Middle Tech: Software Work and the Culture of Good Enough

Why software isn’t perfect, as seen through the stories of software developers at a run-of-the-mill tech company

Contrary to much of the popular discourse, not all technology is seamless and awesome; some of it is simply “good enough.” In Middle Tech, Paula Bialski offers an ethnographic study of software developers at a non-flashy, non-start-up corporate tech company. Their stories reveal why software isn’t perfect and how developers communicate, care, and compromise to make software work—o...