57:00] Breaking bad habits: Working solo together through mastermind groups
• [62:30] Enforcing process on yourself and recognizing arbitrary deadlines
• [67:45] Applying agility to agility: Inspecting and adapting your own process
• [71:00] Sharpening the axe: Jeff's experience with the Embedded Summit

Notable Quotes

"When you're a solo developer, you have to be the leader, the manager, and the contributor for the software effort. Those are different roles and different skills." — Jeff

"You must apply agility to agility. Inspect your process, figure out what works, what doesn't work. If something is annoying to you, either it's pointing you towards a real deficiency or it's just objectively a terrible process and you should change it." — Luca

"It's really scary how effective rubber duck debugging is. You start to think of what the other person would answer, even though you're just talking to a rubber duck." — Jeff

"Simple and easy are not the same things. Having good development practices, just like losing weight, is simple. It's just not easy." — Jeff

"Dear listeners, have you ever paid with your own money for software development? Because I have. And it's really unnerving. You tell this developer to go do something and they just sort of disappear and you can hear the meter running." — Luca

Resources Mentioned

QP Real-Time Framework - Event-driven framework by Miro Samek for embedded systems, mentioned as a game-changing architecture choice for medical device development with active object patterns and hierarchical state machines

Zephyr RTOS - Open-source real-time operating system for embedded devices, discussed as an important technology for solo developers to master for modern IoT and connected device projects

Embedded Online Conference / Embedded Summit - Premier embedded systems conference offering both online and in-person training, including hands-on bootcamps for technologies like Zephyr RTOS, organized by Jacob Beningo and Stephane Boucher

Agile Embedded Academy - Luca's newly launched training platform focused on applying agile methodologies specifically to embedded systems development, offering practical courses for embedded teams

FDA Software Documentation Requirements - Regulatory documentation standards for medical device software including requirements specifications, architecture documents, detailed design, and test protocols required for FDA submissions

Mob Programming Methodology - Collaborative development approach where entire team works on single task together, referenced as an alternative to traditional multitasking, promoted by Austin Chadwick and Chris

You can find Jeff at https://jeffgable.com.
You can find Luca at https://luca.engineer.

Want to join the agile Embedded Slack? Click here

Are you looking for embedded-focused trainings? Head to https://agileembedded.academy/
Ryan Torvik and Luca have started the Embedded AI podcast, check it out at https://embeddedaipodcast.com/