Foxley Talent turns five!
01/10/2026
Foxley Talent has just turned five years old!
I didn't write blog posts at any of the previous year end milestones but you may have seen posts on LinkedIn or Mastodon. The one I wrote a year ago (at the 4 year mark) was written from a fairly rocky place. I had scaled the business back to just me over the previous year. Some clients had gone into administration owing money and some messy accounting was still being unpicked. I was pretty close to calling it a day...
Year five was always going to be an interesting one...
TL:DR It's been a really good year personally and at work!
The biggest shift at the start of the year had nothing to do with the recruitment side of the business. When I'm in a good place physically I'm in a good place mentally too. I had a bit of therapy last year and one of the things that came out of it was exactly that. Look after the physical stuff and a lot of the rest tends to follow. This year has been the proof...
In January I walked away from my office lease with four months still left to run. Sitting in a rented room 45 minutes from home on my own every day was doing me no favours.
My wife had started working in London three days a week which freed up our garden office at home. So I took it over and that's Foxley Talent HQ now. I hung my Chicago Bears shirt, a Foxley sponsored cricket shirt and all my old conference lanyards to make it feel a bit more like home!
For the days I want a change of scenery or people around me I take my laptop down to my gym which has a coworking space attached. One of my best mates is a member there too and is another solo recruitment business owner. When our diaries line up we grab coffees and have a proper work chat. Really valuable when it happens and then generally go and play some pickleball.
I don't usually share numbers like this on the blog but this one feels like a key part of the story of my year. I started 2026 weighing in at just over 300 pounds. Today I'm at 230. That's 70 lbs off in nine months.
I've been in the gym three times a week for weight training. That's been the biggest single change. I've got noticeably stronger and honestly my back doesn't hurt anymore. I've also developed a real obsession with pickleball (yes I know most of my US friends are miles ahead of me on that one) I took my pickle bat with me to PyCon but disappointingly didn't get time for a game!
I switched to high protein meals and snacks to go with the exercise. Still eating what I wanted for the most part but I started paying proper attention to daily macros and total intake.
On top of all the activity and eating better I cut drinking out for the first six months of the year (other than special occasions like DjangoCon Europe, PyCon US and birthdays) and I plan to do the same again to kick off 2027.
Looking at the business itself and my results, won't go quarter by quarter with numbers or anything but the short summary is it's been a really consistent year of results.
I got 2026 off to a strong start and that paid for a lot of the travel through the rest of the year. The other quarters pulled their weight without anything dramatic. Just steady placements through repeat business from existing clients mixed in with some new relationships built at the conferences.
Plenty enough to keep the doors open, sort out last years finances and keep my DSF donation going. Speaking of which...
... in April I renewed the Foxley Talent Corporate Membership of the Django Software Foundation for a fourth year running. That took the total donated so far past $20,000.
Even in a tough year the DSF donation stays. It's non negotiable! I wrote about that in more detail in this blog post earlier in the year:
$20k Donated to the Django Software Foundation
If there's one thing year five has really clarified for me it's the direction of travel for the business.
I've done the numbers. About 70% of the business Foxley Talent has written in the last twelve months has been in the United States. Most of the clients I'm working with now are in the US. Most of the candidates I'm speaking to are in the US and 2 of the 3 conferences I go to are US based.
So the wind has changed direction and I'm going to sail with it. My energy for year six is being pointed further and further towards the Python and Django community in the United States.
I'm not going anywhere as far as my UK and European clients and candidates are concerned. Those relationships were built over 18 years and they're not going anywhere either. It's simply where the growth energy is being pointed from here.
The community is central to what Foxley Talent is and does. Without the Python and Django world I wouldn't have a business so attending or sponsoring the major conferences and running a django.social event at each of them is just something I try to do to play my part in bringing people together. DjangoCon US actually ran their own official welcome party this year which was a great addition to the format.
Q1's momentum this year meant I could commit to all three big events.
DjangoCon Europe in Athens in April. My fifth DjangoCon Europe in five years in one of the best cities I've visited. Roll on Innsbruck, Austria next year! Full review here
PyCon US in Long Beach in May. My first ever PyCon US after 18 years in the Python world. Better late than never. I gave a lightning talk on the biggest stage I've ever spoken on. Full review here
DjangoCon US in Chicago in August. My 4th DjangoCon US and my happy place. Foxley Talent was back as a sponsor with a stand in the hallway. I gave a lightning talk on day one and finally tried the deep dish pizza I'd been trying to get to for two years. Full review here
In the summer I also spent a brilliant weekend hosting/showing one of my US clients around two of my favourite golf courses when he was over in the UK. Dinner with our families afterwards. Started as a work relationship. Turned into a real friendship. One of the highlights of the year.
The other new thing this year... I'm launching a podcast.
People or Code is about the crossroads every software career reaches. Somewhere past senior every engineer hits the same fork. Take the path that leads people or stay in the code.
Each episode is a conversation with a senior Python or Django engineer, manager, founder or maintainer about the moment they hit the fork. What they chose. What they gave up. Whether they'd choose it again.
The first episodes are being recorded now. Have a look at People or Code on YouTube or the podcast page on this site. If you'd like to be a guest get in touch.
Five years is a long time in a small business. It's a long time in recruitment. I wouldn't have got this far without the people who kept me in the game.
Thank you to the clients who've kept coming back. Thank you to the candidates who trusted me to represent them. Thank you to everyone in the Django and Python communities who made an intro, sent me a message or just said hello at a conference this year.
Here's to year six.
Thanks for reading.
Jon
ps. If you're a company looking to hire Python or Django Developers this is all I do. 18 years in the Python world and a network built one conference at a time. Get in touch for a chat.
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