This repository contains the slide deck and related resources for the "Refactoring Your Developer Identity" talk by Chris Ayers. The session focuses on helping senior engineers and technical leaders decouple their professional value from any single language or framework and re‑anchor it in durable, transferable skills.
Access the slides (export or hosted link if published) at:
https://chris-ayers.com/refactoring-your-identity/
Raw deck (Marp markdown): slides/Slides.md
The talk covers:
- How technical identity forms and calcifies
- Identity smells and anti‑patterns
- Costs of stack-locked thinking (personal & organizational)
- Transferable skill inventory & mapping exercises
- New stack adoption loop & learning debt log
- Decision frameworks (Build / Buy / Learn, Mini ADR)
- Risk vectors: platform shifts, automation, AI commoditization
- Action plans (30 / 60–90 day) & accountability systems
Reference materials and concepts mentioned:
- Architecture Decision Records (ADR pattern)
- Lightweight decision log / mini ADR
- Learning debt log (unknown → hypothesis → resolution)
- Cognitive bias references (confirmation, sunk cost, status quo)
- System / outcome framing questions (metrics, cost of delay, risk radius)
(You can add a RESOURCES.md later with direct links.)
- BlueSky: @chris-ayers.com
- LinkedIn: chris-l-ayers
- Blog: https://chris-ayers.com/
- GitHub: Codebytes
- Mastodon: @Chrisayers@hachyderm.io
If you want to generate PDF / PPTX / HTML locally:
- Install the Marp VS Code extension (or CLI).
- Open
slides/Slides.md. - Use the command palette export option, or run (with Marp CLI installed):
marp slides/Slides.md --pdf -o dist/refactoring-your-developer-identity.pdf
While this repo is slide-focused, you may extend it with:
- Example mini ADRs (
/examples/adr-*) - A learning debt log template (
/templates/learning-debt.md) - Workshop variant (long-form exercises)
This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.
Questions or suggestions? Open an issue or start a discussion.