My name is Jim Hughes and lolno is my personal blog.  Writing is how I cope with the challenges of building great products and healthy teams.

I am a software engineer that has had the fortune of occupying just about every single leadership role that exists in the field: architect, project manager, technical lead, manager, director, VPE, and co-founder.  What I've learned from these experiences is that you can display leadership from anywhere in your organization: ownership occurs when you stop believing it's someone else's responsibility to take action. As such, I've gone back and forth between management and individual contribution, whatever was needed to get the job done. You can do much the same, and I hope this blog helps you do that.

Some fun facts about my career:

• I have a BS in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, though what I really wanted to study was Folklore.  I dabbled in research at the Center for Complexity and Collective Computation, but mostly just figured out it wasn't for me.
• I built a free-fork of Ultima Online, one of the first MMORPG's ever made.
• I worked on Hyper-V and Windows Server, as one of the creators of Shielded VM's.  Code I wrote is running on >850 million PC's.
• I have gone from senior leadership down to the lowest level individual contributor.  Twice.  Don't let anyone tell you pedigree isn't real.  But also don't let that hold you back; sometimes you have to take a step back to keep moving forward.

I have a GitHub for a handful of personal projects, and of course LinkedIn.  Feel free to write me at jim@lolno.net.

Most of my hobbies revolve around technology, but when I decide to take a break I like graphic design, photography, baking, biking, curling, video games, and driving fast cars.

All opinions are my own and not the view of my employer.