Thoughtworks Technology Podcast

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            

Transcribed - Published: 17 April 2025

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.

Transcribed - Published: 2 April 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

Transcribed - Published: 20 March 2025

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    

Transcribed - Published: 6 March 2025

How can we better define and clarify architectures to ensure consistency and control? If, as Neal Ford and Mark Richards discussed on a recent episode of the Technology Podcast, software architecture intersects with many different facets of software development and delivery, what can we do to better manage architectures in a way that is adaptable and dynamic? Neal and Mark return to the guest seats to speak again to host Prem Chandrasekaran about fitness functions and architecture as code, and explain why rethinking our approach to software architecture can help ensure greater alignment with organizational needs and objectives.  

Transcribed - Published: 19 February 2025

The release of DeepSeek's AI models at the end of January 2025 sent shockwaves around the world. The weeks that followed have been rife with hype and rumor, ranging from suggestions that DeepSeek has completely upended the tech industry to claims the efficiency gains ostensibly unlocked by DeepSeek are exagerrated. So, what's the reality? And what does it all really mean for the tech industry? In this episode of the Technology Podcast, two of Thoughtworks' AI leaders — Prasanna Pendse (Global Director of AI Strategy) and Shayan Mohanty (Head of AI Research) — join hosts Prem Chandrasekaran and Ken Mugrage to provide a much-needed clear and sober perspective on DeepSeek. They dig into some of the technical details and discuss how the DeepSeek team was able to optimize the limited hardware at their disposal, and think through what the implications might be for the industry in the months to come. Read Prasanna's take on DeepSeek on the Thoughtworks blog: https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/blog/generative-ai/demystifying-deepseek

Transcribed - Published: 6 February 2025

Generative AI's popularity has led to a renewed interest in quality assurance — perhaps unsurprising given the inherent unpredictability of the technology. This is why, over the last year, the field has seen a number of techniques and approaches emerge, including evals, benchmarking and guardrails. While these terms all refer to different things, grouped together they all aim to improve the reliability and accuracy of generative AI. To discuss these techniques and the renewed enthusiasm for testing across the industry, host Lilly Ryan is joined by Shayan Mohanty, Head of AI Research at Thoughtworks, and John Singleton, Program Manager for Thoughtworks' AI Lab. They discuss the differences between evals, benchmarking and testing and explore both what they mean for businesses venturing into generative AI and how they can be implemented effectively. Learn more about evals, benchmarks and testing in this blog post by Shayan and John (written with Parag Mahajani): https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/blog/generative-ai/LLM-benchmarks,-evals,-and-tests

Transcribed - Published: 23 January 2025

Software architecture necessarily intersects with a diverse range of critical things, including implementation, infrastructure, data and engineering practices. All these elements require serious consideration and reflection if you're to architect effectively.  To discuss these various intersections, Thoughtworks' Neal Ford and his long-time collaborator Mark Richards join host Prem Chandrasekaran on the Thoughtworks Technology Podcast. They dive into why these intersections matter, what they mean for software architects and how individuals and teams can go about addressing them. 

Transcribed - Published: 9 January 2025

Who should be involved in the process of making decisions about software architecture? That's a question that's been puzzling Thoughtworker Andrew Harmel-Law for some time — so much so that he decided to write a book about it. The result is Facilitating Software Architecture. Published by O'Reilly in December 2024, it's both an argument for and a guide to involving more people in the architecture decision process. To discuss the topic and the book, Andrew joined hosts Neal Ford and Prem Chandrasekaran on the Technology Podcast. They explore why including more roles in software architecture matters today, some of the common objections to and risks of such an approach, alongside techniques and practices that can make doing it in fast-paced and dynamic organizations easier. "It's quite magical when you see this blossoming of understanding of what it is that architects do... It's not less architecture, it's more. It's just happening in a broader sphere." — Andrew Harmel-Law You can find Andrew's book on the O'Reilly website: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/facilitating-software-architecture/9781098151850/

