EmergeSource on emergesource

Your developer disappeared

Tue, 08 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Someone built your software. They were good, or good enough. Then the replies got slower, then they stopped, and now there is an invoice arriving every month from an account nobody can log into and a website you are afraid to touch.

This is the single most common reason people call me, and it is worth saying plainly: it is a recoverable situation almost every time. It does not feel that way from the inside, because the thing you have lost is not really the code. It is the ability to make a decision about your own business without asking someone who is not there.

You inherited a codebase

Tue, 08 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

There are a few ways to end up here. You acquired a company and the software came with it. The founder who wrote it left. An agency built it, the contract ended, and the handover was a zip file. Or it has simply been running so long that everyone who understood it has moved on.

However you got here, the position is the same: you own something that works, you cannot safely change it, and every estimate you get for touching it comes back either suspiciously cheap or unbelievably expensive.

What a fractional CTO costs

Tue, 08 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Fractional CTO pricing is all over the place, and most of what is published is written to sell you one. Here are the market ranges, what moves the number, and how I price my own work.

The market, in real numbers

Monthly retainers run from roughly $3,000 to $15,000, depending on cadence and how hands-on the person is. Senior people who bill by the hour typically charge $250 to $500.

Fractional CTO, agency, or hire

Tue, 08 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

There are four ways to get software built and kept running, and most of the comparisons written about them are written by one of the four. Here is the version that assumes you might reasonably pick something other than me.

The question is not which is best. It is which gap you actually have, and most people misidentify theirs — usually as a capacity problem when it is a decision problem.

Weekly Links - 2026-01-21

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 12:06:12 -0500

Cool stuff I read this week: software, orgs, weird internet.

https://www.chrisgregori.dev/opinion/code-is-cheap-now-software-isnt
https://www.ablg.io/blog/no-management-needed
https://creepylink.com
https://lalitm.com/post/why-senior-engineers-let-bad-projects-fail/
https://www.seangoedecke.com/predators/

Ephemeral Infrastructure: Why Short-Lived is a Good Thing

Fri, 05 Dec 2025 11:58:20 -0500

I really like this article. Even if you never operate this way, the exercise will give you amazing redeploy readiness when disaster strikes.

https://lukasniessen.medium.com/ephemeral-infrastructure-why-short-lived-is-a-good-thing-2cf26afd75ef

Superman

Tue, 12 Aug 2025 21:48:25 -0400

I was glad to see that the good guys including Superman have returned to being unconflicted. In this one, the people of Metropolis and the world are confused and filled with moral amibguity. A fitting cautionary reflection. Great fast pacing and twisty flying camera shots made it feel like riding a rollercoaster. Standout performaces go to Mister Terrific and Eve Teschmacher. The Teschmacher character in particular gave an homage to the ditzy Lorelei Ambrosia from Superman 3. Wendell Peirce gives us the best Perry White we’ve seen since Jackie Cooper.

However Briefly on Product Hunt

Tue, 18 Mar 2025 09:20:26 -0400

However Briefly has been launched on Product Hunt!

https://www.producthunt.com/posts/however-briefly

However Briefly first release!

Wed, 05 Mar 2025 12:05:41 -0500

However Briefly

I created However Briefly several years ago so I could have a personal news timeline. I wanted to be able to briefly catch up with my interests from my phone and avoid any doom-scrolling or rabbit hole adventures.

I was inspired by the minimal style of Hacker News. I can quickly scan for stories that interest me and decide without images or clickbait if I want to pursue the link further. Curating my own list allows me to distance myself from negative feedback loops common to social media news sources.

Kim Deal, Nobody Loves You More

Tue, 25 Feb 2025 09:47:19 -0500

Great new album from Kim Deal called Nobody Loves you more. When the horns come crashing in for the first time in the title track, my face lit up with a smile and I couldn’t help but thinking way to go Kim Deal!'.

Horns, guitars, base grooves, and those aloha style melodies that Kim is uncanny at took me somewhere else while I was doing the dishes this morning.

For those in my generation who think there hasn’t been any good new rock and roll since the Strokes came out in 2001, you aren’t paying attention hard enough.

Redesign

Mon, 24 Feb 2025 17:42:57 -0500

A minor redesign of emergesource.com. Changes include:

The call to action on the homepage is now more direct.
The fonts are more readable and business like and less l33t hack0ry.
Pricing and service cards stand out more.
Expanded Service details.
Both Light and dark mode are now honored depending on your system preference.

