Ben Tobin

After 20 years in tech and 10 years at Amazon, I decided to become a career coach for people in tech. I'm just settling into the transition (last day at Amazon 2/25/2022) but I'm finding that my new calling is needed far more than I expected.

I want to help people get unstuck in their careers, find their passions and priorities, achieve their goals, and just generally succeed on their own terms.

My own path in the industry was unusual. My job titles, in order, were:

Software Tester; Programmer; Software Developer; Lead Software Developer; Interim Director of Development; Support Engineer; Systems Engineer; Software Development Engineer; Software Development Manager

That's right. I went from a role with "director" in the name to a Support Engineer role. That was my foot in the door at Amazon, and no, it was not a subtle, tactical move as part of a bigger plan. I was just winging it, and moving to Seattle sounded fun.

In my time in the industry, I developed a deep passion for helping struggling developers figure out how to grow and succeed and gain confidence, and help awesome engineers become even more awesome and take full advantage of their skills. Eventually I decided I didn't want to do all that other stuff that comes with being a manager in a big corporation, and this is how I found my next calling as a career coach.

I was diagnosed with ADHD in college just in time to save my career. I struggled with it through my whole education, and was coming close to failing out of college when I began treatment. That turned my whole life around, and once I could get out of my own way, I did well enough in college and thrived in my career.

I'm in the process of earning my ICF certification, and I'm still experimenting with my practice. My home base so to speak is https://bentobin.com for learning about what I do and connecting with me directly.

I would really enjoy working with podcasters to share what I've learned, about the tech industry, ADHD, or about coaching.