Every day developers have to work with code influenced by past decisions made by non-technical departments. Every day there are defects and other obstacles caused by non-technical factors that are nonetheless reflected in your code. Isn’t it time we make the implicit explicit, and embrace the organic, evolving nature of our software?
In this talk I will share many experiences I have had with such problems. I will draw out the common factors that underpinned these difficulties, describing not only how they presented in code, but also the causes that led to them. I will introduce Holistic Engineering, the practice of designing tech thinking of all the intrinsic parts of the organic system, embracing how people, management, organizational structure, budgets, company goals, production vision, security and even the political climate impact directly your code. This talk will help you better understand the boundaries of the organic system you are making technical decisions for and apply strategies to incorporate technical and non-technical factors to your decision process for your ever evolving organic system.
Interview:
What is the focus of your work?
Solving problems. I aim to evolve the system I am working on towards the best outcome we can realistically achieve, influencing or taking into consideration all the variables of the system: human, technical, organizational, relationships, culture and the point in time.
What’s the motivation for your talk?
Seeing so many projects not achieve their potential successful outcome due to the lack of understanding of variables that are not technical.
Who is your talk for?
Architects, Staff+ engineers, technical leaders and anyone in engineering or from a different department with the responsibility to make difficult decisions under real constraints.
What do you want someone to walk away with from your presentation?
To get over themselves and embrace the idea that in order to have the best project outcome and architecture you need to factor in your decision process a much larger set of variables than just the technical ones.
What do you think is the next big disruption in software?
Ethical engineering. I think in the upcoming years we will focus a lot more on how the choices we make in software will impact the world around us at that point in time and in the future. In order to be able to do so, we need to embrace being part of a bigger system than our engineering department and work on solving problems holistically.
Speaker
Vanessa Formicola
Principal Engineer @FloHealth, Ex Thoughtworks & Microsoft, Community Builder and Social Change Advocate
Principal Engineer at Flo, ~15 years of industry experience (Microsoft/ThoughtWorks) and 5+ years in leadership roles. Experienced with high scale backend systems, legacy modernization and infrastructure as code across multiple domains and tech stacks.
Primarily focused on transformation of software systems and enablement of teams with varied backgrounds. Experienced working with distributed global teams (multi-tz).
Creator of knowledge sharing/D&I communities, public speaker and social change advocate; cofounder of ShareIT and Intertwined Arts.
Find Vanessa Formicola at:
Date
Wednesday Apr 9 / 10:35AM BST ( 50 minutes )
Location
Mountbatten (6th Fl.)
