Dave Stevens
Tech, Industrial automation, AI, Transportation
Twenty years from full-stack to VP. Now leading software at Mytra, writing about where AI actually earns its place in engineering.
02Automation & intelligence
Mostly about how much rigour a piece of software has earned before it ships, and what happens to teams and hiring when effort gets cheap.
Writing
- 6 min
Latest
The Value of Being Wrong First
Putting a rough, wrong first version in front of a group is usually faster than asking everyone to invent the answer. The measure is not how much of it survives — it is how much sooner the group reaches a better one.
- 5 min
Rigor should track with consequence
There is a growing backlash to vibe coding, and a lot of it is fair. The mistake is treating one size as fitting all — effort got cheaper, so the axis that decides how much rigour an effort deserves moved.
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If you build it…
There are a lot of ideas inside companies that hang around forever — “we should be able to measure this” — because nobody ever made the thing that would measure it. Building changes the shape of the idea as you go.
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Rethinking the junior developer in the age of AI
The most common prediction about AI and software engineering is that junior developers disappear first. I think that is backwards — entry-level roles are about to matter more, not less.
A script that generates a PDF does not need the same rigour as the controller that moves a tonne of steel.
From “Rigor should track with consequence”Read the essay
03Transportation & industry
Twenty years from full-stack to VP, mostly in SaaS and ecommerce, now in industrial automation. Lately that means helping an engineering organisation work out where AI actually earns its place.
The short version
The through-line is proportion. Treating every piece of software identically wastes everyone’s time in both directions.
Off the clock
Every flight I have taken
A spreadsheet of aircraft types, airports and places, kept for no better reason than I enjoy tracking it. It got big enough that I replaced it with a real app.
Football, mostly Reading
A devoted Reading FC fan, an England follower at internationals, and an occasional guest on the Elm Park Royals podcast.
Madejski Stadium, ReadingMatch day under the lights, with the sky going pink over the far stand. 
Gare de Lyon, ParisHigh-speed trains waiting under the iron and glass roof.