Slow Productivity

Thu, 20 Feb 2025 12:33:14 -0500

2024, Cal Newport

The Right It

Thu, 20 Feb 2025 12:17:04 -0500

2019, Alberto Savoia

Great book on figuring out product market fit. Alberto shares with us his system of “pretotyping” (instead of prototyping) to figure out if your idea can survive in the market before you waste too much time on it. I love how his examples are funny. You follow along learning his techniques while having a lot of fun at the same time.

Notes:

Make sure you are building the right it and make sure that you really care about it before you build it right.

Debt

Thu, 20 Feb 2025 12:07:08 -0500

2014, David Graeber

An expansive book about the history of money from the anthropological perspective. There is a lot to unpack here, but the gist of it is how the concept of debt has shaped our societies and behaviours through the evolution of human civilization.

Right Here, Right Now

Sat, 28 Dec 2024 08:08:43 -0500

2018, Stephen Harper

I tried to read this book a few years ago when it was first released but If I’m honest it kept putting me to sleep.

Perhaps my interest in the subject matter has grown considerably due to the current political chaos in Canada because when I tried it again at the end of 2024 I couldn’t put it down.

Harper preaches balance with a (lower case c) conservative approach to policy. He explores the distinct challenges wealthy nations face while examining his governments record on key topics such as economy, immigration and fair trade. Harper stresses a duty to measure policy outcomes with their impact to the average Canadian.

Getting Stuck

Wed, 20 Nov 2024 11:04:33 -0500

One thing I need to remind myself of is to take a break when stuck.

It’s a simple hack that’s super easy to forget when I’m a couple of hours into a coding session. I’m consistently guilty of ignoring my own advice and I’m thankful to have a wife who reminds me when she senses I’m getting frustrated.

Coding like many cognitively complex tasks requires you to build up a sort of mental scaffolding. There are many simultaneous pathways going on in your head before your solution is realized in your editor. To outsiders, this may help explain our penchant for ambient lighting, house beats and empty coke cans.

Richard Starnes on Canadians

Mon, 11 Nov 2024 07:53:34 -0500

“Canadians are generally indistinguishable from the Americans, and the surest way of telling the two apart is to make the observation to a Canadian.”

–Richard Starnes 1965

Sendgrid & Digital Ocean notes

Thu, 31 Oct 2024 11:24:55 -0400

Here are some notes I made for myself while exploring using Sendgrid with Digital Ocean DNS.

Proceed with reduced complexity

I wasted over an hour and almost destroyed a keyboard while testing the mail server. I quadruple checked my perfect settings and debugged with telnet to no avail until I realized it was my own stupid fault all along. Do yourself a favour and make sure your VPN is disabled when testing out new networky things locally.

Observability as a Day Zero Operation

Mon, 21 Oct 2024 08:16:20 -0400

I’ve made the case before that cicd should be a sprint zero activity. Here is a good article & video making that same case for observability.

https://redmonk.com/jgovernor/2024/09/25/observability-as-a-day-zero-operation/

Stillness Is the Key

Tue, 10 Sep 2024 10:40:54 -0400

2019, Ryan Holiday

This is the second Ryan Holiday book I’ve gone through recently alongside Discipline is Destiny. I’m really starting to enjoy Ryan’s writing style. Holiday provides us with well researched examples of historical figures living out the psychological principles he presents to us. It makes for a really enjoyable combination of self help and history. I usually get the audio versions of these books which are read by Ryan Holiday himself. I find Ryan’s cadence to be inspiring and motivating.

Cringey but True How Uber Tests Payments

Wed, 07 Aug 2024 11:55:22 -0400

Here is a great article about testing and deployment strategies used at Uber.

https://news.alvaroduran.com/p/cringey-but-true-how-uber-tests-payments

I can really appreciate this story as someone who has done this despite facing criticism from both engineers and management alike.

Production issues will arise regardless of how awesome your testing environments are. If you can detect and resolve quickly in isolation you will improve the aura of stability for the majority of your customers.

World Order

Wed, 07 Aug 2024 09:55:20 -0400

“I know that I know nothing” – Socretes

In 2023 we lost one of our elder statesmen Henry Kissinger. As polarizing as he may be, Kissinger served his country in every capacity he was called to dutifully his entire life. It’s important to note that during his influence the ultimate catastrophe never materialized. In World Order well into his 90’s, Henry leaves us with his insights on how the world works from both historical and contemporary context.