Transcribed - Published: 26 December 2024

With the rise of generative AI, the concept of the uncanny valley — where human resemblance unsettles, disturbs or disgusts — is more relevant than ever. But is it a problem that technologists need to tackle? Or does it offer an opportunity for greater thoughtfulness about the ways generative AI is being built, deployed and used? In this episode of the Technology Podcast, host Lilly Ryan is joined by Srinivasan Raguraman to discuss generative AI's uncanny valley and explore how it might offer a model for thinking through our expectations about generative AI outputs and effects. Taking in everything from the experiences of end users to the mental models engineers bring to AI development, listen for a wide-ranging dive into the implications of the uncanny valley in our experience of generative AI today. Read Srinivasan's recent article (written with Ken Mugrage): https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/10/24/1106110/reckoning-with-generative-ais-uncanny-valley/

Transcribed - Published: 12 December 2024

Legacy modernization is an enduring challenge — and as systems become more complex, the difficulty of understanding and modelling a system so it can be modernized only becomes more difficult. However, at Thoughtworks we've seen some recent success bringing generative AI into the legacy modernization process. To discuss what this means in practice and the benefits it can deliver, host Ken Mugrage is joined by Thoughtworks colleagues Shodhan Sheth and Tom Coggrave. Shodhan and Tom have been working together in this space in recent months and, in this episode of the Technology Podcast, offer their insights into finding success with this novel combination. They explain how it can be implemented, the challenges and experiments they did on their way to positive results and what it means for how teams and organizations think about modernization in the future. Read Shodhan and Tom's article on legacy modernization and generative AI (written with Alessio Ferri):  https://martinfowler.com/articles/legacy-modernization-gen-ai.html

Transcribed - Published: 28 November 2024

Data contracts are a bit like APIs for data — they make it possible to interface with data in a way that ensures the transfer of data from one place to another is stable and reliable. This is particularly important for building more reliable data-driven applications. To discuss data contracts, host Lilly Ryan is joined on the Technology Podcast by Andrew Jones, the creator of the data contract concept (in 2021) and author of Driving Data Quality with Data Contracts (2023), and Thoughtworker Ryan Collingwood who is currently writing their own book on data contracts due to be published in 2025. Andrew and Ryan offer their perspectives on the topic, explaining the origins and motivation for the idea and outlining how they can be used in practice.  You can find Andrew’s book here: https://www.amazon.com/Driving-Data-Quality-Contracts-comprehensive/dp/1837635005  

Transcribed - Published: 14 November 2024

What does it mean to be a technology leader today? What kind of challenges must you address? What questions do you need to answer? To explore all that — and dive into what it looks like from a Thoughtworks perspective — host Ken Mugrage spoke to Thomas Squeo, the CTO for Thoughtworks in the Americas. They discuss everything from keeping track of emerging technologies and wider industry shifts, to product thinking, AI and career development. Listen to get to know a Thoughtworks leader and discover fresh perspectives on some of the big questions and debates all of us in tech keep finding ourselves returning to.    Find Thomas on X: @squeot LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomassqueo/

Transcribed - Published: 31 October 2024

Volume 31 of the Technology Radar will be released on October 23, 2024. As always, it will feature 100+ technologies and techniques that we've been using with clients around the world. Alongside them will be a set of key themes that emerged during the process of putting it together. We think they offer another way into the Radar and give a unique insight on some of the most interesting issues impacting the software industry. In this episode of the Technology Podcast we discuss them: coding assistance antipatterns, Rust being anything but rusty, the rise of WebAssembly and what we describe as the "cambrian explosion of generative AI tools." To do so, Alexey Boas is joined by guests and podcast regulars Ken Mugrage and Neal Ford. Ken and Neal provide an insight into the conversations that happened during the process, and offer their perspective on the implications of these themes for the wider tech industry.  

