About the Contributors
Robert Eisenberg is a retired Lockheed Martin Fellow with more than 30 years of experience in the full lifecycle development of large-scale software systems. His areas of expertise include software methodologies and processes, schedule and earned value management, agile transformation, and technical debt management. He led the Lockheed Martin corporate initiative on the development of practices and methods for managing technical debt and assisted many programs in their application. Robert also led the Lockheed Martin Space Systems business area initiative to develop and implement new business models and practices based on lean and agile principles. He has presented at multiple workshops and conferences on both technical debt management and agile methods, practices, and transformation. Robert received an MS in computer science from the University of Virginia and a BS in computer science from the University of Delaware.
Michael Keeling is a professional software engineer and the author of Design It! From Programmer to Software Architect (Pragmatic Bookshelf, 2017). Keeling currently works at LendingHome and has also worked at IBM, Vivisimo, BuzzHoney, and Black Knight Technology. Keeling has an MS degree in software engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and a BS degree in computer science from the College of William and Mary. Contact him via Twitter @michaelkeeling or his website, https://www.neverletdown.net.
Ben Northrop is the founder of Highline Solutions, a Pittsburgh-based digital consultancy focused on the architecture, development, and deployment of large-scale custom software systems. In his 20 years of experience, Ben has helped to build dozens of systems across a number of industries, including transportation, finance, telecommunications, higher education, and retail. He holds two degrees from Carnegie Mellon University: a BS in Information and Decision Systems and an MS in Logic, Computation, and Methodology. His writing can be found at www.bennorthrop.com.
Linda Northrop has more than 45 years of experience in the software development field as a practitioner, researcher, manager, consultant, author, speaker, and educator. She is a Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute (SEI). Under her leadership, the SEI developed software architecture and product line methods and a series of highly acclaimed books and courses that are used worldwide. Northrop also co-authored Software Product Lines: Practices and Patterns (Addison-Wesley, 2002). She led a cross-disciplinary, national research group on ultra-large-scale systems that resulted in the book Ultra-Large-Scale Systems: The Software Challenge of the Future. Her current professional interests are software architecture, ultra-large-scale systems, and software innovations to aid children with different abilities. Find Linda Northrop at http://www.sei.cmu.edu/about/people/profile.cfm?id=northrop_13182.
Eltjo R. Poort leads the architecture practice at CGI in the Netherlands. In his 30-year career in the software industry, he has fulfilled many engineering and project management roles. In the 1990s, he oversaw the implementation of the first SMS text messaging systems in the United States. In the past decade, he has produced various publications on improving architecting practices, including his PhD thesis in 2012. Eltjo is best known for his work on risk- and cost-driven architecture, a set of principles and practices for agile solution architecting, for which he received the Linda Northrop Software Architecture Award in 2016. His solution architecture blog can be found at eltjopoort.nl. In his spare time, Eltjo plays the violin in Symfonieorkest Nijmegen. Eltjo is a member of the IFIP Working Group 2.11 on Software Architecture.
Eoin Woods is the CTO of Endava, a technology company that delivers projects in the areas of digital, agile, and automation. Prior to joining Endava, Eoin worked in the software engineering industry for 20 years, developing system software products and complex applications in the capital markets domain. His main technical interests are software architecture, distributed systems, and computer security. He is editor of the IEEE Software “Pragmatic Architect” column, co-authored the well-known software architecture book Software Systems Architecture (Addison-Wesley, 2011), and received the 2018 Linda M. Northrop Award for Software Architecture, awarded by the SEI at Carnegie Mellon University. Eoin can be contacted via his website, at www.eoinwoods.info.