Thoughtworks Technology Podcast
The Thoughtworks podcast plunges deep into the latest tech topics that have captured our imagination. Join our panel of senior technologists to explore the most important trends in tech today, get frontline insights into our work developing cutting-edge tech and hear more about how today’s tech megatrends will impact you.
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What does the future of software engineering look like?
07/09/2026
What does the future of software engineering look like?
At the end of June, Thoughtworks and Martin Fowler convened an unconference-style event in Switzerland with a range of industry leaders. The aim was to reflect on the current challenges and learning around AI assisted and agentic software engineering and discuss the implications for the future — and, most importantly, what actions need to be taken today. To review the event and dive into some of the topics that surfaced, host Ken Mugrage is joined by Thoughtworks colleagues Kief Morris (author of ) and Andrew Harmel-Law (author of ). They highlight some of the key ideas and issues that emerged from the event's conversations, ranging from developer identity to harness engineering. Learn more about the European edition of the Future of Software Engineering Retreat: Read Andrew's recent blog post that asks whether non-functional requirements could be a vital guardrail for AI-generated code:
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What is code?
06/25/2026
What is code?
What is code? It might sound obvious, but if you scratch the surface it becomes more difficult to articulate precisely what we mean. AI is complicating the picture further and changing the relationship developers have with code: when large amounts of executable code can be generated from high-level descriptions, what does it even mean to write code? On this episode of the Technology Podcast, host Alexey Boas is joined by Thoughworks Distinguished Engineer Unmesh Joshi to discuss what code actually is and what it means to write, test, review and maintain code today. Building on Unmesh's recent article 'What is Code?' for martinfowler.com, this discussion dives into one of the fundamental building blocks of software while also thinking through the implications for 2026's engineering challenges. Read Unmesh's article on martinfowler.com: https://martinfowler.com/articles/what-is-code.html
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Database branching: Overcoming the bottlenecks of shared database environments
06/11/2026
Database branching: Overcoming the bottlenecks of shared database environments
Database branching has, for a long time, been a troublesome piece in the modern developer workflow puzzle: a good idea in principle but in practice a slow and often expensive challenge. Get it right and you can accelerate productivity and remove bottlenecks; get it wrong and you're potentially creating all sorts of trouble for yourself, from privacy risks to additional complexity. However, things are changing. Thanks to the emergence of new platforms such as Neon, Supabase and Databricks Lakebase, branching a database can become as familiar to developers as managing code branches and multiple environments with, say, Git and Terraform. On this episode of the Technology Podcast, host Ken Mugrage is joined by his Thoughtworks colleague Cam Casher and Databricks' Kevin Hartman to discuss the work Thoughtworks and Databricks have been doing together on Lakebase. They discuss the platform, their experience using it with Spotify's Backstage and the opportunities database branching can offer software engineering teams in an increasingly AI-assisted and agentic world. Read Cam and Kevin's recent series on using Databricks Lakebase with Backstage: https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/blog/data-engineering/backstage-lakebase-databricks
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What is spec-driven development?
05/28/2026
What is spec-driven development?
Semantic diffusion, combined with the pace of technology change, makes talking about AI-adjacent practices and techniques incredibly diffficult. There are few better examples of this issue than the term 'spec-driven development'. Although it's not new — its coinage precedes our current AI moment — it has become ubiquitous over the last six months or so as software professionals attempt to develop a vocabulary for talking about how they're developing methods for working successfully with coding agents. On this episode of the Technology Podcast, Birgitta Böckeler is joined by Laura Tacho — Developer Experience at AWS — to discuss all things spec-driven development. From competing definitions to different interpretations, implementations and workflows, the discussion provides a frank and grounded look at one of the most discussed and debated terms in modern software engineering. Learn more about Laura's work by visiting her website: Read Birgitta's article on spec-driven development on Martin Fowler's website: Learn more about The Future of Software Development Retreat discussed on this episode and explore some of the key insights:
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What is harness engineering?
05/14/2026
What is harness engineering?