Transcribed - Published: 17 October 2024

The Thoughtworks Technology Radar is, first and foremost, a publication. It's a document that anyone in the tech industry can read twice a year to learn about our experiences and perspectives on technology. However, it's also more than that: it's built on top of a process of deliberation, discussion and curation. We think that's particularly important — it's something we encourage technology teams and organizations to do and which we support with our Build Your Own Radar tool.  On this episode of the Technology Podcast, Neal Ford and Ken Mugrage join Prem Chandrasekaran to discuss Build Your Own Radar. They outline why the Radar process is just as important as the artifact that gets created at the end, and explain how organizations can use it to facilitate conversations about how and what technology they use and want to use in the future.    Learn more about Build Your Own Radar: https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar/byor

Transcribed - Published: 3 October 2024

There are no shortage of options when it comes to relational databases. While the likes of PostgreSQL have proven enduring, even as the market has evolved, for data scientists and data engineers that need to manage and query particularly complex or large data sets, the most popular databases aren't always right for the job. Thankfully, this is where projects like DuckDB can help. Built for what's called 'vectorized query execution', it's well-suited to the demands of online analytical processing (OLAP). To get a deeper understanding of DuckDB and how the product has developed, on this episode of the Technology Podcast, hosts Ken Mugrage and Lilly Ryan are joined by Thoughtworker Ned Letcher and Thoughtworks alumnus Simon Aubury. Ned and Simon explain the thinking behind DuckDB, the design decisions made by the project and how its being used by data practitioners in the wild. Learn more about DuckDB: https://duckdb.org/why_duckdb.html Explore Ned and Simon's book Getting Started with DuckDB: https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Started-DuckDB-practical-efficiently/dp/1803241004    

Transcribed - Published: 19 September 2024

It's widely accepted that, in most cases at least, software systems should be modular, consisting of separate, discrete services. But what about the size of those services? How big or small should they be? This is where the question of service granularity comes in: too small and your system will become needlessly complicated; too big and you lose all the benefits of modularity you were seeking in the first place. In this episode of the Thoughtworks Technology Podcast, host Ken Mugrage is joined by Neal Ford and Mark Richards — authors of multiple books on software architecture — to discuss service granularity. They explain why it matters and how software architects can go about getting it right, through the lens of granularity integrators and disintegrators.   Learn more about Neal and Mark's 2021 book Software Architecture: The Hard Parts (co-authored with Zhamak Dehghaniand Pramod Sadalage): https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/books/software-architecture-hard-parts Find out more about Neal and Mark's second edition of The Fundamentals of Software Architecture, set to be released in early 2025: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/fundamentals-of-software/9781098175504/

Transcribed - Published: 5 September 2024

Trying to measure developer effectiveness or productivity isn't a new problem. However, with the rise of fields like platform engineering and a new wave of potential opportunities from generative AI, the issue has come into greater focus in recent years.  In this episode of the Technology Podcast, hosts Scott Shaw and Prem Chandrasekaran speak to Abi Noda, CEO of software engineering intelligence platform DX, about measuring developer experience using the DevEx Framework — which Abi developed alongside Nicole Forsgren, Margaret-Anne Storey and Michaela Greiler. Taking in everything from the origins of the DevEx framework in SPACE metrics, to how technologists can better 'sell' the importance of developer experience to business stakeholders, listen for a fresh perspective on a topic that's likely to remain at the top of the industry's agenda for the forseeable future.   Read the DevEx Framework paper: https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3595878 Read Abi's article (co-authored with Tim Cochran) on martinfowler.com: https://martinfowler.com/articles/measuring-developer-productivity-humans.html Listen to Abi's Engineering Enablement podcast: https://getdx.com/podcast/

Transcribed - Published: 22 August 2024

Artificial intelligence has been presented as a technology with the potential to transform many different fields and professions. One of the most notable is design — but if we want to design in a way that's truly human-centric and inclusive, to what extent can artificial intelligence really help us do better work? In this episode of the Technology Podcast, hosts Rebecca Parsons and Lilly Ryan speak to Thoughtworks design leaders Kate Linton and Esther Tham to get their perspective on how AI might be able to support designers. They discuss what AI tools could help the design process, how these tools could fit neatly into current practices and what the emergence of this technology could mean for design practices more broadly. 

