Hi, I'm Jean-Michel

I build products and the teams that build them. Some things about me:

• Founding member of the Eclipse platform and open source project. Wrote a book about it.
• Led engineering as CTO and VPE at Atlassian and Shopify. Main focus was moving a single product company to a platform company. Led teams of 50 to thousands.
• Co-founded Canadian Tech @ Scale.
• Founded Dev Degree, a work-integrated computer science degree.
• Co-founded SeaPeople.
• Co-founded Arlo Wine and Restaurant.

The book

You can't improve what you can't see. I'm writing a book on engineering leadership: the common patterns in technical teams, the nuances, and practical tools for the hard decisions that build great engineering organizations and companies. It's not a book yet. I publish chapters as they come and will bundle them later. They're on the left. Send me a DM with feedback or a fist pump.

Why "right side"

I'm heavily influenced by Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Drawing was never my job, but learning to draw taught me to look at things closely and from many angles. Our brains jump to conclusions. Seeing things for what they are is a superpower. That's where the name comes from.