Software is everywhere, and the need to be better, faster, safer and more reliable has never been greater.
Software development has unique pressures that change those it affects. It’s a profession that creates critical thinkers. It’s a job that encourages you to keep learning, but it’s also a job of work. The quality of software is often difficult to define and hard to prove.
But what happens when software systems go wrong? The news is full of stories from the fallout from the UK’s recent Horizon software scandal to the Boeing 737 max software disasters. These terrible disasters meant people lost their livelihoods or even their lives, potentially, due to software system or software management failures.
But bad software and bad software projects don’t have to go seriously wrong to have serious consequences. Every day, mundane software systems require significant effort to create, run and support. Systems often come with an untold cost. A human cost.
This was the question that inspired me to write this book.
How much pressure do we place on those who develop and support software systems?
Exploring the human cost of software development
Inspired by a lifetime of working in software development, I wanted to write a book which has, at its heart, the visceral human experience of building, maintaining and supporting software.
Like so many others in my profession, I was moved by the fictional stories of The Phoenix Project and The Unicorn Project. When I read them, I finally felt that my experiences had been heard and were valued. But ultimately, those are both business manuals, not stories.
I wanted to explore further the difficulties building and supporting world-class software puts on individuals and families. I wanted to examine the interactions inside and outside our software teams in more detail. More than that, I didn’t want to come to a chocolate box perfect ending.
Software development is hard, so where are the books that celebrate that for itself, allow us to live with it without attempting to devise a solution?
Meet Beth & Chrissie
Bethany is a lead DevOps for the UK subsidiary of a US-based company. She lives in the fictional town of Sandport in Kent with her husband Dominic and her kids Maddie and Eric. She’s in her late 30s and she loves her job; however, she is increasingly getting tired of the middle-of-the-night support calls, the endless meetings, the new managers, the revolving door of staff, new technologies, and the increasing pressure to deliver more features, faster.
She feels like she’s losing touch with her career and her family. Sometimes, she wishes she could do the job and not care so much. Can’t she do a job well without having to progress? Can’t she just be left alone to do her work like it was earlier in her career?
Chrissie is the executive tasked with reducing costs in the UK business. As an experienced consultant, this is her first executive role and a big chance to impress her bosses after returning to work after raising her child.
Through Beth, Chrissie and their families and friends, we explore the dynamics of real-world software development in a cloud-first, always-on world where a single mistake could mean life or death.
About the author
Richard W. Bown was born and raised in the southeast of the UK. He has worked as a software engineer in London and the South-West of the UK since graduating from Bath University with a BSc/MEng in Electrical and Electronic Engineering in 1995.
In 2007, he moved to the Netherlands with his family to continue his career as a software engineer, IT consultant and engineering manager. He blogs regularly, occasionally hosts a podcast and speaks infrequently at tech conferences across Europe.
He’s married and lives with his wife and three children just outside Amsterdam.
Human Software will be published in September 2025.
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