LUMINARIES

The First Software Engineer: Margaret Hamilton

Why Women in Tech matter and why you should learn about this Software Engineering pioneer — the person responsible for humans making it to the surface of the moon

Kevin Wanke
20 min readDec 25, 2019

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The first person to be highlighted in this Luminary series is someone named Margaret Hamilton. While you may not be aware of whom this post is about here at the beginning, this is a person that has had great influence over the profession of Software Engineering and is worthy of recognition by all who claim that title. Mrs. Hamilton is also an incredible role model for Women in Tech and is an admirable role model for any Engineer, male, female, or other. To start, let’s take a look at a picture that might be more recognizable than the name:

Margaret Hamilton & the source code for the Apollo 11 guidance computer

Instead of rehashing a biography, I would like to encourage any readers to do your own research. I promise to only highlight people that are worthy of spending an hour or two reading about. While doing my own research about Mrs. Hamilton I stumbled upon her birthplace which happens to be Paoli, IN. As a fellow Hoosier and…

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Kevin Wanke
Kevin Wanke

Written by Kevin Wanke

Engineer. Manager. Dadmin. Wanna-be Writer. Editor-In-Chief & Grand Poobah of www.kevinwanke.com