Organizing Complexity: Behind the Screens of Software Developers

I’ve spent my career to-date building operations teams at early-stage companies, and have always been fascinated by the question: how do groups get things done? Organizing Complexity is a series of articles where I’ll be unpacking the structures and systems developed in various contexts, from software engineering to foraging ants, that enable groups of individuals to solve collective problems. The goal of this series is not to reach a forgone conclusion about what is the best system, but instead to shed some light on the process of work.

Software is magical. Whether it’s self-driving cars or an AI assistant that can make you a haircut appointment, it can be hard to fathom the role that individual humans had in bringing those innovations into our reality. And unless you’re an engineer working on those projects, you might never understand exactly how it all comes together.

I went a liberal arts school and studied psychology, so had never really been exposed to the world of software development until I found myself working for a technology startup after graduation. I remember being mesmerized by what our engineers could make appear in a matter of hours. But it was their structured and objective approach to work that fascinated me the most.