2025-09-30 –, Room 1
Earlier this year I led TCG's technical team for a competitive real-time development challenge vying for a $40 million contract with the Department of Treasury. What began as a seemingly simple "one-day code challenge" rapidly devolved into a month-long race to prepare the Release One build needed to just begin the challenge day. Our final solution featured a full DevOps pipeline, Terraform deployment, multi-region failover Kubernetes infrastructure, and a comprehensive web application with AI image processing. This was all delivered under immense pressure within a one month schedule and limited customer access.
This isn't theoretical; it's a raw, honest look at real-world challenges. We'll delve into the critical, sometimes painful, lessons learned about DevOps principles and Agile anti-patterns that surfaced under fire. I believe these in-person live coding and technical assessments will become increasingly common in contract competitions, especially as AI blurs the lines of expertise when presented via written proposals.
Join us for immediate, practical steps your teams can implement, drawn directly from our experience competing in a real-time development challenge vying for a $40 million contract with the Department of Treasury. This isn't theoretical; it's a raw, honest look at real-world challenges. We'll delve into the critical, sometimes painful, lessons learned about DevOps principles and Agile anti-patterns that surfaced under fire:
• Why Continuous Integration from Day One isn't just best practice—it's a survival mechanism. We'll share our practice run panic and how targeting the "perfect CI pipeline" nearly derailed us.
• How to establish an effective customer surrogate when direct stakeholder collaboration is impossible, and why their early feedback is non-negotiable, even in a challenge scenario.
• The unexpected payoff of a production-ready mindset in a demo environment, and how small efforts can save your project during a live presentation.
• Navigating the tricky balance of tooling choice and team familiarity: When powerful tools become bottlenecks, and why a gelled team outperforms a collection of individual experts.
• The often-overlooked secret weapon: realistic team availability. Discover how managing after-hours expectations impacts velocity and team morale.
This talk offers concrete, actionable takeaways for anyone navigating complex software development on a laughably short timeframe, whether you're competing for a new contract or launching your startup MVP. We’ll share the "aha!" moments and the pitfalls, providing practical pro-tips to help you succeed in your next race to release 1.0.
Al Crowley is a Principal Engineer at TCG where he has built web applications for the federal government since 1996. He currently serves as TCG's DevSecOps Capability Captain, driving initiatives to integrate security and automation into the development lifecycle. Al is a company evangelist for these best practices, both internally and externally. He previously led the South Jersey Python Development Group and actively provides training and mentorship within TCG. A proud alumnus of Villanova and the University of Pennsylvania, Al loves being part of the tech and social culture in Philadelphia.