The Almanac of Naval Ravikant

Tue, 23 Jul 2024 09:07:23 -0400

The Almanac of Naval Ravikant isn’t really a book. Rather a collection of thoughts and tweets from tech entrepreneur Naval Ravikant. Naval has been a very successful venture hacker so we can stipulate that he knows a thing or two about a thing or two. The book is divided into 3 main sections; health, wealth and happiness. There is some great insight here and I think this book is worth a purchase to have around for reference when you need a boost of inspiration. Even though the almanac is non linear you also end up absorbing Naval’s personal story and guiding principles.

The Stratocaster turns 70

Tue, 16 Jul 2024 17:21:26 -0400

https://newatlas.com/music/stratocaster-70-fender-factory/

Reading Log

Tue, 16 Jul 2024 16:35:16 -0400

One thing that people always ask me for is book recommendations. To help me remember what I’ve read I decided to log the books I liked enough to actually finish. Consider it a a seal of approval based on attention. I get most of my books from the Toronto Public Library and they conveniently had my reading data for the past couple of years to seed my log. If you are interested in what interests me, the full log lives at /reading.

How to Do Nothing

Sun, 14 Jul 2024 09:52:34 -0400

The Biggest Ideas in the Universe

Thu, 20 Jun 2024 11:02:08 -0400

Surrounded by Idiots

Fri, 31 May 2024 11:08:42 -0400

In Surrounded by Idiots, Thomas Erikson presents the DISC personality theory. According to DISC theory there are four main personality types we all exhibit. This isn’t to pigeon hole anyone since it’s a spectrum with most people being 80% one personality type and 20% another. The DISC behaviours Erikson explains, are deeply ingrained in human psyche as he references observations dating back to ancient history.

Erikson assigns each personality type a colour. Red for dominance; yellow for influence; green for stability; and blue for compliance.

Discipline Is Destiny

Sun, 12 May 2024 11:16:36 -0400

A Series of Fortunate Events

Sun, 12 May 2024 11:12:39 -0400

How I use principles to develop engineering strategies.

Thu, 09 May 2024 10:34:34 -0400

Principles. We all have them, but how often do we spend thinking about them? Or even better, writing them down?

As I found myself evolving as a tech leader, I realized I needed to make some adjustments to the way I approached my work. I had to shift away from technical details and more towards strategic thinking. I’m sure this is a common situation leaders find themselves in, but letting go of the “work” wasn’t completely obvious to me right away. I was eventually able to reason that engineering teams are good at what they do. They’ll be able to figure out how to build whatever awesome thing we were building even without my amazingly witty and insightful code reviews. What they really needed from me as a leader was to have a plan ready for whatever was about to happen next. Holy shit! How do you anticipate the infinite possibilities of anything and everything that could happen next!?

The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry

Tue, 30 Apr 2024 11:20:12 -0400

Colin on the maintainable podcast

Thu, 18 Apr 2024 09:23:34 -0500

This post is a long time coming, but last year I had the pleasure of talking to the great Robby Russell of oh-my-zsh fame for his maintainable podcast.

Robby is a great interviewer and quickly made me comfortable and forget we were recording.

If you like what you hear and want to learn more; check out my new Mentoring Program. I can help you put the techniques I talk about into action so you can kick butt at work and have fun while doing it!

Designing Your Life

Tue, 16 Apr 2024 11:29:36 -0400

Million Dollar Weekend

Mon, 08 Apr 2024 11:31:28 -0400

Principles (Ray Dalio)

Sat, 02 Mar 2024 11:42:28 -0400

Referenced in my engineering principles post.

