Colin Pear on How to Be a .NET Architect - Episode 113

Nov 2, 2020

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Today’s guest is none other than, Colin Pear — the Director of Engineering at Skimmer!

Colin is an NServiceBus Champion, an open-source contributor, and a recent Clear Measure alumnus (where he previously held the positions of Chief Architect and Principal Software Architect up until September 2020). In his current position at Skimmer, he runs the .NET software engineering department.

In this episode, Colin shares some invaluable tips on how to become a .NET architect, how to stay focused and effective in a leadership position, and how to effectively run a team as an architect. Colin also shares his thoughts on where to invest your time as a developer, shares about a current project of his, and gives some advice to developers looking to take on a leadership role in the future.

Topics of Discussion:

[:38] Be sure to visit AzureDevOps.Show for past episodes and show notes.

[:46] About The Azure DevOps Podcast, Jeffrey’s offer to speak at virtual user groups, and his newest endeavor: a video podcast, Architect Tips!

[1:33] About today’s episode with Colin Pear.

[1:55] Jeffrey welcomes Colin to the podcast!

[2:05] Colin introduces himself and shares about his development journey.

[4:28] Colin shares how he transitioned from a developer role to leading in an architect position.

[6:24] Colin demystifies and simplifies some developer job titles for those new to the industry.

[9:04] When Colin was slinging code all day, every day, did he always think he wanted to code for his entire life?

[11:52] Colin and Jeffrey talk about what it’s like to get into the higher levels of working with a team (such as an architect, manager, etc.) Colin also touches on some of the key characteristics that are important to have if you are taking on a leadership position.

[15:15] When Colin is working on larger projects or multiple different projects, how does he time-slice his focus and stay effective when he doesn’t know every line of code in every codebase?

[17:30] Colin busts the myths of the non-coding architect and those who say, “Architects don’t code, therefore they don’t know what they’re talking about!” Colin also shares about a project of his, BlazorComponentBus.

[22:32] A word from Azure DevOps Podcast’s sponsor: Clear Measure.

[23:02] Jeffrey and Colin further discuss Colin’s project, BlazorComponentBus.

[24:20] Where to find BlazorComponentBus.

[24:51] Colin shares some advice on running a team as an architect and how to know which software and tech to invest time into as a developer and which to run away from.

[31:12] Colin shares his thoughts and observations on microservices.

[34:15] Colin shares some parting advice for developers looking to take on more leadership in the future.

[36:22] Jeffrey thanks Colin for joining the podcast.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Azure DevOps

Clear Measure (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

bit.ly/dotnetdevopsebook — Click here to download the .NET DevOps for Azure ebook!

Jeffrey Palermo’s Youtube

Jeffrey Palermo’s Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

The Azure DevOps Podcast’s Twitter: @AzureDevOpsShow

Colin Pear’s LinkedIn