Transcribed - Published: 8 August 2024

If you work in technology, you're constantly making decisions: not just what you should do, but also how you should do it. That's why we developed the concept of "sensible defaults" — practices and technology decisions that we generally see — in most scenarios — as the right way to do things.  Although we've been talking about sensible defaults internally for a few years now, we recently decided to share them publicly on our website. We did so because we believe it can help organizations think through their own approach to technology decision-making, something which is becoming increasingly challenging in a rapidly changing and complex world. So, to discuss sensible defaults and explain precisely why we want to share them with the world, hosts Rebecca Parsons and Ken Mugrage are joined by Brandon Cook and Kief Morris, two Thoughtworkers that played an important role in putting our sensible defaults together. They discuss the origins of the sensible default idea, some examples, as well as the challenges of putting them into practice. Explore Thoughtworks' sensible defaults: https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/topic/sensible-defaults

Transcribed - Published: 25 July 2024

Understanding your technology estate and how it's being leveraged is critical for organizations; it impacts everything from financial planning to capability development. But given the rapid pace of change — even inside a single company, let alone the wider industry — how can this be done effectively? One approach we've landed on at Thoughtworks is something called a Tech Dash: it's a method of internal research that surfaces information about an organization's technology use, and even software developers' experiences. In this episode of the Technology Podcast, Camilla Crispim and Renan Martins talk to hosts Alexey Boas and Ken Mugrage about the value of a Tech Dash and explain how it can help track technology use. They also discuss where the idea came from and how they put it into practice across Thoughtworks Brazil.

Transcribed - Published: 11 July 2024

Bahmni started life as an open-source hospital information management system and electronic medical record for a single hospital in rural India. Today, it has more than 500 implementations in 50 countries across Africa and Asia, and is recognized as one of only 165 digital public goods by the Digital Public Goods Alliance.  Thoughtworks played a key part in bringing Bahmni into the world back in 2012. And although today it’s run and supported by a coalition of organizations, Thoughtworks continues to have a leading role in the project as a member of its Governing Committee. To tell Bahmni’s unique story, Rebecca Parsons and Ken Mugrage speak with Satish Viswanathan and Angshuman Sarkar, two Thoughtworkers actively participating and contributing to the project. They discuss Bahmni’s origins and how it grew from a small, local tool to become a vital component in healthcare infrastructure in parts of the world that have long faced resource challenges.   Learn more about Bahmni: https://www.bahmni.org/  

Transcribed - Published: 27 June 2024

One of the fundamentals of security is self-awareness: knowing where you may be vulnerable, the practices and processes that aren't yet quite in place and what actions you need to prioritize are essential if your organization is to excel at security. But how can that be done? In complex and distributed teams, surfacing such knowledge can be incredibly difficult. One solution, though, is something called a security maturity model. In this episode of the Thoughtworks Technology Podcast, Thoughtworks alumnus Diana Adorno and current Thoughtworkers Lisa Junger and Robin Doherty speak to host Alexey Boas about a security maturity model they've developed that was recognized by the prestigious CSO50 Awards. They explain the purpose of developing and using one, how theirs works and why it should matter to any organization that wants to get serious about the way it does security.

Transcribed - Published: 13 June 2024

Despite occasional confusion, the difference between continuous delivery and continuous deployment is simple: should deploying to production be on demand or every good build? Answering which approach is 'best' is difficult; any attempt at dogmatism is likely to just look foolish, given it is, like many other debates in software development, context-dependent. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try and unpick the issues at the heart of the discussion. It's all well and good saying the debate is context-dependent, but what does that actually mean in practice? In this episode of the Technology Podcast, Ken Mugrage and Valentina Servile debate the merits of both continuous delivery and continuous deployment. Talking with hosts Prem Chandrasekaran and Birgitta Böckeler, they offer their perspectives on when and where both should be used — in making the case for their chosen approaches, they shed some much needed light on a discussion that every software engineering team should have.   Learn more about Valentina Servile's book Continuous Deployment: https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/books/continuous-deployment

Transcribed - Published: 30 May 2024

Volume 30 of the Thoughtworks Technology Radar was published in April 2024. Alongside 105 blips, the edition also featured four themes selected by the team of technologists that puts the Radar together. They were: open-ish source licenses, AI-assisted software development teams, emerging architecture patterns for LLMs and dragging pull requests closer to continuous integration. Each one cuts across the technologies and techniques included on the Radar and highlights a key issue or challenge for software developers — and other technologists — working today. In this episode of the Technology Podcast, Birgitta Böckeler and Erik Dörnenberg join Neal Ford and Ken Mugrage to discuss the themes for Technology Radar Vol.30. They explain what they mean, why they were picked and what their implications are for the wider industry.   Explore volume 30 of the Technology Radar: https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar

