Engineering leader, researcher and advisor

AI has changed the work. Now the system around it has to change.

I work with leaders to understand what AI really changes for their organisation, and help them redesign the system around it - from how engineers work to keeping agentic systems safe and under control.

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Research on the impact of AI on software engineering, cited by Martin Fowler and DX. Invited to the Thoughtworks Future of Software Development Retreat in Utah.

Speaking including keynotes at Agentic Engineering Day, AI Engineer Melbourne and YOW! Tech Leaders Summit, and guest talks at Google and Air New Zealand.

Writing for LeadDev, and co-author of IT Revolution's Sociotechnical Architecture of AI-Enabled Enterprises. Interviewed by Business Insider on the engineering identity crisis.

Advisory board member for the Department of Electrical, Computer and Software Engineering at the University of Auckland, representing software engineering.

How I can help

I work as a consultant on a focused piece of work, as an advisor on retainer, as a fractional CTO, or as a speaker and workshop facilitator at your leadership and engineering events.

Find out what's really in the way

We start with your goals and the obstacles you see. Then I talk to your leaders, engineers and the business to find the root causes, not the symptoms, and we build a plan around your unique context.

Make better decisions about AI

A thinking partner for the people who decide. Working sessions on what AI can do for you, how work needs to change, and how to design control into agentic systems.

Help your teams make the change

Workshops team by team, on your own tickets and repos, with your engineers driving. We capture the tacit knowledge in people's heads so your AI tools have the context to do good work.

Research partnerships

Let's study it together

I'm always looking to collaborate on research - with universities, research teams, and organisations that have data, a question, or a team willing to try something new.

The question behind all of my work: how do we redesign the software development lifecycle, and the engineer's role within it, for the agentic era?

The people

Supervisory engineering workhow the job shifts from writing code to directing AI, evaluating its output and correcting it when it's wrong
Human factors and supervisory controldecades of automation research, applied to working with AI agents
Developer experiencethe productivity-experience paradox, and what to measure when engineers supervise rather than author

The system

Control theory and cyberneticsreimagining the software development lifecycle as a control system
Agent enablementthe context, skills and guardrails agents need to make good decisions, and who curates them
Formal verificationproving what AI builds, so trust doesn't depend on reading every line

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