Nairobi, Sept. 13 -- In case you're new to this column, let me warn you: I don't do polite. I nitpick, I rant, and I gnash my teeth about the absurdities of corporate governance, farming in Laikipia, and now, drumroll please, the circus that is trying to find a decent software developer in Kenya.

Let me tell you a story. It starts, as all good Kenyan business horror stories do, with a referral in 2018 BC (Before Covid). I needed a developer to create a platform for a client service that I provide. Nothing fancy, just a clean, functional system that wouldn't dissolve like the increasingly potholed Limuru Road after a massive rainstorm.

A friend, bless her, she meant well, connected me to a developer who, in the retelling of his own CV, h...