Gary Butcher

"But we just need something simple..." 👀 Famous last words before a software project spirals out of control! Here's what REALLY needs to happen before you kick off that bespoke software project: Define your ACTUAL problem 🎯 Not just "we need an app" - but what's genuinely broken? What's costing you money? What's making your team curse under their breath? Map your current process 📝 Even the ugly parts. Especially the workarounds Including Sharon's special spreadsheet that somehow keeps everything running Think 5 years ahead 🔮 How fast are you growing? What might change? Who needs to use this system? Get real about hidden costs 💰 Ongoing maintenance. Training time. Integration headaches. Future changes. Support costs Talk to your ACTUAL users 🗣️ Because Karen in accounts does things differently than what your management thinks happens... trust me 😅 The truth? A good bespoke software project starts way before the first line of code. Skip these steps and you'll join the "it seemed simple at first" club - and trust me, nobody wants to be in that club! 🙈 Want to avoid the common pitfalls of custom software development? Let's chat! #SoftwareDevelopment #BusinessSoftware #CTO

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A QA engineer walks into a bar. Orders a beer. Orders 0 beers. Orders 99999999999 beers. Orders a lizard. Orders -1 beers. Orders a ueicbksjdhd. First real customer walks in and asks where the bathroom is. The bar bursts into flames, killing everyone. A QA engineer walks into a bar, WITH a team of QA AI agents. Asks AI agents to test the app while drinking an ice-cold Modelo Especial. Trained AI agents order X factor of Y elements in Z universes, in parallel using customer behavior data to identify common patterns in the test coverage. The QA engineer keeps drinking and curates the strategy. Real customer walks in, and shares a Modelo with the QA engineer. Lessons: 1. AI is here to help QAs, not just replace them 2. Modelo Especial es muy deliciosa y refrescante

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Every Friday, we trade bug reports for card decks at BespokeQA Technologies. Turns out, our skills at shuffling cards are as polished as our software! 🃏♠️♥️♣️♦️ #TestingOurLuck #TeamBonding #BespokeQA #Softwaretesting #Testing #Softwareengineer

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Jazzing up payment systems for a UK EMI 🎷 We've given UK EMI's payment infrastructure a serious makeover, decking it out with the latest in acquiring gate and account software solutions. These upgrades were not just about keeping up; they're about setting the pace. Here’s the lowdown on how we tailored their setup to handle transactions smoother and kick their payment options up a notch: - Performance monitoring: Real-time tracking of crucial metrics including successful transaction rates, 3DS conversion rates, and response times for each process stage, ensuring optimal operational efficiency. - Seamless bank connectivity: Integrated online with banking systems to acquire final transaction statuses, enhancing the accuracy and reliability of payments and payouts. - Back-office optimization: Developed a back-office system for detailed transaction viewing and exporting, along with customizable routing and connection settings, which simplifies complex administrative tasks. - Advanced security measures: Robust chargeback management and card payout screening against major sanction lists. AI-enhanced fraud report implementation as required by payment systems to detect anomalies. - CoreBank system implementation: Transaction tracking, advanced tariff configuration, multi-currency support and centralised client management. Curious to know more about Mellifera’s solutions? Let’s talk!

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Nice to see my little article on the humane aspects of #TeamTopologies being picked up by this week's TechManagerWeekly from CTO Craft - thanks Andy Skipper Link to the TechManagerWeekly: https://lnkd.in/eDM823jx The newsletter includes results from a recent poll of senior engineering leaders regarding whether any of their team members are paid more. Echoes of the news this week where special advisor Sue Gray is being paid a salary of £170K which is £3K more than PM Kiers Starmer receives (excluding 'gifts' and other privileges) The results raise some interesting perspectives around hierarchies, status games, and resentment. Personally I have been in a situation as a leader where a team member was on a higher salary than I was but it didn't really bother me - the other person was technically way smarter than I was and brought a lot of value. Maybe it's because I often reflect on growing up as a kid when money was always a problem and I could never have imagined earning the kind of salaries that are commonplace in software engineering - I just appreciate having had the chance to break free money anxieties for most of my career (although they have returned a little since deciding to go all-in on getting Human-Centric Engineering off the ground). Feelings of jealousy, resentment, fear, and shame - they're often sparked by comparing salaries. I wonder if the underlying resentment is actually stronger than the 12% revealed by this survey?

