2025-11-23 –, Breakout Room
This is talk about technical communication in large scale complex systems where operational safety is paramount. In such environments, technical phrases, formal procedures, recent biases and individual habits influence how we communicate. But in high risk environments, when miscommunications or misunderstandings occur, it can be catastrophic.
Today we’re going to learn how to fly a plane. Or, specifically, we’re going to learn how large international jets taxi and take off from a runway.
While thousands of planes take off and land safely every day, occasionally there are some close calls when disaster is averted by sheer luck or coincidence. In those circumstances, we get a safety investigation to help us learn from the mistakes and avoid catastrophic outcomes. This talk learns from one such safety report and we’ll discuss the parallels software engineers can learn from the aviation industry when communicating in complex operating environments.
Jack is a consultant CTO For Hire, specialising in all things web and APIs. He consults to small and growing software companies on patterns and practices for scaling teams and technology. He’s spent the past decade growing technical communities as a speaker, organiser, facilitator and coach.
In his spare time, Jack is also an active member of the Python community in Australia. He co-organises the recently rebooted Sydney Python Community, and is the conference director of PyCon AU 2026 in Brisbane.