Welcome back to I'm a Software Engineer ~ What Next? The podcast for devs figuring out their next move. Hosted by James Wilson and Matt Sinclair, we talk honestly about what it takes to build a meaningful career in tech.
This week, we're joined by Richard Bown, DevOps engineer and author of Human Software — a novel that captures the messy, human side of engineering work.
In this episode, we cover:
- Richard's winding journey from IC to manager and back — and why that detour made him a better engineer
- Why burnout, bad management, and "culture fit" aren't bugs — they're design flaws
- How writing a novel helped Richard reflect on decades in tech — and why fiction can be a powerful tool for change
⏱️ Chapters
- 0:00 Intro: Matt still hasn't moved house
- 0:18 Meet Richard Bown: 30 years in DevOps, and a novel called Human Software
- 1:16 The magic telephone: stay humble, and burning out in the first 18 months
- 2:52 The winding journey: C and C++, Unix, banks, agile, and into management
- 4:23 Why management wasn't for him: a pedestal, a lack of impact, and creativity
- 7:56 Management is not a promotion, it's a career change: nourishment by proxy
- 10:30 How reading led to writing: Accelerate, Conway's law and Team Topologies
- 13:50 Turn the Ship Around and the Phoenix Project: "I need to write a novel"
- 16:03 How to start writing: just write, then edit, and Hemingway's trick
- 19:11 Inside Human Software: a 3am incident, an exec sent to sack people
- 22:01 What humane software means: how we treat each other when the pressure is on
- 24:21 Characters as amalgams, and why architecture is a verb, not a noun
- 26:46 Why organisational design is a red herring for culture
- 29:26 What does good look like? Culture eats strategy for breakfast
- 32:45 The most surprising reaction, and why corporations make liars of us all
- 34:47 AI as a tool: summarising, sparring, and a diesel bug on a boat
- 37:06 Where AI falls down: Ansible rabbit holes and AI shoehorned into products
- 39:07 A step change like the internet, and a bright future for engineers
- 41:51 Students allergic to AI: not owning the output, and the Photoshop filter
- 44:36 Why Richard's son is anti-AI, and the jagged technological frontier
- 47:34 The book cover: a pen and ink drawing through ChatGPT, and the guilt
- 49:27 Technology leads law: is training reading or copying?
- 52:27 Wrap-up: humansoftwarebook.com and the Loving Legacy podcast
🔗 Links
🗒️ Show Notes
🗣️ Guest
- Richard Bown — DevOps Engineer & Author: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-bown/