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🌟 Exciting news - I'll be at London Tech Week from June 10th-12th, 2024! Come find me at stand 349 where Inspired Testing will be showcasing some innovative developments in QA 🎉 🤖 Whether you're in the market for a reliable testing partner or just curious about software testing solutions, I'd love to connect and chat with you! 📍Mark your calendars and drop by to say hello! #LTW #londontechweek #Inspiredtesting #softwaretesting

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I do love a good stat. Of the 654,000 interactions on our live platform last week, 40,800 were over our API. If your supplier doesn't offer open APIs included in the base product, and you're thinking "meh maybe we don't need em" then you are stuck in legacy la la land. API's bring the efficiency and interaction products need in a modern adaptive platform. That 1992 CSV FTP Ping Pong you are pretending works fine will bite you on the behind one day. If you'd like to learn more about how Rubixx interacts with third party systems, slide in my DMs or ask one of our clients who used to have whatever you have now.

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"So, what is it you actually do?" Sometimes I get so excited about the detail and the tech, I forget to explain what we actually do at Parallax. One of our clients' Chris Soames at Brass Monkey summed up it up really well – it's 'Value Engineering through Software'. Yes, part of that will be making an app, AWS/Azure work, backend, databases, data pipelines, connecting devices. It'll be consulting/XD/frontend and a whole host of other activities, but what really matters is building a lasting impact in the businesses we partner with by producing great software.

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There's a certain pride in your business when you manage to stay in the race just being boot strapped and been flying under the radar. We're constantly underestimated despite leading the pack on integrations, implementing new software solutions and doing a whole lotta firsts. Only difference is, we don't pay to publicize it and make a big deal. Instead, we reach out to brands directly we feel are a good fit and offer the following: No fees to utilize direct integration with ezCater and Olo for catering and ondemand delivery. We are also working to implement other integrations upon request by a brand. No per location fees. No per order tech fee if utilizing UR delivery network. No monthly fee. No tablets. Free initial consultation to optimize and evaluate your catering setup with tips and pointers for partnering with us. No contracts demanding exclusivity or time period. In-house staff delivery support and dispatch/driver app. Cheaper delivery rates on average than ezdispatch options with a specialized and equipped fleet Empowerment starts with having the right tech and tools. After all, great service from a business doesnt require locking down clients. Try reaching out to UR Services and let's grow together. #restaurants #texas #catering #delivery #technology #smallbusiness

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How important are soft credit check options to your customers? Our next Merchant Spotlight video features Dominic Corr, Head of Performance at Sofa Club. Watch it here 👇. #ecommerce #finance #retail #fintech #bnpl

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7 Million Customers. 2500 Microservices. This appears complex. But not for Monzo. A sneak peek into ‘how & what’ they implemented 👇 Background: Monzo Bank is an amazing Digital Bank! 🌞 🛠️ (a) Architecture They adopted a cloud-native approach, leveraging AWS Cloud and Kubernetes for infrastructure orchestration. They welcomed microservices architecture using Cassandra as the core database and communicating between services through RPC (initially RabbitMQ, later HTTP). Services were isolated, each managing its data and exposing Protobuf interfaces for communication. (The Image gives an idea about Monzo’s Microservices Architecture Flow) 🛠️ (b) Transition from Monolith to Microservices: Monzo initially adopted microservices, building services for core banking functions like ledgers, accounts, and authentication. They defined clear boundaries between services, each managing its data and communicating through RPC interfaces. This approach enabled an incremental transition from a monolithic architecture by adding new services while maintaining a consistent microservices-based architecture. 🛠️ (c) Scaling the Digital Bank: Their architectural choices, such as using Cassandra, Kubernetes, and microservices, enabled them to scale to over 300 engineers, 2500 microservices, and hundreds of daily deployments, even on Fridays. The isolation of services and data allowed for independent scaling and ownership changes. Uniformity in service development, through shared libraries and best practices, facilitated maintaining and scaling the codebase. To ensure operational excellence, Monzo invested heavily in observability tools like: ▪️ Grafana for visualization, ▪️ Jaeger for distributed tracing, ▪️ Prometheus for metrics collection, ▪️ OpenTelemetry for instrumentation, ▪️ Elastic search for centralized logging. Making informed technological choices aligned with organizational capabilities helped Monzo maintain consistency and quality as the codebase grew. 💡 Found it useful? Repost and follow Simform for more simplified explanations of complex engineering concepts. #monzo #microservices #awscloud #cloudmigration #softwareengineering #simform

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Lunch time thought Whilst I love that git is a wonderful event sourced distributed ledger I also like that its criminal to rewrite commits because of this But I also hate that once again I committed something I wish I hadn't and now i have to go change the roles This to me smells of a design problem - how can we as an industry be exposing ourselves to this risk like this? There has to be a better way. There is a usability problem in here - I know better, but when going fast it is excruciatingly easy to miss something. I keep seeing console *commands* with *secure data* in them that should never be there. We have a system that has bad cohesion. The command changes as the API changes The secure data changes when the organisation changes But our API munge these to seperate reasons for change together into a single command. Should we start giving examples of things like that that depend upon env vars only? What do you think? #CI #ContinuousImprovement #XP #Security Sure pre-commit hooks are great - but when github actions are easy to edit inline we really need something to check for id like strings and really interrogate us wrt comitting them.

