Abstract

Contrary to much of the popular discourse, not all technology is seamless and awesome; some of it is simply “good enough.” In this lecture, 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—or at least work until the next update. Exploring the culture of good enoughness at a technology firm she calls “MiddleTech,” Bialski shows how doing good-enough work is a collectively negotiated resistance to the organizational ideology found in corporate software settings.

Paula Bialski is a science and technology studies scholar based at the University of of St. Gallen, Switzerland. She conducts ethnographic research on the cultures of software work and digital platforms. Her academic interests include the labor process of tech workers, including the impact of corporate culture on software, as well as how AI tools are deskilling and re-skilling tech workers.