Craft 2025 - Cat Hicks
Cat Hicks
Principal Scientist at Catharsis Consulting
About Cat Hicks

Cat Hicks is a psychologist for software teams and defender of the mismeasured. She is the creator of the Developer Thriving framework, the AI Skill Threat framework, and numerous empirical research projects that have created novel empirical evidence about how organizations and individuals can achieve sustainable, resilient innovation in technology and create more wellbeing for technologists. Cat is the founder and principal scientist at Catharsis Consulting, a scientific consultancy for engineering organizations that need human-centered evidence strategies. Cat holds a Ph.D. in Quantitative Experimental Psychology from UC San Diego, serves on the Advisory Council of the University of San Diego Center for Digital Civil Society, and is the author of a forthcoming book on the psychology of software teams.

Talks
The Psychology of Software Teams
Topics:
leadership
organization
psychology
empirical development
programming
software development
technical excellence
Level: General
In schedule:
Main stage
May 29, 10:50 - 11:35 CET

Developers’ problem-solving, creativity, and collaboration is what grows and maintains functioning software systems–and all the technology that interacts with software. And because modern technology is constantly changing, how well developers keep solving problems, creating and collaborating is at the heart of maintaining any technology organization’s performance and capabilities. But designing fo...

Panel about vibe coding
Level: General
In schedule:
Orange stage
May 30, 16:55 - 17:40 CET

All the Vibes – Productivity, Chaos, and the New FrontierAs AI tools begin to write, refactor, review code, generate UI mockups, and even draft product specs, the boundaries of how we build software are rapidly shifting. What does this mean for the way teams build products? What new skills, risks, and opportunities are emerging? Join us for a candid, end-of-conference conversation exploring how AI...