'Harness engineering' is one of the most significant terms to emerge in software engineering in 2026. Broadly referring to the work done to control unpredictable AI agents and coding assistants, its use signals growing attention on what needs to be done to make agents reliable and consistent enough for production software in the real-world. On this episode of the Technology Podcast, Birgitta Böckeler joins hosts Prem Chandrasekaran and Nate Schutta to explore what harness engineering actually is, how it should be done and why it should matter to software engineers working today. Having written a number of articles on harness engineering for martinfowler.com based on her experiences with AI-assistance, Birgitta is well-placed to explain the core concepts and implications. Taking in everything from the practices and ideas that pre-date and inform harness engineering to integrating harness engineering into existing workflows, listen for a conversation that will provide much needed clarity on what's an essential topic in the industry. Read Birgitta's article on harness engineering on martinfowler.com: Watch Birgitta's video on harness engineering beyond skills on YouTube:
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Anthropic Mythos: Hype, reality and the actual security implications
04/30/2026
Anthropic Mythos: Hype, reality and the actual security implications
Anthropic Mythos garnered significant attention when it was launched in mid-April 2026. Yet despite it apparently presenting an unprecedented threat to global software, you don't have to look to closely to see that this was an effective product launch as much as a story about the grave security risks of today's AI models. But this isn't to say there aren't important implications for software developers, security professionals and other technologists. In this episode of the Technology Podcast, one of our new hosts Nate Schutta is joined by Chris Kramer to discuss Anthropic Mythos and Project Glasswing, unpacking what's hype and what really matters. A few links for this episode: Some more information about Project Glasswing: A story about how a small Discord group briefly had access to Mythos: How Mozilla used Mythos to discover Firefox bugs:
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Key themes in Technology Radar Vol.34
04/15/2026
Key themes in Technology Radar Vol.34
In April 2026 we published a new edition of the Thoughtworks Technology Radar — volume 34. Like many recent volumes, this one was dominated by AI. However, while editions over the last couple of years have illustrated the dizzying proliferation of AI-related technologies, vol.34 indicates a degree of evolution in the field, demonstrated by a focus on consistency, reliability and mitigating the collaborative and individual challenges of working with AI. This is reflected in the four themes identified for this Radar: the challenge of evaluating technology in an agentic world; retaining principles, relinquishing patterns; securing permission-hungry agents; putting coding agents on a leash. On this special Technology Radar episode of the Technology Podcast, host Ken Mugrage is joined by Alessio Ferri and Jim Gumbley to discuss the key themes in Technology Radar Vol.34. Diving into topics ranging from cognitive debt, harness engineering and the lethal trifecta, listen to gain a deeper understanding not just of the latest Radar but, more importantly, what AI-assisted and agentic software engineering really look like today. Read the latest Thoughtworks Technology Radar:
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How it feels to be a software engineer when AI is changing our relationship with code
04/02/2026
How it feels to be a software engineer when AI is changing our relationship with code
There's been a lot of discussion and debate in recent months about exactly how software engineering will be reshaped by AI. While it remains to be seen what the discipline will look like once things quieten down (if they ever do), one thing has been somewhat neglected: what does software engineering actually feel like in this AI-intensive environment? If we're no longer writing code, or even interfacing with it in the way we're used to, what does that mean for our professional experience? On this episode of the Technology Podcast, host Ken Mugrage is joined by Nate Schutta to discuss the software engineering experience today and to dig deep into what the work feels like when AI agents change our relationship with code. Nate is one of the authors of Fundamentals of Software Engineering (alongside Dan Vega) and appeared on the podcast in May 2025 to discuss the book; with so much change having taken place since then, Nate is perfectly placed to offer a perspective on what software engineering means today for an industry navigating significant change. Learn more about The Fundamentals of Software Engineering: Listen to Nate discuss the book on an earlier episode of the Technology Podcast:
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Be brilliant at the basics: Inside Looking Glass 2026
03/19/2026
Be brilliant at the basics: Inside Looking Glass 2026
The Thoughtworks 2026 Looking Glass report was published in January. Designed to provide business and technology leaders with the tools to better understand and navigate future trends, this edition paid particularly close attention to what organizations need to do to reach a level of AI maturity that will effectively unlock an operational and commercial edge. Taking in everything from AI-assisted software delivery to AI-ready data, it bridges the gaps between what the world is doing today, what will be possible in the months to come and what may be coming on the horizon in the long-term. To discuss this year's Looking Glass, host Ken Mugrage is joined by Rickey Zachary and Thomas Squeo. Together, Rickey and Thomas provide both a technology and business perspective on the main insights from the report, exploring some of the key throughlines and issues Thoughtworks believes businesses need to contend with. With a complex and rapidly changing industry and economic picture, one thing emerges as critical: being brilliant at the basics. Read the 2026 Looking Glass: https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/looking-glass
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Durable computing: What is it and why now?
03/05/2026
Durable computing: What is it and why now?
