Describing Myself

I once heard someone describe a good friend of mine (whom I will call "M") as a "bulldog", and it struck me right away how appropriate this description was. M was the type of person who you assigned a task to if you really wanted it to get done. Now M himself didn't do the work, but he was awfully good at asking me (and other programmers on the team) for status updates on a regular basis. It got to the point where I completed the task (which I considered lower-priority than other tasks on my plate) just to get M off my back. He was a bulldog, in the nicest way.

Thinking about "M the Bulldog" has got me thinking about what one or two words I would use to describe myself.

Scott the? It's hard to come up with one easily.

I'd like to think others would describe me as intelligent. I take a certain amount of pride in being knowledgable on a wide range of topics. Whether it is databases, programming languages, current events, new technologies and gadgets...

I would also like to be known as a good problem-solver. I often find myself being given some strange problem (like, the system is deleting records in the database and noone knows why) and being able to think through the most likely reasons, and often being right about my hunches. Problems, in fact, motivate me. Perhaps I would have become a detective if my love of computers didn't guide me on my current path...

I could probably come up with a few more. I work hard at developing a deep understanding of the business. (I have a certain business-savvy - I am considering getting an MBA.) Some programmers like to just work from specs - in essence have the business analyst do all the heavy-lifting in figuring out how a particular program should be used to solve a client's problem. Wherreas I can work alongside a business analyst, to help influence some of the decisions within the spec to help make things easier for everybody.

Anyways, what does that make me? Well, perhaps the best description is senior, in every positive connotation of the word. I prefer working in an environment where I can influence software design decisions (or even make them). I give generously of my time and experience to others. And I apply all of my 14 years of professional experience, learning from my past mistakes and trying hard not to repeat them.