I build systems that unleash people.
I’m Josh Jensen: engineering leader, founder, and a recovering burnout case. I’ve spent 22 years shipping software, sold four companies along the way, and now I write and coach about building technology that’s good for the humans on both sides of it.
- Four exitsMobilesalt, ROAR, BuzzedApps, Mailbox Legends
- StorySlabDirector of Engineering; platform central to its acquisition by Bigtincan
- AppURLURL platform, 1B+ requests served
- 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 is itemized to the penny. The engineer hours around it arrive on no invoice at all. Teams are optimizing the wrong line.
The wrong plank
The most expensive hardware in the building produces the judgment agents can't. It's also the only machine nobody schedules maintenance for.
People are still the point
Tokens, agents, pipelines — a whole new vocabulary, and none of it says who the work is for. The oldest rule in software survives the newest tools.
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 engineers and engineering leaders back to their best work.
It often starts with burnout — mine did. It doesn’t end there.
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 |