Managing distributed systems and complex workflows can be challenging. What happens when something fails? If a task isn't executed to completion, that can lead to serious problems. From transaction and billing failures to deploying software, even small issues can have significant consequences. This is one of the reasons for durable computing. Designed to isolate code from crashes, it preserves state so a task is completed even when something fails. To discuss durable computing, explore why it matters today and how we've been using it at Thoughtworks, Brandon Cook and John Coleman join host Alexey Boas on the Technology Podcast. They dive into the current platform ecosystem and what it means for developers — and requires of them. They also talk about the value of durable computing for AI, explaining why the concept of 'durable agents' offers an important of avenue of investigation in a world eager to embrace agentic systems. Learn more about durable computing in this blog post from July 2025: https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/blog/cloud/durable-computing-making-easier-resilience-distributed-systems
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Inside AI/works™: An agentic development platform
02/19/2026
Inside AI/works™: An agentic development platform
In January 2026, Thoughtworks launched AI/works™, an agentic development platform. It promises to make the capabilities of AI agents a reality for the enterprise, helping in areas including understanding complex legacy code, forward engineering new software solutions and agent governance. How, though, does it actually work in practice? And what does it mean for the organizations and teams Thoughtworks works with? In this episode of the Technology Podcast, new host Rickey Zachary is joined by Bharani Subramaniam (CTO for Thoughtworks India and the Middle East) and Shodhan Sheth (Head of Enterprise Modernization, Platforms and Cloud) to discuss AI/works™, taking in how the platform emerged from a number of recent Thoughtworks projects to how it's delivering value to businesses today. As well as an inside perspective on Thoughtworks' new platform, the episode also offers a deep and timely exploration of questions and challenges the rapid rise of AI agents in software engineering has surfaced across every part across industry. Learn more about AI/works™: https://www.thoughtworks.com/ai/works
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Unlearning, experimentation and engineering rigor in an agentic world
02/05/2026
Unlearning, experimentation and engineering rigor in an agentic world
In a world that's being transformed by AI agents and agentic systems, how do software developers unlearn what they know while also maintaining engineering rigor? In an in-person conversation with Nathen Harvey, Developer Relations Engineer at Google Cloud, and Patrick Debois, Developer Relations at Tessl, host Ken Mugrage dives into the ways individuals, teams and organizations are walking the line between experimentation and well-established engineering practices as they seek to innovate while ensuring resilience, reliability and security. Thoughtworks is a platinum sponsor of the 2025 DORA report: https://www.thoughtworks.com/en-us/insights/reports/the-2025-dora-report
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Exploring AI agent platforms
01/22/2026
Exploring AI agent platforms
If AI agents really are the future of how work will be done — in software engineering and beyond — the platforms on which they are built, run and maintained will be crucial. This is a topic two Thoughtworkers, Ben O'Mahony and Fabian Nonnenmacher, are currently writing about. Although not due to be published until early 2027, the first two chapters of Building AI Agent Platforms are now available as part of O'Reilly's Early Release scheme. Its goal is to provide readers with a complete roadmap for developing AI agent platforms, from agent development to architectural principles to observability and governance. In this episode of the Technology Podcast, the authors speak to regular host Ken Mugrage about the book, why agent platforms are a critical part of any AI strategy and some of the challenges of developing and maintaining them. Listen for an early look at what looks set to be a valuable book in the world of AI development and to gain a clearer perspective on what agentic AI really means at the start of 2026. Learn more about Building AI Agent Platforms:
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Architecture antipatterns and pitfalls: Good intentions, bad habits and ugly consequences
01/08/2026
Architecture antipatterns and pitfalls: Good intentions, bad habits and ugly consequences
You can grasp the basics of software architecture by learning design patterns, but you probably won't master it — to do that you have to get to grips with antipatterns too. Often these lessons are hard-won through experience, derived from seeing what happens when architectural decisions (or the lack of them) collide with the messy reality of the real world. While there's obviously no replacement for practical experience, Neal Ford, Mark Richards and Raju Gandhi want to share theirs to give architects the opportunity to avoid common antipatterns and pitfalls and make smarter decisions. That's what they're doing with their forthcoming book (due September 2026) Architecture Patterns, Antipatterns and Pitfalls. On this episode of the Technology Podcast, host Neal is joined by his co-authors and their editor from O'Reilly, Sarah Grey, to discuss the book and to explore why getting to know on antipatterns and pitfalls matters as much as learning design patterns. Learn more about Software Architecture Patterns, Antipatterns and Pitfalls: Listen to Neal and Mark discuss the various intersections of software architecture on an episode of the Technology Podcast from 2025:
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Are we entering the 'age of intent' in digital interaction?
