Simon Maple

John Rouda and I covered so much in our conversation on his podcast - A Geek Leader - but, as usual, it was great to have a chat about how to have better conversations. We covered listening including asking genuine questions, carefully planning interactions, and using methods like 'Say what you See' and TDD for People. Even better, this is just one of many topics we covered! Listen in full and let me know what was most useful to you. https://lnkd.in/ePqHRebg

2

"But we just need something simple..." 👀 Famous last words before a software project spirals out of control! Here's what REALLY needs to happen before you kick off that bespoke software project: Define your ACTUAL problem 🎯 Not just "we need an app" - but what's genuinely broken? What's costing you money? What's making your team curse under their breath? Map your current process 📝 Even the ugly parts. Especially the workarounds Including Sharon's special spreadsheet that somehow keeps everything running Think 5 years ahead 🔮 How fast are you growing? What might change? Who needs to use this system? Get real about hidden costs 💰 Ongoing maintenance. Training time. Integration headaches. Future changes. Support costs Talk to your ACTUAL users 🗣️ Because Karen in accounts does things differently than what your management thinks happens... trust me 😅 The truth? A good bespoke software project starts way before the first line of code. Skip these steps and you'll join the "it seemed simple at first" club - and trust me, nobody wants to be in that club! 🙈 Want to avoid the common pitfalls of custom software development? Let's chat! #SoftwareDevelopment #BusinessSoftware #CTO

26

7 Comments

Want to watch me build an app in 30 minutes at SXSW London? 👀 Only joking… sort of. The way we code and build apps is changing FAST, and I think its super important that engineers are keeping up with the most up to date workflows and tools. Tools like Copilot and Cursor are making development faster, smarter, and more accessible than ever. At SXSW London, I want to show you how to harness these tools for your own projects. My hands-on talk will explore the AI transforming app development and what it means for the future of our industry. But I need your vote to make it happen. ➡️ Sign up for a SXSW voting account and hit the heart on my session page here: https://lnkd.in/eRmSSUnu

23

As CTO of Agilebase, I'm excited about the potential of No Code to transform Bristol tech. Here's how. 1. No Code reduces development costs and time-to-market for startups and established businesses alike. 2. It democratizes software development. It puts powerful tools in the hands of non-technical founders and teams. 3. No Code enables rapid prototyping and MVP creation, crucial for startups seeking investment. 4. Flexible No Code solutions like Agilebase create scalable back-office systems. They grow with your business. Agilebase helped CH Foods in South Wales grow from a startup to a 200+ employee company. We're proud of this success and are eager to replicate it here in Bristol. To kickstart a No Code movement in Bristol, we need: 1. Regular meetups and events focused on practical No Code applications 2. A supportive community for knowledge sharing 3. Collaboration with existing tech support organizations like Techspark and SetSquared No Code isn't just about efficiency - it's about changing who gets to build and innovate. Let's work together to make Bristol a No Code hub and unlock the potential of our diverse tech community. Who's interested in joining a No Code Bristol initiative? Comment below or reach out to me. #NoCode #BristolTech #Innovation #Startups #Agilebase https://lnkd.in/epuUCcDm

1

Want to know how to grow your Internal Develop Platform? Join me at CIOXUK next week where I'll be revealing the blueprint I've successfully used to help catapult their platforms from niche interest to mainstream adoption. GitLab #idp #platformengineering #devex

30

I put together some tips that software engineers may find useful when it comes to organising & arranging their CV. Share this with someone you know or tag them if you think they'd find it useful? #CV #Interviews

43

As you know, I firmly believe that the best lessons you can learn come from learning on the job. It’s why I joined Multiverse, and it’s why I am so excited about our latest program offering – Advanced Software Engineering. Delivered over two years of on-the-job training, our Advanced Software Engineering program will allow companies to upskill their teams and fill open roles with skilled talent, and it gives apprentices opportunities to drive complex advanced projects in the field of software engineering including cyber security, machine learning and working with the cloud. Throughout my career, constantly learning new skills and reinventing myself has been the key to my success, and I’m proud to say that now workers in the UK have even more opportunities to do the same – giving them access to some of the best-paid, most prestigious software roles across the country. Read more about this exciting new program, and see how you could start upskilling workers today! https://lnkd.in/ejpt7aaa  #SoftwareEngineering #SoftwareEngineer #upskilling #SoftwareDeveloper 

