Engineering & Ethics: Responsibility by Design
I was very honored to deliver the opening keynote at DevOpsDays Zürich 2026 (in Winterthur, of course) on May 6th, 2026 with my new talk, "Engineering & Ethics: Responsibility by Design".
As engineers, we might build systems that shape millions of lives, but it’s easy to lose sight of their broader impact. How do we balance the pressure to ship fast, or even AI-fast, with our responsibility to society?
I think it went well, though being a new talk some adjustments will be needed for next time!
I am interested in giving this talk in other conferences, and have submitted it a few times already, if you're interested please get in touch.
Questions & Answers
Here are a few questions that I got after the talk.
Q: How best to report repeated "violations" of my company's values?
A: I recommend keeping a written log of things that you think don't match the organisation's values. Being very specific, including dates and times, people involved and factual information about what you think is problematic, will help have constructive discussions with leadership. Vague statements such as "we never really act according to our values" are generally not helpful.
Q: It's not uncommon to see a company start with noble ethical goals, and progressively forget about ethics as the company grows and progresses. What do you think happens, and how to avoid it?
A: One scenario that I see is enthusiastic company founders having high ethical standards as they start their business, and later as the company grows having to hire more people who do not share the same values and goals. And/or lacking time or energy to communicate to their new colleagues about their ethical goals. This can easily dilute the company's ethics. Having documented values and ethical standards, as mentioned in my talk, will help. Also, focusing on growth at all costs is likely to lead to ethics becoming less important over time. There are great examples of companies which are careful to grow at a sustainable pace, as opposed to as fast as possible, in order to avoid losing their culture as they grow.
Links
Here are links to material that's presented in the talk.
- Therac 25 history by Tom's Hardware.
- ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct
- Infomaniak's data center, recovers 100% of its energy to heat buildings.
- CNBC's article on Steve Wozniak - happiness equals smiles minus frowns
- Digital Ethics, EPFL
- Digital Ethics Canvas, EPFL
- Ethics-by-Design Canvas Paper
- Responsible Software course videos, EPFL - available without login
- Responsible Software course exercises, EPFL - available without login
- Cal Newport's books
Slides
Article updated May 26th, 2026: add video recording and reorganize.