Easy Recipe for Engineering and Research Success


July 18, 2024

Over my 25 year career as a software engineer building and deploying disruptive technologies for the US intelligence community, one simple idea became clear. If you want to build successful tools and systems that will be adopted by a community then you must work closely with that community throughout the development process. You might be saying, "duh!", but over and over again engineers and researchers ignore this important concept.  Check out the simple recipe for success after the podcast recommendation.

Episode 31: Rethinking Data Science, Machine Learning, and AI of the Vanishing Gradient podcast specifically addresses the importance of understanding user's needs and data with example after example.  Credit to Hugo Bowne-Anderson (the host) and Vincent Warmerdam (the guest) for an enjoyable, accessible, and very important conversation. Thank you both!  I highly recommend the Vanishing Gradient podcast in general. Try giving it a listen if you are an engineer or researcher focused on delivering meaningful impacts from your work.

So here is the simple recipe for engineering or research success:

  • add engineers or researchers
  • add users or research community members
  • add data from the user or research community
  • stir and mix constantly until the engineers or researchers better understand the user or community perspectives
  • bake into all stages of the development or research process
  • enjoy the taste of success

 

AI was not used to create this content, at least not directly or intentionally.