53

1 Comment

📢 📢 📢 The electorate has spoken! The next Workshop Wednesdays session (3 July) will be on Kotlin coroutines and concurrency. How much do you know about scopes, contexts and jobs? What really happens in a suspend function? I've updated the listing and you can sign up right now (https://lnkd.in/dNY6MCgG), it's free and takes place online. Thanks to all 209 of you for taking part in the vote! We'll do the other sessions soon too, the Bluetooth probably next, as that came second (and it's suuuuper fun). #androiddeveloper #kotlin

20

So, at lunch today, I was asked how I run my dev team, given that it's 100% remote and fractional. The honest answer is that I don't run them. We set priorities and standards, and they liaise amongst themselves and the tester to ensure the work is done and the code is reviewed and tested. Each week, we check in on chat with a status update on what is done and what is next. Everything is offline, done via chat and email for a good reason. We have people in the UK, Vietnam, Australia and NZ. The image below is from last night's meeting at 8 p.m., our first real-time meeting in months, to accommodate the time zones. It explains why I don't want to have meetings. Not because the person was late but because they should be spending time reading their kid a book rather than working.  Now, in reality, no one in the meeting cared. There were three of us there: two dads and one soon-to-be dad. The first 10 minutes were spent talking about our first kids. After 20 minutes, the background on the next piece of work was explained, tasks were set, and the meeting was over. #Leadership #RemoteWork #WorkLifeBalance #TechTeams

2,327

91 Comments

There was so much more to say about last week's funding announcement than we could fit into a blog, to really express our vision at Tessl to deliver an AI Native Development platform - so I recorded a special podcast episode about it, with Ben Galbraith and Simon Maple. We had a great discussion around: - What is AI Native Development and how does it redefine the traditional software development workflows? - What distinguishes Tessl's approach to AI Native Development from existing AI-powered tools? - Insights into a spec-driven, pluggable, and open ecosystem model - What role do LLMs play in filling gaps in specifications, and how does Tessl address challenges like validation and randomness in AI-generated code? - How does Tessl's platform approach spec generation, decomposition, and system validation? - What are the goals and timelines for Tessl's product release?  👉 Full Episode: https://tessl.co/4fvfXJ4  🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://tessl.co/4fYeuem 🎙 Spotify: https://tessl.co/48XGDjk #AINative #Tessl #SpecCentric #Funding #AINativeDev

121

8 Comments

Are you struggling to attract and retain top talent in software engineering? With rapid advancements in technology, finding skilled people who can keep up with ever-evolving industry trends is more challenging than ever. ⚠️ rmg digital's latest white paper breaks down the strategies to stay ahead.💡 Whilst it's not rocket science, it can be a tough balancing act to get it right. I've seen plenty of companies do a great job of this with others getting it badly wrong. 🤔 Check out the full report below 👇 #SoftwareEngineering #TalentAcquisition #EmployerBranding #CareerDevelopment

6

One of my goto lines: "What if we just spent a day building a nice spreadsheet?" If it brings 80% of the value for 1-2% of the cost, maybe we should just start there. In time, if the spreadsheet evolves and matures, and the business process evolves and matures, and it becomes clear EXACTLY how the custom software should be designed/built, THEN it might make sense to solidify that into a custom solution. -- Related, my other first suggestion for automation is: "Do you have a checklist for this process, yet? It's a really low cost way to get a ton of early automation value." Existing employees can use the checklist. The checklist can evolve as more edge cases are discovered about the process. Eventually, it's so clean and stable, but taking longer than it ought to, that crystalizing the logic of the checklist into an actual program might make business sense. -- Start small. Only build custom when you really need to, and after exhausting the low-hanging fruit options. You might discover that you don't need custom at all. But if you do, you'll at least benefit from significantly reduced development costs due to having a rich algorithm clearly written down already.

