Software Engineering Evolving

PLATO Lecture Series Spring, 2014 – Greeners on the Cutting Edge
Monday June 2, 1:30-3 pm, LH1

Moishe Lettvin, etsy

The process of creating software has undergone profound shifts in the past 25 years, and it has been far from a linear evolution. Everything from the languages we use to write software to the ways of delivering software to customers to the social morés around creating code has changed and is changing. At engineering-driven companies, the company culture is shaped by and shapes how software is created. In contrast, the process of building the company — hiring people — has remained relatively static for the past couple of decades. Moishe will discuss various ways of building software and its attendant culture, talk about what happens behind the scenes in hiring, and give some insights and hints about interviewing at a larger software company.

Moishe Lettvin (Evergreen attendee, 1999-2001) is an engineering manager at Etsy. He and his teammates — who all work remotely —  build tools for online communities. Prior to Etsy, Moishe was a software engineer at Google, Microsoft and a few smaller software companies.

Reading:

• Nicholas A. Christakis and James H. Fowler, Connected, Back Bay Books, 2009.  pp. 134 – end.
• Alina Tugend, “The first-job experience is constantly changing“, New York Times News Service, as published in The (Bend) Bulletin, April 6, 2014 (Optional).
• Claire Cain Miller, “The tech industry’s man problem“, New York Times News Service 4/5/2014, as published in The (Bend) Bulletin, April 13, 2014 (Optional).