12/23/2025
Are we entering the 'age of intent' in digital interaction?
The 'age of intent' is a phrase that's been around for a number of years. However, with the rise of AI agents in 2025 it has the potential to become a key trend for 2026. It describes a new way of thinking about digital interaction in which the gap between human intention and output are reduced even further through AI assistance. Thoughtworks' APAC CTO Sarah Taraporewalla has been exploring the age of intent in recent months; she's written a series of blog posts that tackle what this new phase of digital interaction means for businesses and how they can prepare themselves. On the latest episode of the Technology Podcast, Sarah joins host Lilly Ryan to discuss the concept the age of intent and its implications for the future of digital experiences. Read Sara Taraporewalla's series on the age of intent: The interface is dead. Time for the age of intent: From prototype to transformation: What it takes to become an intent-ready organization: Rethinking value in the AI economy:
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AI-assisted software development in 2025: Inside this year's DORA report
12/11/2025
AI-assisted software development in 2025: Inside this year's DORA report
This year's DORA report focuses on AI-assisted software development. While one of the key themes is just how ubiquitous AI is today in software engineering, that's only part of the picture. In fact, the report outlines many of the challenges the adoption of these technologies are posing and explores the barriers and obstacles that need to be addressed to ensure AI-assistance leads to long-term success. In this episode of the Technology Podcast, host Ken Mugrage is joined by Chris Westerhold — Global Practice Director for Engineering Excellence at Thoughtworks — to discuss this year's DORA report (for which Thoughtworks is a Platinum sponsor). They dive into some of the reports findings, and explore the risks of increasing throughput, the changing demands on software developers, the importance of developer experience and how organizations can go about successfully measuring AI impact. You can find the 2025 DORA report here: Read Chris Westerhold's article on this year's findings:
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We still need to talk about vibe coding: Reflections on 2025's word of the year
11/27/2025
We still need to talk about vibe coding: Reflections on 2025's word of the year
Vibe coding was, remarkably, named word of the year by the Collins English Dictionary at the start of November 2025 — pretty good going for a term that was only coined in February. We first discussed it on the Technology Podcast back in April, and, given its prominence in the collective lexicon this year, thought we should revisit and reflect on the topic as 2025 draws to a close. Lots has happened in the intervening months: MCP adoption, the evolution of agentic coding tools and practices like context engineering have had a significant impact on the way the world is thinking about and using AI. To talk about it all and reflect on the implications, Thoughtworkers and regular podcast hosts Prem Chandrasekaran, Lilly Ryan and Neal Ford reconvened for a follow up to our April conversation. Taking in everything from the term's semantic slipperiness, its security risks and the challenges of maintaining AI-generated code, this is a discussion that, despite going deep into vibe coding, also touches on a huge range of issues in the technology industry today. Before we enter 2026, looking back on the good, the bad and the ugly of the last 12 months of experimentation is essential if we're to build better software for the world in the future. This episode aims to be a guide through that process. Listen to our April episode on vibe coding: Read Ken Mugrage's blog post exploring the shift from vibe coding to context engineering in 2025:
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How developers can get the most from new AI coding workflows
11/13/2025
How developers can get the most from new AI coding workflows
One of the biggest stories in software engineering in 2025 is the impact of generative AI on the software development lifecycle. From advances in coding assistance to the emergence of so-called agentic coding, there's undoubtedly a lot for software developers to process, learn and experiment with — not to mention rapid change to contend with. On this episode of the Technology Podcast, host Ken Mugrage is joined by Brandon Cook to discuss not only how AI has been shaping the way software developers work but how developers can play an active role in ensuring the technology is leveraged safely and successfully. Taking in everything from sensible defaults and best practices to evaluating how much autonomy you should give up to an agent in any given problem, this episode offers both a snapshot of where we are today and the role we all have to play in deciding what the future will look like. Explore the Thoughtworks Technology Radar: Listen to Brandon's last appearance on the Technology Podcast from July 2024:
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Themes from Technology Radar Vol.33
10/30/2025
Themes from Technology Radar Vol.33
In every Thoughtworks Technology Radar we feature three to five themes that represent the core issues and topics that emerged from the conversations we had when putting the publication together. This time (Fall 2025) they're all united by AI. They are: infrastructure automation arriving for AI, the rise of agents elevated by MCP, AI coding workflows and emerging AI antipatterns. On this episode of the Technology Podcast, Bryan Oliver joins Neal Ford and Ken Mugrage to discuss all four of volume 33's themes. They dive into what they mean, how the team arrived at them and what they tell us about the state of software engineering and AI in 2025. Read the latest Thoughtworks Technology Radar: thoughtworks.com/radar Volume 33 will be published November 5, 2025.
