Software Engineering & Product

06.11.24

About the conference

Core Festival, Stage Two, Victoria Baths

Our Software Engineering and Product conference held on Stage Two at Victoria Baths, is a deliberately curated day aimed at mid to senior level software development and product professionals interested at staying the top of their game. We welcome Testers, Engineers, Product Owners, Heads of Engineering, CTO’s, Founders, and anyone interested in cutting-edge concepts and ideas that are circulating in the industry. 

Please Note: Our Software Engineering & Product Conference is held on Stage Two during our Core Festival. When purchasing your tickets please book for the core festival!

SPEAKERS

Check out our lineup of speakers by clicking their images below! We will be continuing to announce speakers over the next few weeks, so sign up to our newsletter to be the first in the know! 

Andrew Blance

Engagement Manager
Equal Experts

Conell Sharp

Senior Software Engineer
Stack Overflow

Harry Duddridge

Client Partnerships Lead
WeShape

Rob Mansfield

Head of Data
Accenture Next Gen Engineering

Graham Binns

Interim CTOP
Tracr

Matt Whalley

Partner – Architecture, Engineering & DevOps
PA Consulting

AGENDA

Woah! We’re still busy pulling together this year’s agenda, so check out the talks below and sign up to our newsletter to be the first to hear when new talks go live! 

Andrew Blance
Innovation Consultant
Waterstons

 

SESSION OVERVIEW:Like “AI”, the “Metaverse” or “Industry 4.0”, the definition of a “Digital Twin” is woolly and mysterious. There’s a vague understanding it should include data, potentially a 3D model, and ideally, it should twin something from our reality. However, across different sectors and fields what counts as a “digital twin” varies wildly. This talk is about understanding Digital Twins through the lens of data, and creating a rubric to help you answer the question “Is this a Digital Twin?”

We will ground this all in an example built within Azure and Unity. A data modelling backend will be shown, created using a suite of Azure resources. Our front end will consist of a model created in Unity and demonstrated using the Meta Quest 3’s AR functionality. Finally, we will explore how these parts can be expanded within Azure, allowing a Digital Twin to become a base for AI models and decision-making within a business.

Connell Sharp
Senior Software Engineer
Stack Overflow

 

SESSION OVERVIEW: Deciding which things belong in which part of your system can make or break your architecture. To avoid creating a big ball of mud, we separate concerns and keep things organised. This talk takes us through different kinds of boundaries: What makes a good function? What makes a good class? A good service? We’ll discuss slicing vertically, building separate packages, and the trade-offs of splitting into many git repositories.

Then we’ll dive into the structure of a business problem domain. We’ll take tips from Domain-Driven Design about the types of subdomains we find, domain language, and how we can integrate between different Bounded Contexts.

Finally, we’ll look into the organisational structure of a company. We’ll look at Team Topologies, the types of teams, how they communicate, and how those human communication structures affect your architecture.

This visual presentation that brings these things together and aims to give you a different perspective on the structures we find.

Harry Duddridge
Client Partnerships Lead
WeShape

 

Graham Binns
Interim CTO
Tracr

 

SESSION OVERVIEW: WeShape are delighted to bring another fantastic talk to Manchester, where we delve into the transformative power of data in Diamond traceability. We have seasoned senior leaders from Tracr & WeShape discussing how they built market leading strategies across technology including Blockchain,  ML, DevOps & advanced data analytics to improve the global coverage of the traceability of diamonds.

Rob Mansfield
Head of Data
Accenture Next Gen Engineering

SESSION OVERVIEW: As the software development landscape rapidly evolves, staying ahead requires more than just adopting the latest tools—it demands a forward-thinking approach to technology, governance, and process optimisation. This session will explore how to prepare your organisation for the future of software development by building scalable and resilient technical infrastructures, implementing robust governance frameworks, and embracing innovative practices. We’ll discuss enhancing data handling and compliance while fostering a culture of continuous improvement and aligning teams across the value stream to maximise efficiency. Join us to discover key strategies for ensuring agility, quality, and innovation in an ever-changing technological landscape.

Andrew Blance

ABOUT

Innovation Consultant at Waterstons

Dr Andrew Blance currently works as an Innovation Consultant at Waterstons. Here, he works with Start-Ups, Universities, big-tech companies, and research groups to apply the emerging technology they develop to solve exciting, large-scale, real-world business problems. During his doctoral research, he investigated how AI and quantum computing can be applied to high-energy physics challenges.

Andrew enjoys engaging with the tech community and runs a local meetup group in the North East. He regularly talks around the world about AI and emerging technology. He co-hosts a podcast called Brains on the Outside, where he pitches silly, wholesome and fun business ideas.

Connell Sharp

ABOUT

Senior Software Engineer at Stack Overflow

After falling in love with coding in 2005, Connell became a fan of software architecture and design, and now spends a lot of time drawing boxes and arrows to help visualise concepts.

This led to the creation of his YouTube channel @DrawingBoxes, which establishes a simple animated visual presentation style shared by his talks and blog.

Always an advocate for developer communities, he co-organises the .NET Notts meetup, and now works at Stack Overflow where he continuously improves the site enabling communities worldwide.

Harry Duddridge

ABOUT

Client Partnerships Lead, WeShape

Harry is a seasoned client partnerships leader with extensive experience in the tech industry. As the Client Partnerships Lead at WeShape, a tech consultancy focused on delivering expertise at scale, Harry bridges the gap between Tech and Business. From his upbringing in a quiet village in Cornwall, Harry then spent his early career immersed in the world of Data and Machine Learning, and is now Co-organising one of the fastest Data Engineering meetups – Data Engineers London. 
 
Outside of work Harry likes to play darts, travel to mysterious parts of europe and follow his beloved Arsenal FC at the weekends

Rob
Mansfield

ABOUT

Head of Data at Accenture Next Gen Engineering

Rob Mansfield is the Head of Data at Accenture Next Gen Engineering, where he leads teams in leveraging data to drive innovation and deliver high-impact solutions. With a rich background as both a Data Scientist and Data Engineer, Rob thrives on solving complex data challenges and bridging the gap between technical implementation and strategic vision. His experience spans across leadership and hands-on roles, making him a versatile asset in product development. A former teacher, Rob is an engaging communicator, known for breaking down complex concepts and empowering teams through knowledge-sharing and collaboration.

Graham Binns

ABOUT

Interim CTOP, Tracr

Graham has been a Software Engineer since 2004, and has made a career out of asking “what would happen if I just…?” And then dealing with the fallout.
 
Working in open source and the commercial world he has built distributed systems and top-class engineering teams. Since 2022 he’s worked for Tracr, developing a world-leading provenance-tracking platform for the diamond industry.
 
Outside of work his life revolves around horses, a photography side-business, and finding new puzzles to solve.