Thoughtworks Technology Podcast

36:43

Data products, data agents and semantic layers:...

Thoughtworks Technology Podcast ·

2026/10/01

The way we think about and build with data is changing. Data lakehouses have become an industry standard, and conversation is turning to semantic and governance layers as organizations seek to optimize and leverage data for the AI era. However, the concept of 'data products' — treating data as something that needs to be deliberately managed and packaged in a way that's easily usable and consumable for the people that need it — remains crucial. On this episode of the Technology Podcast, host Nate

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38:23

Rethinking the software development process for an...

Thoughtworks Technology Podcast ·

2026/09/17

The agentic era of software engineering began almost a year ago. And while much has changed in 2026, there's still a lot that hasn't been settled. One of the most important issues is how teams should collaborate. The idea of working with a spec may have considerable allure, but many questions remain: How should it be defined? Who owns it? How do we iterate with it? The fear of retreating back into waterfall is very real and requires vigilance. On this episode of the Technology Podcast, hosts Ken

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39:26

Open-weight models: What are they and when should you...

Thoughtworks Technology Podcast ·

2026/09/03

We've seen a huge amount of increase in interest around open-weight models in 2026. The reasons for this are multifaceted, ranging from the switch to per token billing, the evolving privacy landscape and improvements in open-weight model capabilities. To unpack open-weight models and explore why and when we might want to use them, host Ken Mugrage is joined by Thoughtworkers Caer Sanders and Andre Almar. They discuss everything from the precise definition of the term and how they compare to other

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43:01

AI-generated code: What has to be true for us to...

Thoughtworks Technology Podcast ·

2026/08/20

We've been thinking a lot recently about the status of code in a world where it's increasingly written and read by AI. Could the spec, for instance, become the primary way we interface with software systems? And if it does, will that mean humans no longer need to look at code at all? At present, the idea of not looking at our code seems fanciful, possibly dangerous, but even within Thoughtworks there are conflicting perspectives about whether this might change. To some, code will always remain the

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45:29

Scaling the enterprise harness: How to achieve AI...

Thoughtworks Technology Podcast ·

2026/08/06

Harness engineering is still a new concept, but already we've noticed a challenge being consistently faced by technology leaders: how can a harness be used at scale across an organization to ensure consistency and controllability without undermining autonomy? To some extent it's a discussion that's reminiscent of platform engineering and, before that, DevOps, but, given the nature of AI agents, it's also unique to this particular moment. On this episode of the Technology Podcast, host Ken Mugrage is

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30:51

Embracing hybrid AI: How Lenovo is leveraging local,...

Thoughtworks Technology Podcast ·

2026/07/23

Cloud was one of the main drivers of the early waves of AI adoption. However, as AI has become more and more embedded in systems and devices — in both consumer and enterprise contexts — it's becoming a bottleneck. This isn't just about costs (although yes, that issue is certainly surging up the agenda), it's also about how we optimize our architectures and improve device performance. This is why conversation is turning to hybrid AI: embracing a hybrid approach that combines proprietary cloud

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46:25

What does the future of software engineering look like?

Thoughtworks Technology Podcast ·

2026/07/09

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

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40:16

What is code?

Thoughtworks Technology Podcast ·

2026/06/25

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

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39:09

Database branching: Overcoming the bottlenecks of...

Thoughtworks Technology Podcast ·

2026/06/11

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,

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45:39

What is spec-driven development?

Thoughtworks Technology Podcast ·

2026/05/28

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

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40:51

What is harness engineering?

Thoughtworks Technology Podcast ·

2026/05/14

'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,

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48:50

Anthropic Mythos: Hype, reality and the actual...

Thoughtworks Technology Podcast ·

2026/04/30

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

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44:07

Key themes in Technology Radar Vol.34

Thoughtworks Technology Podcast ·

2026/04/15

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

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41:17

How it feels to be a software engineer when AI is...

Thoughtworks Technology Podcast ·

2026/04/02

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

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46:18

Be brilliant at the basics: Inside Looking Glass 2026

Thoughtworks Technology Podcast ·

2026/03/19

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

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37:42

Durable computing: What is it and why now?

Thoughtworks Technology Podcast ·

2026/03/05

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

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40:05

Inside AI/works™: An agentic development platform

Thoughtworks Technology Podcast ·

2026/02/19

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

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39:20

Unlearning, experimentation and engineering rigor in...

Thoughtworks Technology Podcast ·

2026/02/05

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

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37:59

Exploring AI agent platforms

Thoughtworks Technology Podcast ·

2026/01/22

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

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35:22

Architecture antipatterns and pitfalls: Good...

Thoughtworks Technology Podcast ·

2026/01/08

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

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