Vanessa Formicola Menu

About

Vanessa Formicola

I'm an engineering leader and sociotechnical architect. I treat architecture, organisation design, and engineering culture as one problem — because they are.

Over 15 years I've worked across Microsoft (Skype), ThoughtWorks (5 years, 11 client engagements), Flo Health (70M+ users), and Prima Insurance. I've led engineering organisations through legacy modernisation, domain-driven transformation, and the cultural change that makes it stick.

Social Decision Records

I created Social Decision Records (SDRs) — a practice for capturing the human and organisational context behind architectural decisions, not just the technical rationale. SDRs recognise that architecture decisions are social before they are technical: who was in the room, what was the political context, what constraints were invisible.

SDRs are featured in Facilitating Software Architecture (O'Reilly, 2024) by Andrew Harmel-Law. I also served as technical reviewer for the book.

Current focus

I'm currently focused on how engineering organisations adopt and scale AI — not as a tooling problem but as an organisational and sociotechnical one. I'm nearly complete on the Anthropic Certified Architect – Foundations (CCA-F) certification.

Areas of expertise

  • Sociotechnical architecture & systems thinking
  • Legacy modernisation & domain-driven transformation
  • Engineering leadership & Staff+ development
  • AI adoption at organisational scale
  • Team Topologies & cognitive load management
  • Architecture governance & decision-making practices

Speaking

I've spoken at QCon London, DevoxxUK, DevoxxBE, JOnTheBeach, FastFlowConf, Software Architecture Gathering Berlin, OOP Munich, and Agile Meets Architecture, among others. I also serve on the Architecture Track Programme Committee at DevoxxUK (2025–2026), shaping talk selection and track direction.

Published work

  • "Holistic Engineering" — InfoQ eMagazine, 2025
  • Social Decision Records — featured in Facilitating Software Architecture, O'Reilly 2024
  • Technical reviewer, Facilitating Software Architecture, O'Reilly 2024
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