Tuesday Tech Lunches - The Speed Trap

Grab lunch with local developers and tech enthusiasts! Patrick Steger will be presenting "The Speed Trap - Re-engineering the Software Development Lifecycle for AI"! AI-powered development tools have fundamentally changed how quickly we can write software, but have the systems and processes surrounding software development kept pace? In the 1990s, a drag racing engineer developed a pulley that unlocked an additional 300 horsepower from an engine. While the breakthrough delivered tremendous power, it also exposed weaknesses throughout the rest of the vehicle. Components that performed perfectly well before were suddenly pushed beyond their design limits. Today's AI-driven software development revolution presents a similar challenge. Developers can generate code faster than ever, but traditional software development life cycles weren't designed for this level of velocity. Code reviews, testing, security, CI/CD pipelines, and organizational processes risk becoming bottlenecks or, worse, points of failure. This talk explores why accelerating software development doesn't automatically translate into faster software delivery, and how organizations can rethink their engineering practices to capitalize on AI's capabilities. We'll examine the downstream effects of AI-accelerated development, identify where traditional processes begin to break down, and discuss practical approaches to re-engineering the SDLC to improve throughput, maintain quality, and achieve greater organizational efficiency. The central takeaway: Increasing horsepower isn't enough. To realize the full benefits of AI, we need to re-engineer the entire system to handle the speed.