Tech Talk: Growing Software

The April 21st Galois Tech Talk will be delivered by Louis Testa, titled "Growing Software."

• Date: Tuesday, April 21st, 2009
• Time: 10:30am - 11:30am
• Location: Galois, Inc.421 SW 6th Ave. Suite 300(3rd floor of the Commonwealth Building)Portland, OR 97204

Abstract: Many small software product companies start out with a technical guru who is “promoted” to the VP of engineering. Success as the head of software development depends on skills that the technical expert may not have learned. In this new role, the newly minted manager reports to the CEO, is on the executive team, has to understand and drive the overall business strategy, defines the product, works directly with customers, and still has to manage individual software developers. I wrote Growing Software to offer advice to this new manager; it covers the advice I would have appreciated when I started out as a new manager.As Growing Software covers the spectrum of topics that the small company development manager needs to know, there are too many topics to cover in one talk. This talk will provide an overview of the book, and then focus on selected topics:

• Managing a Development Team
• Product Definition
• Technology Review
• Project Management
• Internationalization

Bio: Louis Testa has a 30 year high technology career having worked for many small software companies spanning many industries: Financial, Training, Medical, Construction, Electronics Design, Electronics Test, and Integrated Circuit. He has worked as a researcher, programmer, integrated circuit designer, and has been a senior engineering manager (VP/Director) at 6 different small companies. He currently holds several software patents and has written technical papers for conferences in the U.S. and in overseas. His first book, Growing Software, was published by No Starch Press in March 2009.Louis earned his MS degree from University of California Berkeley and his BS in Engineering from California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

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Galois has been holding weekly technical seminars for several years on topics from functional programming, formal methods, compiler and language design, to cryptography, and operating system construction, with talks by many figures from the programming language and formal methods communities. The talks are open and free. An RSVP is not required, but feel free to contact the organizer with questions and comments.