About me
Who are you?
A highly enthusiastic, self-starting and responsible Tech Principal; Andrew specialises in Java / JVM technologies, agile delivery, build tools and automation, and domain driven design. Experienced across the software development lifecycle and in many sectors including government, banking, and eCommerce, what motivates them is the production of large-scale software solutions, fulfilling complex client requirements. They understand that people, tooling, architecture and process all have key roles to play in achieving this. Andrew has a passion for open source software and its communities. They have been interested in and involved with OSS to a greater or lesser extent since their career began; as a user, contributor, expert group member, or paid advocate. Finally, Andrew enjoys sharing their experience as much as possible. This sharing is not only seen in their formal consulting engagements, but also informally through mentoring, blog posts, conferences (speaking and organising), and open sourcing their code
What do you do for a living?
I am a technical principal at Thoughtworks in the UK. I'm also the author of O'Reilly's "Facilitating Software Architecture" and a trainer on their online platform.
What are you going to talk about at FlowCon?
I'm going to talk about the other influence on our code - the one we don't talk about; the societal power structures. I'm going to highlight the problems, discuss how to spot them arising, and present ways to combat them and make your code better for everyone.
What are you the proudest of?
My book, "Facilitating Software Architecture" and my kids. The book because it was a lot of work and I wasn't sure I'd have anything coherent to say. My kids because they remind me that, despite writing a book, I can still be completely clueless.
What speaker and/or topic would you like to see at FlowCon?
I want to see more people talking about architecture in the modern world of flow. I want to see architecture taken out of the echo-chamber and placed in the current context of how software might be built, maintained, and evolved *these days*.
If you were an art piece, which one would it be?
"The Wave" (1961) by Joan Eardley (https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/485). Or any picture of Nemesis the Warlock by Kevin O'Neill.
What's your favorite band, artist or song?
Cafe del Mar, by Energy 52. None of the terrible remixes though.
Sum up your session or workshop in only 1 sentence
“We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings.” Ursula K. Le Guin
What are the 3 top takeaways from your session or workshop?
1) Societal power structures make our code bad - code is structured knowledge and power
2) To see where the power lies, pay attention to who has control - of punishment, information, and who is charismatic
3) Fight uneven power distributions - by protecting everyone's freedom to reorganize, move and disobey.
