#134 - From Inner to Outer Loop: Agentic Coding, Stacking PRs, and the Cursor Merger with Greg Foster // CTO @ Graphite

About this episode

Greg Foster discusses the evolution of software engineering from Inner Loop speed to Outer Loop efficiency and the implications of AI on coding practices.

Greg Foster, Co-founder and CTO of Graphite (recently acquired by Cursor), joins the podcast to discuss the massive shift occurring in software engineering: the move from maximizing "Inner Loop" speed (writing code) to solving "Outer Loop" bottlenecks (reviewing, testing, merging). With AI generating code faster than humans can review it, the traditional Pull Request model is under pressure. Greg explains how "Stacked PRs" and agentic review workflows are essential for high-performing teams, and why he believes the role of the software engineer is evolving into an "architect of agents." We also cover the strategic rationale behind the Graphite/Cursor merger, the controversial "PRs per engineer" metric, and why he predicts that by 2029, manual code writing will be near zero—but demand for engineers will be higher than ever.

People in this episode

Host: Tobias Schlottke

Guest: Greg Foster

Topics covered

• software engineering
• Inner Loop
• Outer Loop
• Pull Request model
• Stacked PRs
• AI in coding
• Graphite/Cursor merger

Keywords

• agentic coding
• software engineer
• PRs per engineer
• merger
• AI code generation
• high-performing teams
• architect of agents

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Graphite, Cursor

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