Thoughtworks Technology Podcast

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: https://cloud.google.com/resources/content/2025-dora-ai-assisted-software-development-report Read Chris Westerhold's article on this year's findings: https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/articles/the-dora-report-2025--a-thoughtworks-perspective

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: thoughtworks.com/radar Listen to Brandon's last appearance on the Technology Podcast from July 2024: https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/podcasts/technology-podcasts/sensible-defaults-way-think-technology-practices

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 Humanizing Data Strategy. 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: https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/books/humanizing-ai-strategy Read a Q&A with Tiankai: https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/blog/data-strategy/how-put-human-center-ai

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.

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

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: https://heidiwaterhouse.com/ Learn more about Progressive Delivery: https://itrevolution.com/product/progressive-delivery/

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/

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