About this newsletter

The Not-so-Daily Drew is a weekly-ish publication. In it, you can expect insights on engineering, consulting, pair programming, indie video games, and the occasional nugget of ancient wisdom.

About me

I am a self-employed Software Engineer based in Denver, Colorado. I am a full-stack engineer with half a decade of experience leading teams that practice pair programming and test-driven development.

Before I started freelancing, I was a Senior Software Engineer at Code for America, where I helped build MNbenefits.mn.gov. I grew up in small-town Wisconsin, so it was especially meaningful to give back to people in the Midwest.

I cut my teeth at Pivotal Cloud Foundry, where I was paid to spend 8 hours a day pair programming with senior engineers—slowing them down with my questions, stealing their keyboard shortcuts and life philosophies, and absorbing their powers.

Through thousands of hours of practice, I seem to have become pretty good at pairing. I've had a surprising number of people tell me I am their favorite person to pair with, so made a course to share what I’ve learned about effective pairing. Some of my other skills include TDD, cloud stuff, and wrangling deeply cursed Java codebases.

In my younger and more vulnerable years, I worked variously as a touring guitarist, copy editor, tech writer, barista, and assistant/ghostwriter for a self-help author. In college, I studied English and Classical Humanities before transitioning to Computer Science at the last possible minute.

I love helping folks who are new to tech, so if you're early in your career and looking for some advice, feel free to reach out!

I have three senior wiener dogs named Coffee, Donuts, and Miriam. You can find me on Twitter at @andrewedstrom.

Work with me

I am available for freelance engineering work on a contract basis. I also teach hands-on workshops on TDD in legacy codebases to enterprise companies. If you want to get in touch, please shoot me an email.