Tell Us About Yourself

I’m a native New Orleanian passionate about old-world architecture, gaming, and weight lifting. I love to travel with family, and I keep in touch with the same friends I’ve had since middle school and college. I was always interested in computers and fascinated by the magic of software and games. Still, a transformative moment for me was in the ’90s when my parents acquired an IBM Aptiva from CompUSA. Bundled with the computer was an interactive encyclopedia program loaded with full-motion videos. I remember how novel it was to be able to search for any topic that came to mind and learn something new. We received a free trial for America Online (AOL) in the mail a few weeks later. I’ve been a citizen of the internet ever since.

I’ve spent much of my career working for the Department of Defense and with the United States Navy as a civil servant in software engineering and technical leadership roles. My primary focus was on software application development and delivery programs targeting deployments in challenging operating environments — think afloat systems, submarines, and medical tents in war zones. These roles helped me learn about the importance of resilient systems and the dangers of technical debt and complex integrations. You gain a genuine appreciation for the lifecycle of applications and how they can be maintained when you can’t put your hands on a machine when something goes wrong.

Tell Us About Your Coverage And Research Agenda At Forrester

Cloud-native technologies provide development teams with unprecedented flexibility to remove or separate concerns of operational complexity from the business capabilities of their software. I’m interested in exploring how development practices can harness the full power of the cloud for business applications while obfuscating the complexities of infrastructure and operations from developers. My coverage will target developers and development leaders focusing on cloud-native development, including serverless technologies and edge development. These technologies will be crucial for developers to meet the needs of the next generation of use cases to deliver world-class, real-time experiences to their customers.

My initial research agenda will focus on serverless development. We have multiple planned pieces of research in this stream: serverless best practices; getting started with serverless; and demystifying serverless development. We will also offer a serverless webinar. Later in the year, I will focus on edge development and then take a broader view with research targeted at cloud-native development leaders.

Getting In Touch

You can reach me at ddickerson@forrester.com. I’m eager to discuss cloud-native development with our clients and am available for briefings and inquiries.