That’s me in the header image. Or at least a beaver version of me, designed for my current projects BrandCast and FamilyCast. I’m not entirely sure what it says about me that I look natural as a beaver mascot, but here we are.
I’m Jamie Duncan. I live in Raleigh, North Carolina with my wife Molly and our nine-year-old daughter Elizabeth. I work at Google. I also own a Kid to Kid franchise with Molly (though that’s really her thing - I mostly stay out of the way). I’m a student at WGU. And I’m building BrandCast and FamilyCast on nights and weekends.
The Self-Taught Path
I don’t have a four-year college degree. I started as a history major, which taught me how to research and write but not much about programming. Everything I know about engineering I learned on the job or in my spare time.
That path took me through some interesting places. Before Google, I spent six years at Red Hat working on infrastructure automation and cloud technologies. Before that, a brief stint at VMware. And before that, I worked at a media company and a bioinformatics startup where I first learned to code.
The highlight of my Red Hat years was probably joining the team that rescued Healthcare.gov in late 2013. That project taught me more about working under pressure than any book ever could. I also won Red Hat’s Chairman’s Award in 2015, which was unexpected and genuinely meaningful.
I mention all of this not to brag (well, maybe a little), but because I think the self-taught route gets dismissed too often. It’s harder in some ways. You have gaps. But you also learn to figure things out on your own, which turns out to be most of the job anyway.
What I’m Building Now
BrandCast and FamilyCast are passion projects that might become real businesses. Might not. We’ll see.
BrandCast is digital signage for small businesses. The kind of places that want a nice display in their storefront or office but don’t want to hire an IT consultant to set it up. Retail stores, restaurants, offices - businesses that need to communicate with customers or employees and want something better than a poster board.
FamilyCast is the same idea but for families. A command center display for your home. Shows the family calendar, weather, chore lists, photos - whatever helps keep a busy household organized. If you’ve ever used Cozi for family coordination, FamilyCast gives you a way to actually see that information on a screen in your kitchen or entryway.
Both are built on the same platform. Both are currently in pre-beta with a small group of alpha testers. Both might fail. But I’m enjoying building them, which counts for something.
What You’ll Find Here
This blog is where I write about the things I’m interested in:
Technical topics - Docker, Kubernetes, infrastructure, home automation, whatever I’m learning or debugging at the moment.
Career and work - Thoughts on engineering culture, being self-taught, working remotely, navigating tech careers without a traditional background.
Making things - Woodworking projects, home improvement, the satisfaction of building physical objects when your day job is entirely digital.
Personal reflections - Parenting, running a small business (or trying to), lessons learned, things I got wrong.
I’m not trying to build an audience or optimize for SEO. I’m just writing. If something here is useful to you, great. If not, that’s fine too.
The Beaver Thing
So about that beaver image. When we were designing mascots for BrandCast and FamilyCast, we landed on this friendly beaver character. Beavers build things. They’re industrious. They work with their families. It fit.
Someone on the team suggested we make a Jamie beaver variant. I said no. They made it anyway. And honestly, I kind of love it.
If you’re going to build something, might as well have fun with it.
Thanks for reading.