Exploring the fundamentals of software engineering
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 Thoughtworks Technology Podcast, Nate and Dan join hosts Neal Ford and Ken Mugrage to discuss the book and to dive into what really are the fundamental elements of software engineering. Listen for a fresh perspective on the discipline and a deep dive that shows it's about far more than just writing code. Learn more about The Fundamentals of Software Engineering: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/fundamentals-of-software/9781098143220/
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Themes in Technology Radar Vol.32
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 explore what they tell us about software in 2025, regular host Neal Ford takes the guest seat alongside Birgitta Böckeler to talk to Lilly Ryan and Prem Chandrasekaran. They explain how the themes are identified and discuss their wider implications. Read the latest volume of the Thoughtworks Technology Radar: https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar
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38:41
We need to talk about vibe coding
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 join hosts Neal Ford and Prem Chandrasekaran, we dive into the different understandings and applications of the concept, and discuss what happens when a meme collides with reality.
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36:53
Infrastructure as code in 2025
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 maintenance and infrastructure evolution. Learn more about Infrastructure as Code, Third Edition: https://www.thoughtworks.com/en-gb/insights/books/infrastructure-as-code-3rd-ed
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How fitness functions can help us govern and measure AI
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 ways of measuring the extent to which a given solution is fulfilling its goals — so, in the context of AI, they can help teams ensure that AI systems are serving their intended purpose. In this episode of the Technology Podcast, Rebecca Parsons and Neal Ford — authors (alongside Pat Kua and Pramod Sadalage) of Building Evolutionary Architectures, the book which brought fitness functions into the software architecture space — join host Ken Mugrage to explore how the fitness function concept can help us better manage the dynamism of AI and, in doing so, overcome the challenge of bringing such systems into production. Learn more about Building Evolutionary Architectures: https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/books/building-evolutionaryarchitectures-second-edition
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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