The Boeing 737 MAX: When Humans and Technology Don't Mix - Kyle Kotowick - DDD Europe 2025

Domain-Driven Design Europe 2025 - Organised by Aardling (https://aardling.eu/)

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In 2011, realizing it desperately needed to offer a competitive product to Airbus’ A320neo, Boeing embarked on a project to upgrade its legendary 737 aircraft to match the A320neo’s efficiency. Limited by the constraints of the 737’s original design and their desire to minimize training needed by pilots to fly the new aircraft, Boeing made multiple critical compromises in the aircraft’s design. 346 deaths and $87 billion later, we have all been reminded of the importance of rigorous design processes and the need to engineer systems for the realities of the end users and their environment. This talk dives into the motivations for the design compromises, the human factors considerations that were disregarded, and how a Fortune 100 company’s prioritisation of profit over good design practice led to its stunning fall from grace. The lessons learned are directly applicable to all kinds of developers, from web designers to mission-critical infrastructure engineers.

About Kyle Kotowick:
Founder & CEO @ Invicton Labs
Dr. Kyle Kotowick is the founder of a Canadian consulting and development firm focusing on cloud infrastructure, security, and Internet-of-Things implementations for high-growth clients. He completed his Ph.D. in MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, joint with the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He has served as a consultant, systems architect, and developer for global firms, startups, and universities; as a project lead for military medical and communication technology; and as a researcher for military navigation systems and for life support systems in space. He specializes in working with both startups and enterprise clients to define requirements and explore possible solutions, as well as in leading the development of project architecture, cloud services, and back-end software.