Webinar: An Accidental Programmer’s Journey to Offshore Development & the Shortcuts He Learned Along the Way

Thursday, September 30th, 2010 Steve Mezak

0

• Tweet
• Share on Tumblr

• Tweet
• Share on Tumblr

Webinar recorded with a live audience

TIP: After you hit the PLAY arrow, you’ll be able to toggle the Full Screen switch
in the bottom right corner of the player. (It looks like an X.)
Then you can easily use the Table of Contents to navigate through the presentation.

In this 60-minute webinar, you’ll hear how a smart guy with a PhD in Electrical Engineering accidentally became a programmer and then was thrust into outsourcing his software development instead of building it himself. How did he do it? What worked, and what didn’t?

Download the Accidental Programmer’s Journey webinar handout describing the main points and for note taking.

Download the webinar transcript & read about an offshore software development journey via Ruby on Rails with smart documentation shortcuts.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND: This webinar is for you if you are not sure how to get results from an outsourced software development team. Find out what your specifications absolutely need to include to cut across the long distances and cultural differences to make your offshore outsourcing engagement a success.

Keith HardwickeFounder K&L Consulting

Keith Hardwicke will tell you about: What drove him to stop developing software in-house and use offshore teams instead Which documentation programmers ignored — and which they actually used The most effective artifacts he now provides to offshore teams How he selected an offshore IT vendor on his most recent project The reasons he chose Ruby on Rails as his development platform And more. . .

Nataliya AñónCEO of Svitla

Nataliya Añón will tell you about: How (and why) she started an IT company in Kiev, from California, 7 years ago What really differentiates Ukrainian engineers from other software developers What she thinks about clients like Keith and the current status of his project What the word Svitla really means!

Kostya Kharchenko VP of Engineering of Svitla

Kostya Kharchenko will tell you about: How Ukrainian software engineers got so darned smart Why they often go beyond the specs to deliver truly innovative software How they’ve removed language barriers with their U.S. customers

Steve Mezak CEO of Accelerance

Moderator Steve Mezak included plenty of time for live Q&A immediately after the presentation. If you’re thinking about outsourcing your software development, don’t miss the chance to replay the entire broadcast! Recorded with a live audience on September 30, 2010

About the Speakers:

Keith Hardwicke is Keith Hardwicke, Chief Technology Officer and Co-founder of K&L Consulting – a Software Development firm specializing in helping companies manage complex outsourcing projects. Hardwicke has over 18 years of experience developing and managing software products, systems, and solutions. He works as a technical individual contributor as well as a leader in all parts of the product development cycle, including product conception, implementation, and product maintenance. He is a firm believer in lowering the cost of doing quality product development projects by applying the proper combination of Specification, Project Management, Automated Testing, and outsourcing.

Keith has worked with a variety of software companies including Sunshine Learning Systems, PLATO Learning, Lightspan Corporation, and Academic Systems. Keith has held several senior management positions including VP of Product Development, Chief Architect, and VP of Engineering. He has a BS, MS, and PhD in electrical engineering, with a concentration in mathematics, from the University of Texas in Austin, Texas.

Nataliya Añón is a serial entrepreneur, who has solid international business experience in general management, entrepreneurship and business development. Prior to founding Svitla in 2003, Nataliya founded, built and led Lohika Systems. Prior to that, Nataliya held several management positions at Ernst & Young in Washington DC, New York City, and London. Nataliya has also developed a significant private equity and venture capital experience in the U.S. and the UK where she made investments in emerging technology and manufacturing companies. Nataliya is a member of the Fourth Class of the Growing Entrepreneurs Mentoring Program administered by the Committee of 200, a national organization of prominent women business executives. Nataliya holds an MBA from Stanford Business School.

Konstyantyn “Kostya” Kharchenko is the VP of Engineering  at Svitla.  He has more than 20 years of experience in development and design of complex software systems. Prior to Svitla, he worked for more than 12 years for large companies such as Digital Equipment Corp., Compaq Corp, Intel, Panasonic. Konstyantyn has extensive experience in the area of methodology of software development, modern software standards, and state-of-the-art large scale web-applications. His strong engineering background allows him to analyze, forecast and estimate research projects and create technologies of the future. Kostyantyn is a stalwart of UML design, Test-Driven-Development methodology and software usability activist. He is an author of many computer science papers about software development and parallel computing. Kostyantyn holds a MS, PhD in Computer Science from Kyiv Politechnic Institute, one of the top academic institutions in Ukraine.

Steve Mezak is author of Software without Borders and CEO of Accelerance, Inc., a global software development firm with over 20 software development partners in a dozen countries. As a technical entrepreneur and veteran of six Silicon Valley startups, Steve mastered global software development in a variety of management and technical roles, including CTO and CEO with more than 25 years of software development experience. Steve attended UC Berkeley, the City University in London, and holds a BS Degree in Computer Science from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He continues to serve as an adviser to WPI’s Electrical and Computer Engineering Department.  Steve is co-chair of the SDForum Software Architecture and Modeling SIG and member of the IEEE Professional Activities Board IT Committee.