Software Engineering after Covid-19

  Closing Keynote by Kalle Dalheimer (CEO at KDAB)

Abstract

At KDAB the Covid lockdown created only limited disruption, mainly because our project teams have always been distributed. Nevertheless, individuals did experience difficulties balancing home-working with home demands as well as social isolation.

The pandemic gave us the opportunity to learn from disruption and to question whether what we are doing is really worth the term “engineering”. What might prevent us from doing proper engineering? What tell-tale indicators are there that we might not be? What kind of pressures from customers and internal management might contribute to this and might there be solutions?

Could it be that software companies have something to learn from open-source practices, that might require them to change their culture?

About the speaker

Kalle is the President and CEO of KDAB. He has actively developed with Qt since 1996 and is a founding member of the KDE project. He has written numerous books, both in English and in his native German, including “Running Linux” and “Programming with Qt”. Kalle holds an MS in Computer Science and has taught many Qt classes for companies like Ericsson, Motorola, and Hewlett-Packard. In his spare time, he enjoys orienteering, cross-country skiing and reading history books.