Humans in the Loop: Engineering Leadership in a Chaotic Industry

The software industry is changing at a rate we've never seen before. We're in an era of contradictory pressures: the drive for innovation and a renewed focus on costs. Balancing these challenges means getting back to basics and managing the ever-present complexity of working with hardware and humans. Sitting in this awkward place where physics meets human possibility, technical leaders must exhibit adaptability, systems thinking, and comfort dealing with complexity.

This is not an AI/ML talk, but it will examine how AI/ML is changing our jobs. It will consider how cost optimizations and resource limitations are driving more and more of our work and how the challenges of providing safe and trusted human-computer interactions are still front and center. It will cover the upsides and downsides of automation and explore how the principles of complex systems will help us navigate them. Finally, the talk will assert that foundational technical knowledge will always be needed and share how you can develop strategies to adapt in a seemingly chaotic industry.