"11 years is a long time in this industry." -- Steve McConnell
Steven C. McConnell is an author of many software engineering textbooks including Code Complete, Rapid Development, and Software Estimation. In 1998, McConnell was named as one of the three most influential people in the software industry by Software Development Magazine, along with Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds.
McConnell graduated with a Bachelor's degree from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington (Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa), and a Master's degree in software engineering from Seattle University. He then pursued a career in the desktop software industry, working at Microsoft, Boeing, the Russell Investment Group and several other Seattle area firms. At Microsoft, McConnell worked on TrueType as part of Windows 3.1. At Boeing, he worked on a Strategic Defense Initiative project.
McConnell published his first book, Code Complete, in 1993. He is presently (March 2007) the CEO and Chief Software Engineer of Construx Software, a software engineering consulting firm he founded in 1996.
From 1996 to 1998, he was the editor of the "Best Practices" column in the IEEE Software magazine. From 1998 to 2002 he served as the editor-in-chief of the magazine. He has also served as the chair of the IEEE Computer Society's Professional Practices Committee. McConnell is presently (March 2006) a member of the executive committee for the Computer Society's Technical Council on Software Engineering [1]. Since 1998, he has served on the Panel of Experts of the SWEBOK project.