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What does an AI strategy with humans at the center look like?
10/16/2025
What does an AI strategy with humans at the center look like?
Everyone knows an AI strategy is important — but how do you build one with humans at the center? That's a question Tiankai Feng, Thoughtworks Global Director for Data and AI Strategy, has been pondering ever since the publication of his 2024 book . Now, just over a year later, he's outlined his thinking in a follow-up, Humanizing AI Strategy. With the subtitle "leading AI with sense and soul," it's a practical and thoughtful guide aimed at helping the industry rethink the way AI is embedded and leveraged across organizations. In this episode of the Technology Podcast, Tiankai joins host Prem Chandrasekaran to discuss his new book. He explains why he wrote it, how it compares to his first book and discusses the framework it puts forward. Listen for a fresh perspective on AI in business and some practical strategies for leaders to bring purpose and conscience to AI initiatives. Learn more about Humanizing AI Strategy: Read a Q&A with Tiankai:
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What we're talking about when we talk about context engineering
10/02/2025
What we're talking about when we talk about context engineering
Everyone seems to be talking about context engineering. That was certainly the case in our recent discussions for the upcoming edition of the (volume 33, due early November 2025). And although we ran into the term on the Technology Podcast , we thought it would be useful to try and tackle exactly what people are talking about when they talk about context engineering. We know context is important when it comes to AI, but what does it mean to engineer it? On this episode of the Technology Podcast, host and Thoughtworks CTO Rachel Laycock is joined by Thoughtworkers Alessio Ferri (Lead Software Engineer) and Bharani Subramaniam (CTO for India and the Middle East) to discuss what context engineering is, how it's being done and what it tells us about the evolution of AI. This certainly won't be the last word — ours or anyone else's — on context engineering, but it might help clarify and cement your understanding as the term comes to dominate technology conversations.
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Mean time to shared understanding: Bridging the gap between citizen developers and developers
09/18/2025
Mean time to shared understanding: Bridging the gap between citizen developers and developers
Although the concept of the 'citizen developer' isn't new, with the rise of AI the relationship between those building software without much technical experience and seasoned software developers is becoming more significant. That's not to say there's conflict exactly, but there are often competing interests and demands — which can lead to tension, organizational friction and governance challenges. On this episode of the Technology Podcast, host Ken Mugrage facilitates a debate (of sorts) between Christopher Hastings, Global Tech Product Lead at Thoughtworks (and citizen developer) and Scott Davies, Head of Technology for Thoughtworks Europe (very much in the developer camp). They discuss the needs and interests of both sides, how to avoid regressing to the dark ages of shadow IT and how citizen developers can be properly empowered by engineering teams.
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Organizational design and Team Topologies after AI
09/04/2025
Organizational design and Team Topologies after AI
Managing technological change in an organization — particularly a large and complex one — has always been challenging. But thanks to the rapid adoption of AI in all kinds of spheres, from knowledge management to software development to content creation, it's becoming more difficult than ever. How do you strike a balance between governance and safety and autonomy and empowerment? How should teams be structured and how should they work together? In this episode of the Technology Podcast, Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais — authors of the influential Team Topologies book — join hosts Birgitta Böckeler and Ken Mugrage to discuss what AI means for organizational design. They discuss how AI is changing team capabilities, what it means for cognitive load and knowledge sharing and how to ensure there's structure and control without constraining experimentation and creativity. With the second edition of Team Topologies set to be published in September 2025, Matthew and Manuel used the conversation to explore the evolution of their ideas and what they've learned from working with and listening to the stories of many different organizations around the world. Learn more about Team Topologies: https://teamtopologies.com/
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Context engineering: Tackling legacy systems with generative AI
08/21/2025
Context engineering: Tackling legacy systems with generative AI
Generative AI can be incredibly powerful when it comes to legacy modernization. Not only can it help us better understand a large, aging codebase, it can even help us reverse engineer a legacy system when we don't have access to the complete source code. Doing it, though, requires a specific approach that's being described as 'context engineering'. This is something we've been exploring a lot in recent months at Thoughtworks. On this episode of the Technology Podcast, Thoughtworks' lead for AI-enabled software engineering, Birgitta Böckeler, and tech principal Chandirasekar Thiagarajan join hosts Ken Mugrage and Neal Ford to discuss how it works. They explain the process, the tools and what the work is teaching them about both generative AI and legacy modernization. Read Birgitta's blog post on reverse engineering with AI: https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/blog/generative-ai/blackbox-reverse-engineering-ai-rebuild-application-without-accessing-code
