ENSEK hosted a ‘Dev to Architecture…And How?’ event with the Harvey Nash Group
On Thursday 1st August ENSEK was excited to partner with the Harvey Nash Group for a technology meetup. The evening focused on the steps Developers need to take to become Solutions / Enterprise Architects.
We were delighted to welcome around 30 inquisitive attendants, some from as far as Birmingham and Solihull, to one of our Nottingham offices. The variety in backgrounds, businesses, and sectors made the evening interesting, with everyone united in the common interest of becoming an Architect.
It was brilliant to reinforce our belief that Nottingham is central to a thriving technology hub too.
Become a successful Architect with 3 main rules
Main Speaker, Chris Fenton from BrowneJacobs, lead an insightful and engaging presentation that focused on his 3 main rules when it comes to being a successful Solutions / Enterprise Architect:
- Significance
- Customers
- Communication.
It was fantastic to hear everyone contributing to valuable and stimulating discussions ignited by the presentation. Sharing thoughts, experiences, and suggestions on how to implement the rules into their own Dev to Architect journey. Many eager with questions for the proceeding Q&A session.
Enterprise Architect Q&A
Many of the questions to the team were around the themes of:
- Is it as simple as going from Dev to Architect or are there intermediary positions?
- How do you balance the need to deliver new features to the business whilst juggling technical debt?
- How do you overcome the inner introvert characteristics that comes with being a developer to start speaking to stakeholders and gain architectural insights?
- Do you ever wish you could just go back to coding?
The speakers were able to give enlightening and informed responses. If you’d like to continue the conversation, a Slack channel has been dedicated to the event.
Keynote, Chris Fenton, Enterprise Architect, expressed:
”
My key takeaway is that having a passion for technology is a mus
t, but in order to move into architecture you need to start to understand what is significant to your customers, who your customers are and how to communicate effectively with them. Like any set of skills, you can improve and learn. Applying these thre
e ideas at any level will be a step in the right direction.”
Stuart Cavill, Acting Head of Engineering, commented
“At ENSEK we pride ourselves on our ability to use cutting-edge technology such as Amazon Web Services, R and Node.js to deliver our award-winning SaaS platform. To avoid pitfalls of having ‘all the gear with no idea’, we understand the importance of utilising well-designed architecture to release the full potential of modern-day technologies. For this reason, we ju
mped at the chance to collaborate with Harvey Nash to host this meetup on a topic that is so pertinent to us.”
What’s next?
With the ‘Dev to Architecture…And How?’ event last Thursday being such a success, we are excited to announce a demand for future events. Suggestions for follow-up events include ‘chat bots’ and ‘gamification’ as potential themes.
If you’re keen to attend a future event, have a topic you’d like to suggest, or are looking for a new role in Development or Architecture, please get in touch with john.brown@ensek.co.uk.
Thank you to: Chris Fenton, Stu Cavill, John Meads, Steve Weston, and Matt Power for hosting a great evening! We look forward to seeing you at the next event!
