Building at the intersection of machine learning and software engineering
Thoughtworks Technology Podcast
Release Date: 05/02/2024
The three new fallacies of distributed computing
Thoughtworks Technology Podcast
Back in 1994, Peter Deutsch and his colleagues at Sun Microsystems identified what they described as the "eight fallacies of distributed computing" — flawed assumptions that often get made when teams move from monolithic to distributed software architectures. In recent years, software architecture experts and regular writing partners Neal Ford and Mark Richards have identified a further three new fallacies of distributed computing: versioning is easy; compensating updates always work; and observability is optional. In this episode of the Technology Podcast, Neal and Mark join host Prem...
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MCP and SRE: Why the future of IT operations is agent-driven
Thoughtworks Technology Podcast
What if your AI agents could think more like IT operations staff — and less like tools? In this episode, we catch up with Zichuan Xiong, to explore the Model Context Protocol (MCP) — a powerful new way to give AI agents deeper awareness of the tools, information and history they need to work effectively in the operations space. Unlike traditional APIs that just trigger functions, MCP adds a semantic layer of context that helps AI understand what to do, why it matters and how to do it better. Whether you’re deep in site reliability engineering (SRE) or just curious about the next leap in...
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Unpacking Google I/O 2025
Thoughtworks Technology Podcast
Google I/O 2025 took place in May. It's always a great opportunity to find out how Google is trying to shape the industry agenda, but this year the predominance of Gemini meant the event was a chance to get a better look at how Google will play its hand in the AI market in the months to come. To dissect the headlines from this year's Google I/O and explore what we can learn about Google's strategic focus — and how the company is thinking about AI — host Ken Mugrage is joined by Andy Yates on the Technology Podcast. As Head of Ecosystems Development at Thoughtworks, Andy plays an important...
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Accelerating mainframe modernization using generative AI
Thoughtworks Technology Podcast
Mainframe modernization is hard: there's a huge amount of complexity that needs to be understood before it can be effectively addressed. Generative AI, however, can be a particularly powerful tool for understanding mainframe legacy codebases, something we've been exploring with Mechanical Orchard while working together on its Imogen modernization platform. In this episode of the Technology Podcast, hosts Ken Mugrage and Alexey Boas are joined by Thoughtworks CTO Rachel Laycock and Mechanical Orchard CEO and Founder Rob Mee to discuss the partnership between the two organizations. They discuss...
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Exploring the fundamentals of software engineering
Thoughtworks Technology Podcast
You might think you know software engineering, but what are the really fundamental elements? What are the concepts, ideas and practices that are completely essential? What makes software engineering what it is? Thoughtworker Nate Schutta and Dan Vega are attempting to address those questions in their upcoming book with O'Reilly, The Fundamentals of Software Engineering. Covering topics ranging from reading code through to the importance of learning to learn, it promises to offer a fresh insight into the skills and knowledge needed to be a successful software engineer. In this episode of the...
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Themes in Technology Radar Vol.32
Thoughtworks Technology Podcast
Thoughtworks Technology Radar Vol.32 was published at the start of April 2025. Featuring 105 blips, it offered a timely snapshot of what's interesting and important in the industry. Through the process of putting it together, we also identify a collection of key themes that speak to the things that shaped our conversations. This time, there were four: supervised agents in coding assistants, evolving observability, the R in RAG and taming the data frontier. We think they point to some of the key challenges and issues that industry as a whole is currently grappling with. To dig deeper and...
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We need to talk about vibe coding
Thoughtworks Technology Podcast
The term 'vibe coding' — which first appeared in a post on X by Andrej Karpathy in early February 2025 — has set the software development world abuzz: everyone seems to have their own take on what it is, how it's done and whether it's a bold new chapter in the history of programming or an insult to anyone that's ever written a line of code. Clearly, then, we need to talk about vibe coding — and that's precisely what we do on this episode of the Technology Podcast. Featuring Thoughtworkers Birgitta Böckeler (AI for Software Delivery Lead) and Lilly Ryan (Cybersecurity Principal), who...
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Infrastructure as code in 2025
Thoughtworks Technology Podcast
Nearly ten years after the first edition of Infrastructure as Code was published by O'Reilly, Kief Morris is publishing a third edition of the book. But why a new edition now? What's changed in technology and business over the last decade? Quite a lot, as it happens. To talk about what's new — both in the infrastructure world and in the book itself — Kief Morris joins host Ken Mugrage on the Technology Podcast. They discuss each edition and what's new in this one, and dive into the infrastructure challenges and issues that need to be tackled in 2025, from tooling and deployment to...
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How fitness functions can help us govern and measure AI
Thoughtworks Technology Podcast
AI is inherently dynamic: that's true in terms of the field itself, and at a much lower level too — models are trained on new data and algorithms adapt and change to new circumstances and information. That's part of its power and what makes it so exciting, but from a business and organizational perspective, that can make governance and measurement exceptionally difficult. How can we know that our AI is optimized for the right thing? How can we be sure it's oriented towards what we want it to be? This is where the concept of fitness functions can help. Broadly speaking, fitness functions are...
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Architecture as code
Thoughtworks Technology Podcast
How can we better define and clarify architectures to ensure consistency and control? If, as Neal Ford and Mark Richards discussed , software architecture intersects with many different facets of software development and delivery, what can we do to better manage architectures in a way that is adaptable and dynamic? Neal and Mark return to the guest seats to speak again to host Prem Chandrasekaran about fitness functions and architecture as code, and explain why rethinking our approach to software architecture can help ensure greater alignment with organizational needs and objectives.
info_outlineBringing machine learning models into production is challenging. This is why, as demand for machine learning capabilities in products and services increases, new kinds of teams and new ways of working are emerging to bridge the gap between data science and software engineering. Effective Machine Learning Teams — written by Thoughtworkers David Tan, Ada Leung and Dave Colls — was created to help practitioners get to grips with these challenges and master everything needed to deliver exceptional machine learning-backed products.
In this episode of the Technology Podcast, the authors join Scott Shaw and Ken Mugrage to discuss their book. They explain how it addresses current issues in the field, taking in everything from the technical challenges of testing and deployment to the cultural work of building teams that span different disciplines and areas of expertise.
Learn more about Effective Machine Learning Teams: https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/books/effective-machine-learning-teams
Read a Q&A with the authors: https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/blog/machine-learning-and-ai/author-q-and-a-effective-machine-learning-teams