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My writings, across a wide variety of topics. For a more scan-friendly experience, use the Posts page.

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An Engineering Leaders Guide to Recalibrating for the Agentic Era

in professional on ai, leadership, software-teams, future-of-work

As experienced engineering leaders, we need to recalibrate our understanding of how software will be built in the age of AI. Here’s my current perspective on where to start and what to recalibrate. Subject to change as the landscape shifts underneath us.

After 25+ years in software engineering and leading global teams across platforms and industries, I’ve seen multiple waves of technological change. But the emergence of agentic AI—systems that act, not just assist—represents a shift more profound than anything prior. It’s not just an evolution in tooling. It’s a transformation in how software is created, operated, and evolved.

Data as a Strategic Asset; Beyond Technology to Sociotechnical Design

in professional on data-strategy, organisational-design, sociotechnical-systems

AI and agentic agents run on data and context. Most organisations treat data as a technical problem to be solved by IT. The real challenge—and opportunity—lies in understanding it as a sociotechnical system that requires intentional organisational design.

Building on previous posts about functional specialisation and agentic AI, let’s explore how the way we organise around data will become a primary differentiator between companies that thrive and those that struggle in the age of ambient intelligence.

From Silos to Systems; How Agentic AI Challenges Traditional Organisational Design

in professional on organisational-design, ai, software-teams, future-of-work

Agentic AI will force a rethink of how we structure work and teams. This post explores what organisational design principles will endure—and which will need to change as AI becomes more embedded in our daily workflows.

In a previous post, I explored how functional specialisation — at various levels of an organisation — creates hidden organisational debt that slows it down and reduces optionality. Slow delivery, brittle systems, and increasing misalignment between how we structure our people and how we want our systems to behave.

Beyond T-shaped people; The Invisible Cost of Functional Specialisation in Organisations

in professional on team-dynamics, organisational-design, software-development

Exploring how functional specialisation creates hidden organisational debt that compounds over time, impacting both team agility and organisational adaptability

Back in 2017, I tweeted that

“Functional specialisation of individuals destroys team agility. Functional specialisation of teams destroys organisational agility.”

Using the Observer-Dependent Emergent Time Model to Explain the Wave-Particle Duality of Light

in professional on physics, time, relativity, quantum mechanics

In the context of the observer-dependent emergent time model, we can provide a novel explanation for the wave-particle duality of light by considering how the observer’s interactions with photons influence the emergent perception of light’s behavior.

Authors: OpenAI o1-preview, Kevin Trethewey

Observer-Dependent Emergent Time: A Relational Framework for Fundamental Physics

in professional on physics, time, relativity, quantum mechanics

A new theoretical framework where time is not a universal constant or a shared parameter within a system but is instead an emergent property arising from interactions at all scales, contextualized by the observer’s reference frame.

Authors: OpenAI o1-preview, Kevin Trethewey, OpenAI 4o

When creating software, what really matters? @ DevConf Johannesburg 2019

in professional on talks, community, software

There’s no shortage of guidance around the internet on how to become a competent software developer. It’s an exciting road to travel. But, what comes after you’ve reached a level of competence? What’s beyond that horizon?

As a programmer in the late ’90s and 2000s, I focused on growing my competence in a pragmatic “what works?” sort of way, and readily adopted ideas that were useful. For a decade or so after that, as a coach and consultant, I frequently provided context-free general advice that was aligned to innovative ideas that had worked for me in the past but didn’t always have a lasting impact for the people and teams I was coaching. Today, as a technical leader working with teams of developers across the world, I’m growing a deepening understanding of what really matters when creating software.

I'm joining Jemstep by Invesco as Director of Engineering

in professional on jemstep, driven

In January 2018 I’ll be taking up an exciting new position outside of Driven Alliance

I started Driven in 2008. Almost 10 years and 15 full time employees on and it’s been a wonderful journey and experience. I’ve learned so much from all those that I had the privileged of collaborating with, inside Driven, at our clients, and within the wider software development community.

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