There’s more to Python than the language. And there’s more to Build Engineering than building code.
An entire ecosystem of amazing tools sit just beyond the atmosphere of Python’s interpreter. It’s a Build Engineer’s job to ensure you’re using the right ones, configured the right way, and that they run cohesively. As IBM Watson Orders' Build Engineer I am the guardian of the developer experience of almost 100 engineers and data scientists in a Python monorepo. In the past year pre-submit time plummeted, the ease-of-use of local development tools skyrocketed, and I became a maintainer of an Open Source Build System. I am restlessly passionate about their developer experience as well as yours. You should be too.
Come find out why Build Engineering is important to you and your org, through one person’s constant struggle to expect better, how to find and foster Build Engineering, and how you can build better Python for yourself and others.
Build Engineering is a labor of love whose benefits can outstretch beyond one project or organization. Allow me to share with you what Build Engineering is, why it is important to you, and how we all stand on the shoulders of giants.
#### What is Build Engineering?
Build Engineering encompasses more than the instructions we give computers to assemble and deploy our code. It is the incorporation of all the processes/workflows that the humans use to build software. In that sense, Build Engineering is responsible for the team's Developer Experience: the experience of the interaction between the human and the software.
Build Engineering doesn't have to come from a Build Engineer either. Although sufficiently large organizations hire dedicated Build Engineers, Build Egnineering can come from anyone motivated enough to care.
#### Why should I care about Build Engineer/Developer Experience?
The truth is every developer is having an experience with their tools (or more accurately multiple experiences, but let's simplify). Some have it better than others. Good tooling can lead to fast turnaround times, higher code confidence, and happy devs. Bad tooling can result in slow, unhappy devs working in a difficult codebase.
#### Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
Want to jumpstart your own team's Build Engineering? Come find out the mix of tools I've blended for the developers at IBM Watson Orders, with a focus on speed, cohesion, and simplicity. What else exists in the Python-verse and how they could boost your team? And finally, where we as an ecosystem have room for improvement.
