I build systems that unleash people.
I’m Josh Jensen: engineering leader, founder, and coach. I’ve spent 22 years shipping software and sold four companies along the way. Now I write and coach about building technology that’s good for the humans on both sides of it.
- Four exitsMobilesalt, ROAR, BuzzedApps, Fae Letters
- StorySlabDirector of Engineering; platform central to its acquisition by Bigtincan
- AppURLURL platform, 1B+ requests served since launch
- Debugging BurnoutA book on Stoic practice for software engineers (coming)
Writing
Long-form, written to be worth the tokens.
Human Tokens: The cost of attentionPinned
The token bill gets counted to the penny. The engineer time around it disappears. I want the expensive part on the bill too.
You can't save your way out of the triangle
A cheaper model can leave a bigger bill for the humans. The project triangle helps show where the cost went.
The wrong plank
I priced my tokens, then skipped the maintenance on the body making them. The agents can keep working while I move.
The book
Debugging Burnout: Ancient Solutions for Modern Coders
Stoicism, applied to sprint deadlines, on-call dread, and the 2 AM page. A field guide for engineers who love the work but are losing themselves to it. Serializing here soon.
Coaching
I coach engineering teams, and I coach people.
One side is for teams and the leaders who run them. The other is for you as a person. In both, I help you find what’s in the way and make room for the work and life you want.
Tools
Things I built to answer my own question.
Human Tokens
What is an hour of human focus worth, priced per token? A calculator that reframes the AI cost conversation.
| Cost per 1M tokens | in | out |
|---|---|---|
| Human | ~$5,000 | ~$25,000 |
| Claude Opus 5 | $5 | $25 |