Scott Singleton
I'm a Senior Consultant and the Lead SharePoint Architect at i3solutions, Inc. in Sterling, VA and have been working as a software architect and programmer for over 17 years. For the last Three years I've been focused on leveraging my design and development skills to solve customer's business challenges in SharePoint as well as managing Large implementations with user counts in excess of 100,000.
I cut my teeth back in the early 90s working as a Clipper programmer and designing turn-key database applications and servers that ran on Novell Netware. As technology advanced I migrated into working with FoxBase, then FoxPro, and eventually moving into the Windows Application development environment in the mid 90s using Visual FoxPro. I absolutely loved that development platform but it lost ground in the industry quickly with the advances in Visual Basic, ADO and then the .NET Framework. While not entirely portable there's no replacing first class data in a programming language. :)
While we still don't have first class data in our .NET Framework applications the actual methods of persisting data are becoming more and more transparent. With libraries like nHibernate or even the Linq to SQL classes developers no longer need to worry about being a top-rate database administrator or SQL language gurus -- You can focus your design on the business elements and leave all that rat-trap to your competitors. 
These days my weeks are typically a mix of designing Microsoft Office SharePoint Server implementations and leading teams of developers who program custom SharePoint solutions for clients. While I do miss my days of hard-core coding I still manage to get in odd day or two a week to work through proof of concept code or finish up jobs on tight deadlines.
I'd really like to expand our current development methodology from just being Continuous Integration and Integration tests to include Test Driven Development and unit testing against the SharePoint Object Model. We're currently experimenting with migrating from CruiseControl.NET to TFS and using mocking tools such as TypeMock's SharePoint Isolator.
When I'm not going bleary-eyed in front of a computer screen I tend to follow my eclectic list of hobbies which include Fly Fishing, Scuba Diving, Horseback riding, cooking and building cabinetry.
In 2005 I decided to take a one year sabattical and nearly demolish and rebuild a house in historic Old Town Alexandria. This process, albeit long and not-so-financially-prudent given todays market, gave me great insight in the similarities between building houses and building software. Don't get me wrong there are vast differences as well -- try refactoring your plumbing after the drywall goes up! it just doesn't work that well :) But some of the same planning and team management skills I learned I've carried over into my day-to-day work. Your team needs to share your (your client's) vision and work together to make that vision a reality.
I also enjoy custom woodworking and built almost every cabinet, bookshelf and floating staircase in the house. Below are a few images of some of that work:
