Software engineering is best learned through practice, yet much of that practice in higher education remains artificial. Students work on isolated assignments, in short-lived codebases, with little sense of how software is sustained, shared, and evolved. While such approaches make learning easier to scope and assess, they fall short of representing real engineering work.
This talk proposes a shift in how we structure learning environments. Rather than relying on discrete academic assignments, we aim to embed real engineering activity within the curriculum: building and maintaining systems for genuine use, supported by professional tools, infrastructure, and workflows. In this setting, students are not only learners but contributors, engaging with shared codebases and participating in ongoing development as partners in a broader engineering effort.
Director of Software Engineering Education
Imperial College London
Dr. Robert Chatley is Director of Software Engineering Education for the Department of Computing at Imperial College London, where he teaches and researches modern software engineering practice. His work focuses on how developers design, build, and evolve software systems, and how these practices can be taught effectively to students. He leads the Computing EdTech Lab at Imperial, developing tools and platforms that support hands-on learning in software engineering.
Before joining academia, Robert spent many years working in industry as a professional engineer, including roles as a software engineer, engineering manager/director, consultant and trainer, working with organisations from startups to multinational corporations. His teaching and research draw heavily on this practical experience, exploring topics such as agile development, continuous delivery, cloud-native architecture, and the use of modern tools to help teams build and evolve software more effectively.
