Welcome!

This site is to help you to become the best software development manager you can be.

My name is Dave Penny. I’ve been a programmer, manager, and executive in the software industry since 1985, officially retired as of 2023. Since 1995, I specialized in leading the technical end of mid-sized software organizations (< ~200 employees reporting to me), and have been blessed with five successful exits. For more details, you can check out my LinkedIn profile.

I was usually hired when the board and the CEO considered the software org to need a bit of an overhaul. My specialty was fixing things up quickly and in a positive way. This was usually straightforward, as many organizations do not do some of the most essential things right: things I will convey by means of this site and its accompanying YouTube channel @modsoftman.

More recently, I’ve re-tooled, as many of you have , to Agentic Development. It’s quite a learning curve to skillfully operate AI Coding against a complex commercial codebase. Everything I’ve ever known about architecture and software engineering remains essential. I’ll be adding my perspectives on this as well.