A manifesto for software engineers in search of meaningful work — There’s a shit ton of programming work. A demand that isn’t matched by the talent pool. That creates a much larger gap in tech than in any other industry. And yet, software developers looking to do meaningful work have a hard time cutting through the clutter. How can developers find…

Philosophy, praxis and examples — Imagine you knew the materials destined to build homes and vehicles were flawed. Would you still build with them? Or if you knew that the ingredients that will go in your food were spoiled. Would you still eat them? The quality of the building blocks that make the lives we…

Birth of a new kind of software engineering — This article stems from a conversation that we come back to from time to time. A conversation around the idea that software engineering is changing, and it increasingly requires that teams have a deep understanding of the business side of things as much as they do the technical aspects. This…

Figuring out how to have better meetings, or none at all — A few years back, I had a great idea. I was working at a small tech consulting firm, and my days were swamped by meeting after meeting. …

A tale of spreadsheets, complexity and human nature — You’ve probably heard about the so-called “blame game” unleashed in the UK after news surfaced that the authorities failed to report nearly 16,000 positive COVID-19 cases. You’ve probably also heard that this was “caused by an Excel spreadsheet containing lab results reaching its maximum size”. There are a couple…

According to figures from February 2021, 40% of all websites are made using WordPress. The main reason behind more than 40 million websites operating on their platform is that it was one of the pioneers in allowing people to create websites without having any programming knowledge. …

What it takes to take a startup from inception to scale — A go-kart is a type of open-wheel car or quadracycle. They come in all shapes and sizes, from very simple models often made with scrap wood and ball-bearings, all the way to high-powered racing machines. While the simpler go-karts are gravity propelled, the higher-end ones are motorized and reach speeds…

The design of a product can be thought of as building a bridge: our initial problem is that we need to get from point A to point B, and there is something in the way that prevents us from simply walking to the other side. However, it is important to…

A different way of thinking about tech proposals. — Most proposals for a tech project share a problem: they consist of a few introductory sections dropping credentials, a list of scope gathered from conversations with the customer, a table with budget, a timeline with deliveries. …