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Navigating AI opportunities at MYOB
08/07/2025
Navigating AI opportunities at MYOB
How should businesses go about actually navigating AI? It's one thing to strategize and generate new ideas, but what needs to be done to put it into practice in a way that's effective and commercially impactful? In this episode of the Technology Podcast, new host Nigel Dalton is joined by his Thoughtworks colleague May Xu — Head of Tech for Thoughtworks APAC — and Simon Noonan, CTO at Australian business software company MYOB. Thoughtworks has been working closely with MYOB for a number of years now; May and Simon explain how they collaborate and offer their perspectives on everything from leadership to architecture in a world where AI has become imperative. Learn more about Thoughtworks' partnership with MYOB: https://www.thoughtworks.com/clients/myob
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Caring about documentation in the LLM era (w/ Heidi Waterhouse)
07/24/2025
Caring about documentation in the LLM era (w/ Heidi Waterhouse)
In an age of vibe coding and LLMs, do we really need to care about documentation? Do we need to spend time and energy producing it — time when we could just be shipping code? Of course we do; particularly if we want to communicate and share software with other humans. To discuss documentation in 2025, Technology Podcast host Lilly Ryan is joined by Heidi Waterhouse, a very special guest with an esteemed and varied career in technical communcation. In this episode, Lilly and Heidi tackle the challenges of documentation in a world increasingly infused with AI-generated code and text, explore whether prompt engineering is really just technical writing in disguise and examine the difficulties of writing for highly specific audiences. They also cover Heidi's Progressive Delivery, an upcoming book about bridging the gap between software delivery and business value. It's due to be released in the latter part of 2025 and written alongside James Governor, Kim Harrison and Adam Zimman. Find out more about Heidi Waterhouse by visiting her website: Learn more about Progressive Delivery:
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Why the tech industry needs Expert Generalists (w/ Martin Fowler)
07/10/2025
Why the tech industry needs Expert Generalists (w/ Martin Fowler)
The technology industry has embraced specialisms — not just in different fields or job roles, like web development or security, but even in terms of particular platforms or stacks. But are we losing something as every tech professional is forced to push themselves into increasingly smaller niches? Martin Fowler and Unmesh Joshi think so. They've been thinking a lot about the importance of what they call "Expert Generalists" — professionals who "can dissect unfamiliar challenges, spot first-principles patterns and make confident design decisions with the assurance of a specialist." In this episode of the Technology Podcast, Martin and Unmesh join hosts Prem Chandrasekaran and Lilly Ryan to discuss how they came to identify the importance of expert generalists and why it was important to not just talk about the issue, but to explicitly name it. They also explore how they believe the industry can cultivate and encourage expert generalists, despite an entrenched tendency to overlook their value. Read Martin and Unmesh's article, written with Gitanjali Venkatraman:
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The three new fallacies of distributed computing
06/26/2025
The three new fallacies of distributed computing
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 Chandrasekaran to talk through these three new fallacies, before digging deeper into other important issues in software architecture, including modular monoliths and governing architectural characteristics. Listen for a fresh perspective on software architecture and to explore key ideas shaping the discipline in 2025. Learn more about the second edition of Neal and Mark's Fundamentals of Software Architecture: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/fundamentals-of-software/9781098175504/
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MCP and SRE: Why the future of IT operations is agent-driven
06/12/2025
MCP and SRE: Why the future of IT operations is agent-driven
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 AIOps, this episode unpacks how MCP could be the missing layer between today’s tools and tomorrow’s autonomous systems. If you want to find out more, check out this piece by Zichuan at al, https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/blog/machine-learning-and-ai/mcp-critical-ai-driven-sre
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Unpacking Google I/O 2025
05/29/2025
Unpacking Google I/O 2025
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 role in helping the organization and its clients undertstand, analyze and engage with the major platforms and vendors. This edition of Google I/O, he explains, was significant and particularly useful for helping us understand how the world is going to be consuming AI products and services as the technology becomes more and more embedded in the mainstream. Read more of Andy's perspective on Google I/O 2025 on the Thoughtworks blog: https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/blog/technology-strategy/google-io-2025-key-takeaways
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