Invested

Sun, 21 Jan 2024 11:47:08 -0400

Doppelganger : a trip into the mirror world

Sun, 14 Jan 2024 10:48:05 -0400

This Naked Mind

Sun, 17 Dec 2023 10:22:48 -0400

Why We Sleep

Wed, 13 Dec 2023 10:29:37 -0400

Dopamine Nation

Sat, 09 Dec 2023 10:33:26 -0400

The Confident Mind

Fri, 08 Dec 2023 10:36:38 -0400

Thinking Fast and Slow

Sun, 03 Dec 2023 10:39:04 -0400

The Checklist Manifesto

Thu, 30 Nov 2023 10:41:44 -0400

You Are a Baddass at Making Money

Thu, 23 Nov 2023 10:45:08 -0400

The Perfectionsts Guide to Losing Control

Sun, 19 Nov 2023 10:50:54 -0400

Radical Candor

Sun, 12 Nov 2023 10:53:35 -0400

Win Every Argument

Mon, 30 Oct 2023 10:58:19 -0400

And There Was Light

Sun, 15 Oct 2023 11:07:25 -0400

Grit

Tue, 10 Oct 2023 11:09:20 -0400

Blink

Sun, 08 Oct 2023 11:11:33 -0400

Euphoric

Thu, 21 Sep 2023 12:59:44 -0400

Building a Second Brain

Wed, 13 Sep 2023 14:46:13 -0400

Show Your Work

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 14:52:58 -0400

Thinking in Bets

Mon, 28 Aug 2023 14:55:26 -0400

Sapiens

Fri, 28 Jul 2023 14:58:27 -0400

10% Happier

Mon, 24 Jul 2023 15:02:50 -0400

The Creative Act

Thu, 20 Jul 2023 15:06:10 -0400

The Psychology of Money

Fri, 14 Jul 2023 15:08:53 -0400

Radical Acceptance

Mon, 10 Jul 2023 15:11:33 -0400

Never Split the Difference

Sat, 24 Jun 2023 16:19:06 -0400

The Brain Fog Fix

Thu, 15 Jun 2023 16:22:08 -0400

I Will Teach You to Be Rich

Thu, 08 Jun 2023 16:29:06 -0400

Everything Is F*cked

Thu, 08 Jun 2023 16:24:52 -0400

Al Jaffee Passed Away Today

Mon, 10 Apr 2023 06:49:25 -0400

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jaffee

When I was little I would read my dads multiple volumes of Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions. These books were required reading for any young man wanting to grow a quick wit and increase his wise guy persona.

For better or worse Al’s art was woven into the fabric of my life, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

https://torontosun.com/news/world/al-jaffee-longtime-mad-magazine-cartoonist-dead-at-102.

How I configured urxvt

Sun, 27 Feb 2022 09:23:34 -0500

I spent some time this weekend configuring urxvt. I’ve historically been a gnome-terminal or terminator user. Urxvt is more light weight, but what I was really interested in was urxvt’s ability to render images on the terminal. To cut down on adds and noise, I like getting my news with newsboat and being able to see images without having to leave the terminal was right up my alley. The downside to all of this is that urxvt is less integrated into the desktop and a little trickier to configure overall.

About

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Hey, I’m Colin, software engineer and emergesource founder. I specialize in shaping engineering teams that deliver awesome solutions.

I grew up in Toronto CANADA during the 1980s. Toronto life in the 80’s was certainly excellent and exactly as depicted in Degrassi Jr. High. My dad had a job selling computer hardware which gave me easy access to some sweet gear. I started building computers and programming around the age of 8.

Colin Campbell

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Projects

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Products I’ve built, run, or led the engineering for. Each one links to the real thing.

mobile

Wakefully

Decode your subconscious. Transform your waking life.

mobile

Turnstile Stubs

Preserve every ticket, relive every story.

web

Estate Calm

Book next level cleaning services for your Toronto properties

web

GetWorkPaid

Get paid for the work you already do.

howeverbriefly.com

web

However Briefly

Stay informed, ditch the noise.

web

Will they win Tonight ?

Our AI-powered prediction system analyzes multiple data points to make a determination of the most likely outcome for the next Toronto Maple Leafs game.

Resume

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

I take interim and contract engineering leadership roles, alongside engineering assessments for software companies.

Download: PDF or plain text

Summary

Hands-on engineering leader with 20+ years of experience building scalable platforms and guiding cross-functional teams. I lead architecture, mentor developers, and tie technical decisions to business goals.

Experience

Director of Technology, ATS Software. 2026 to present
Founder, EmergeSource. 2025 to present
Director of Engineering, Software Architecture, Tucows / Wavelo. 2021 to 2024
Engineering Manager, Tucows (Hover, OpenSRS). 2017 to 2021
Engineering Team Lead, Tucows (OpenSRS). 2015 to 2017
Senior Software Developer, Fire Engine Red. 2012 to 2015
Senior Software Developer, Medical Pharmacies. 2003 to 2012

Skills

Team building, leadership, mentoring
Programming, architecture, design
CI/CD, infrastructure, automation
AI-assisted development

Education

Seneca College of Applied Arts and Technology, Computer Programming and Analysis

Testimonials

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

“I cannot recommend Colin highly enough. Though I’m hesitant to do so because selfishly, I want him all to myself.”

Albert Gelson, CEO of Turnstile

I cannot recommend Colin highly enough. Though I’m hesitant to do so because selfishly, I want him all to myself. I spent over 2 years searching for a technical co-founder before meeting him. From the very first time we connected, his enthusiasm for my idea was infectious. Having met so many other potential partners and not finding a match, I was admittedly losing faith in finding someone at all. I’m so glad I didn’t give up!