Richard W. Bown - Engineering Empathy

Writer. Engineer. Thinking out loud.

I’ve spent thirty years building software systems. Long enough to feel like master of my own destiny, and yet long enough to get thoroughly frustrated that things never turn out the way you plan them.

There’s always a gap between what we build and what we intended. Between what the system does and what the humans inside it actually need.

Human Software, my debut novel, grew out of that gap — a sharp, funny and quietly unsettling story about the humans behind the systems.

My second novel is already underway. Join my newsletter, The Human Engineer to stay up to date.

TWO WOMEN. ONE SYSTEM.

BETH WALTERS has kept Gerbach’s logistics systems running through sheer stubbornness and too many sleepless nights. She knows where the bodies are buried — technically speaking.

CHRISSIE HEGARTY has flown in from New York with a mandate, a deadline, and very little patience for sentiment. She’s done this before. She knows how it ends.

They are not enemies. Not yet.