I’m James, from Iowa. I’m a software engineer, and I build the services that keep CI/CD pipelines fast, reliable and honest. These days I use AI in almost everything I do, from writing code to reviewing it to figuring out why a build turned red at 2 AM.
I didn’t start here. I spent my early career as a test engineer, writing NUnit frameworks and integration tests in .NET. In 2017-18 I blogged about it at get-testy, and those posts still live here in the archive. Testing taught me the thing I still believe most: a red build should mean something real. Now I get to build the systems that make sure it does.
This blog is me learning out loud, in a few lanes:
- AI: how I actually use it at work, including where it helps and where it quietly breaks things.
- DevOps and CI/CD: pipelines, build systems and the services around them.
- Testing: where I came from, and why it matters even more now that agents write code.
- Sports betting with AI: I build and test my own betting model. I post the process and the misses, never picks or “locks.” 21+ only, and bet only what you’d spend on a night out.
- Fatherhood: I’m a dad of four. You’ll get the lessons, the chaos and the jokes, but no names or faces. Those are theirs to share.
- Fitness: I’m an aspiring hybrid runner trying to be faster than the lifters and stronger than the runners. Progress is slow, and I’ll show the bad days too.
Why do all of this? Partly because I like it, and because AI made it too easy to only consume. I restarted this blog to be a creator again. Mostly, though, it’s because I want my kids to see what it looks like to keep learning new things, be wrong in public, and get a little better anyway.
Say hi
I’m newest on X: @jpenning0. I’m also on LinkedIn. Code lives on GitHub. You can also follow along by RSS.