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This Thursdays Throwback revisits our article on What Mobile App Testing Can Do and Why It's Important - 42 Interactive https://bit.ly/3rKv3ms From the perspective of a digital agency specialising in custom-built software, design, build, and maintenance, mobile app testing is critical for ensuring that applications meet functionality, usability, consistency, and security objectives. Given the diverse specifications of mobile devices, thorough testing is essential to identify and resolve bugs pre-launch, guaranteeing an optimal user experience across all platforms. For agencies lacking the resources for in-depth testing, partnering with specialised firms can ensure high-quality outcomes, safeguarding the app's performance and the agency's reputation. #MobileAppTesting #SoftwareQuality #DigitalAgency #AppDevelopment #UserExperience #TechInnovation #QualityAssurance

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This months Rust Manchester is this Wednesday and we've got 2 great speakers: - Michael Jones: Leptos - A cutting-edge Rust framework for the modern web. - sean borg: My experience using Crux for an android app Using a Crux Rust core in an android app, how I handle multi-page with the elm model and dealing with ffi For more details and sign up: https://lnkd.in/eVpJvqHy #RustLang #Leptos #Crux #WebDevelopment #Android

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“The strongest partnerships are aligned from the very beginning with 100% shared goals & objectives” That’s one of the secrets to creating powerful of partnerships according to Katie Keith, Head of Enterprise Partnerships at Currencies Direct 🤩 Brilliant advice, thank you Katie! In our latest episode of Game Set Match Up - The Partnerships Podcast, Katie kindly shared her practical advice & tips, and experiences when it comes to creating partnerships and scaling businesses 🚀 Grab a coffee and take a listen - link 🔗 to the full episode is in the comments below 👇 #partnerships #findr 

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Devin CEO shares his provocative vision for the future of software development. A view I wouldn’t have believed 30 days ago…. What changed? "I think there's actually going to be way more software engineers, not fewer... but also I think the kind of job we'll be doing as engineers day-to-day is going to change… where it'll be more like being halfway between a product manager and a technical architect." What seemed futuristic a month ago now mirrors my recent experience in building with #Cursor, #Claude, #Replit and #V0. The future is more 'guide' than 'coder'. Key interview insights: 1. 🤖 Agent Coding Economics: AI agents as collaborative partners in the development process fundamentally changes the economic approach to software creation. - Cheaper, faster, and infinitely available code generation increases how many projects a company can tackle at once. - Lower hurdles on scalability and reusability to justify coding investment = more bespoke code tackling very specific or transient problems. These tiny gains compound. - Expect a Cambrian explosion of 5 to 10 person profitable, highly verticalized SaaS companies. "The #Toast of XYZ niche sub market" 2. 🧠 Evolving Skill Set: Developers need to pivot their focus from writing every line of code to: - Breaking down complex problems - Designing robust system architectures and anticipating edge cases - Crafting precise instructions for AI agents 3. 📊 Product Management Integration: The line between developer and product manager is blurring. Future developers will need to: - Deeply understand user needs - Translate business requirements into technical solutions - Prioritize features based on both technical feasibility and user value What are your thoughts on these predictions? Are you experiencing these shifts in your work? Link to full video here in comments. #FutureOfCoding #AIAgents #SoftwareDevelopment

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We enjoyed a dinner all about "payment tasting" this week with leaders from some of the biggest businesses in FS. We wanted to know. How did they struggle to test their apps? What makes testing payments more difficult? How can we deliver trusted applications when users are moving their money – when they're at their most vulnerable? 🤔 We heard that: 🧑‍💼 Large businesses have to rely on asking around internally for colleagues with the correct location and payment instrument to fulfil tests ❌ It's a struggle to get coverage of all the payment instruments you need even with concerted effort 🤖 Use of AI to parse unstructured data in signups only makes it more difficult 🌬️ There's a nightmare of unwanted personal data to deal with when testing and reviewing payment flows We've helped hundreds of businesses test their payments. So if the above sounds like you, check out our offering here: https://lnkd.in/eb3hx2ad

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