Abstract: Ferroelectrics are highly interesting and functional materials, used in a variety of applications that make use of their switchable spontaneous electric polarization and associated piezoelectric and pyroelectric properties. Much of my group’s research has been focused on engineering the ferroelectric properties of finely layered heterostructures of perovskite metal oxides that we grow in our lab using off-axis sputtering methods. Which begs the question, why?  While there are fundamentally interesting concepts at play which could justify the work purely on the grounds of intellectual curiosity, I will illustrate the appeal of our approach by highlighting some key examples where we able to enhance material properties, overcome processing challenges in combining ferroelectrics with 2D materials or gain insight that otherwise would not have been available without the control of surfaces and interfaces that our methods provide.