12

7 Comments

In next week's webinar with BlueStar 's Sarah Thompson, CEDS and Joy Holley, one of the things we'll be talking about is spotting deepfake videos. Here's a video I created yesterday using Raceway, depicting a building adjacent to Central Park. Some observations: 1. If you do a screen grab and a reverse image search, you'll find that this location, though it looks a lot like Central Park, doesn't actually exist. 2. If you look closely at the intersection between the moving part of the building and the non-moving part of the building, the floors/mechanism are very distorted and appear to defy physics. 3. The video includes no standard metadata beyond what is required to render the video. 4. Raceway includes a watermark in the bottom right corner (at least for the free version) There are many other techniques for determining the authenticity of a video. Learn more with Pinpoint Labs, BlueStar and Joy Holley at the webinar on the 6th, moderated by Maribel Rivera. Sign up here: https://lnkd.in/gDfBTMzn #GenAI #Deepfakes #Forensics #Defensibility #Raceway

12

Tomorrow I’ll be hosting the first of a series of webinars to explain why the Flexible AI Upskilling Fund is for you 🫵 If you are a professional, based in the UK working for an SME, you may be eligible for up to £10k in grant funding to train your people in AI. In this webinar I'll cover: • What AI could do for your business • What is UK government's 'Flexible AI Upskilling Fund' • Eligibility and funding details • The application process & how to apply • How to select the right AI training I'll also be releasing exclusive content, to help you make a successful application. If you don’t think AI is for you, think again. You don’t need to be able to BUILD AI systems to USE AI systems. AI is for everybody and I’ll show you why. Register for the webinar here: https://lnkd.in/egTtwDuT

33

2 Comments

Being able to view the source of a page is how I learnt a lot about how websites came together and developer tools gave me the biggest insight into how CSS layouts were put together. My thoughts on the move away from standard HTML:

6

I'm delighted to be offering coaching scholarships to engineering leaders from underrepresented groups. I've teamed up with some fantastic coaches to offer a number of free scholarships. If you're interested, please see the link in the comments below, or equally please forward to anyone you think might be interested. #coaching #scholarships #engineering #leadership

21

5 Comments

It's hack day at Parallax today, but I'm getting ready to go to Glastonbury, so I've got in there a little bit early with my experiment. This is an example of using AI completely locally within a browser extension to extract just the recipe from the page. It uses: - Google Chrome Extension Side Panels - A 'content script' which grabs the page contents - A completely local and offline Gemini LLM, this takes the text and adds an additional prompt Advantages of local inference/LLMs: - Privacy and cost-conscious, similar to how Apple Intelligence does a large proportion of the processing on-device - Unlocks use cases that wouldn't be viable by sending every page view to the cloud - Can be used in a blended approach, so once the local AI spots an opportunity to help, a user could 'opt-in' to further help, which then makes it clear what information is being used and why. - It's cool.

45

2 Comments

Excited to share a sneak peek from our latest episode of the DevReady Podcast featuring the talented Kirsten Cilliers, Product Manager at PX4 Software!   In this clip, we dive into the vital role of product managers in bridging the gap between technical and non-technical teams. Kirsten shares invaluable insights on how a diverse skill set and technical knowledge can enhance communication and drive successful product outcomes. As we discussed, effective product management isn’t just about managing tasks; it’s about fostering collaboration across departments and ensuring that everyone is on the same page.   A huge thank you to Kirsten Cilliers for sharing his expertise and experiences with us! Your insights will undoubtedly resonate with those navigating the complexities of product management.   If you’re a project manager looking to streamline your processes and enhance collaboration, check out Aerion's DevReady process. We help you transform your product ideas into clear, actionable plans, bridging the gap between vision and execution. Let’s build something great together!   Links to the episode are in the comments! #ProductManagement #Collaboration #DevReady #TechLeadership #Innovation

9

1 Comment