Martin Fowler is a software developer and author who works as Chief Scientist at Thoughtworks, which he joined in the spring of 1999 after years as an independent consultant. On his own site he describes his main work as helping people share knowledge about software development with the wider profession, and notes the irony of his title since he does not lead a team or do conventional science.
Fowler’s best known book is “Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code,” which he considers his most influential contribution to software development. He also wrote “Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture” and serves as series editor for a long-running Addison-Wesley book series that has published other authors in the field.
Through his website and his “bliki” (a blog and wiki hybrid), Fowler has written widely read explanations of concepts such as code smells, technical debt, continuous integration, and microservices. His writing favors agile methods combined with strong technical practice, and his definitions of these terms are frequently treated as the authoritative reference.
Fowler was one of the seventeen authors who met in 2001 to write the Manifesto for Agile Software Development, placing him among the originators of the agile movement as well as a leading voice on the everyday craft of writing and improving code.