About us
Software Crafters Manchester is a space for the software engineering professionals to learn, share, and experiment together.
Founded on the principles of the Software Craftsmanship Manifesto, we bring together practitioners to sharpen their technical discipline, explore modern software engineering practices, and discuss the realities of delivering complex software in fast-moving organisations, in an AI-first environment.
Our events vary in format: hands-on coding sessions, structured discussions, expert talks, architecture katas, panel conversations and lightning talks with practitioners from across the industry. With rapid advances in AI, platforms, and tooling, the community is a place to test new ideas, challenge assumptions, and share what’s working (and what isn’t) in modern software development.
We are a community of active professionals who value:
- Maintainability and technical integrity over “just working” software
- Consistent value delivery within complex and changing business environments
- Thoughtful, respectful technical discourse across experience levels
- Productive collaboration, mentoring, and peer learning
The community is supported by Codurance, a Manchester-based software consultancy, along with local partners and venue hosts that have included Kraken, AWS, booking.com, Spektrix and JLR.
We’re always keen to hear new voices. If you have a topic, experience, or perspective to share - whether a talk, a discussion topic, or a hands-on session, we’d love to hear from you; or if you are interested in hosting or collaborating please reach out to natalie.gray@codurance.com for an informal chat!
Want to keep updated with everything Software Crafters Manchester? Great! Follow Codurance on LinkedIn and join the Software Crafters UK Slack workspace and the #sc-manchester channel when accepted.
Upcoming events
1
Lessons from the $750 Bill: Managing Massive Scale with Karam
Department Bonded Warehouse, 18 Lower Byrom Street, Manchester, GBFor our May meetup, we are thrilled to host a fantastic session hosted by Karam Kabbara, Lead Software Engineer from Kraken and Danish Javed, Senior Software Engineer from Codurance who will be discussing everything from cloud to culture via AI. Come along to learn, share and be inspired!
Details
From pricing up washing machines to customising coffins... and now saving the universe by controlling your electric vehicle while you sleep at Kraken Technologies. Unfortunately for you, you’ve probably run into code that Karam Kabbara has written at some point in your life.Karam will lead a lively discussion alongside Senior Software Engineer Danish Javed from Codurance to share the hard-won lessons that only come from working on systems at a massive scale. This isn't a lecture; it's a candid discussion about what happens when good intentions meet bad production realities.
What to expect
We’ll be hosting a facilitated Q&A and group discussion, where Karam will be opening up about his journey through some of the UK's biggest tech platforms, starting with the infamous story of how he once came home to a $750 AWS bill... and how you can avoid the same fate.We’ll be diving into:
- The True Cost of Cloud: Why "serverless" and "on-demand" can be a double-edged sword without the right guardrails.
- Building for Scale: Lessons on managing millions of connected devices and high-concurrency environments.
- Engineering Accountability: How to foster a culture where developers take ownership of the infrastructure they trigger.
- Modern Tooling: A frank discussion on the tools we use today (including the hype vs. reality of AI assistants) and whether they are making us better engineers or just faster at breaking things.
Who should attend?
This meetup is for software engineers who care about the "Craft" in Software Craftsmanship. If you’re interested in architectural patterns, cloud cost-optimisation, or just want to hear some honest war stories from a Lead Engineer at one of the UK’s biggest tech success stories, this is an event not to be missed.What to bring
- Your curiosity: This is an open-floor discussion.
- Your own "war stories": We’ll be sharing reflections as a group, so bring a time you broke something (and what you learned from it).
Note: This is a discussion-based event. While you’re welcome to bring a laptop if you’re taking notes, no live coding or specific software is required to participate.
A big thank you to Codurance for hosting the event at their fantastic office in Bonded Warehouse and sponsoring the pizza and drinks.
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