Transcribed - Published: 16 May 2024

Bringing machine learning models into production is challenging. This is why, as demand for machine learning capabilities in products and services increases, new kinds of teams and new ways of working are emerging to bridge the gap between data science and software engineering. Effective Machine Learning Teams — written by Thoughtworkers David Tan, Ada Leung and Dave Colls — was created to help practitioners get to grips with these challenges and master everything needed to deliver exceptional machine learning-backed products. In this episode of the Technology Podcast, the authors join Scott Shaw and Ken Mugrage to discuss their book. They explain how it addresses current issues in the field, taking in everything from the technical challenges of testing and deployment to the cultural work of building teams that span different disciplines and areas of expertise.   Learn more about Effective Machine Learning Teams: https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/books/effective-machine-learning-teams Read a Q&A with the authors: https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/blog/machine-learning-and-ai/author-q-and-a-effective-machine-learning-teams  

Transcribed - Published: 2 May 2024

Can AI improve the quality of our code? A recent white paper published by code analysis company CodeScene — "Refactoring vs. Refuctoring: Advancing the state of AI-automated code improvements" — highlighted some significant challenges: in tests, AI solutions only delivered functionally correct refactorings 37% of the time. However, there are nevertheless opportunities. The white paper suggests it might be possible to dramatically boost the success rate of AI refactoring to 90%. In this episode of the Technology Podcast, Adam Tornhill, CTO and Founder of CodeScene, joins Thoughtworks' Rebecca Parsons (CTO Emerita), Birgitta Böckeler (Global Lead for AI-assisted software delivery) and Martin Fowler (Chief Scientist and author of the influential Refactoring book) to discuss all things AI and code. From refactoring and code quality to the benefits and limitations of coding assistants, this is an essential conversation for anyone that wants to understand how AI is going to shape the way we build software.   Read CodeScene's Refactoring vs. Refuctoring white paper, which explores AI's role in improving code:  https://codescene.com/hubfs/whitepapers/Refactoring-vs-Refuctoring-Advancing-the-state-of-AI-automated-code-improvements.pdf Read CodeScene's Code Red white paper to learn how code quality impacts time-to-market and product experience: https://codescene.com/hubfs/web_docs/Business-impact-of-code-quality.pdf CodeScene's new automated refactoring tool is now in beta. Learn more:  https://codescene.com/campaigns/ai Listen to our podcast discussion about AI-assisted coding from November 2023: https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/podcasts/technology-podcasts/ai-assisted-coding-experiences-perspectives

Transcribed - Published: 18 April 2024

If you've ever wondered how to measure your cloud carbon footprint, you can — thanks to a tool that's called, somewhat unsurprisingly, Cloud Carbon Footprint. Launched in March 2021 by Thoughtworks as an open-source project, it allows users to monitor and measure carbon emissions and energy use from cloud services. On this episode of the Technology Podcast, senior software engineers Cameron Casher and Arik Smith join Alexey Boas and Ken Mugrage to talk about Cloud Carbon Footprint in depth. They explain why CCF is different from the measurement tools offered by established cloud vendors, how it actually works and how you can get started with it yourself.  CCF on GitHub: https://github.com/cloud-carbon-footprint Learn more: https://www.cloudcarbonfootprint.org/    

Transcribed - Published: 4 April 2024

Looking Glass isn't like most other technology trend reports. It doesn't just tell you what deserves your attention, it's designed to help you use it to focus on what really matters to you. Published once a year, Thoughtworks intends it to be a tool that helps readers make sense of the emerging technologies that are going to shape the industry in the months and years to come. In this episode of the Technology Podcast, lead Looking Glass contributors Rebecca Parsons and Ken Mugrage trade hosting duties for the guest seats, as they talk to Neal Ford about the most recent edition of the Looking Glass (published in January 2024). They explain what the Looking Glass is and outline some of the key 'lenses' that act as a framework readers can use to monitor and evaluate what's on the horizon.  Covering everything from AI to augmented reality, this conversation offers a new perspective on emerging technology to help prepare you for 2024. Explore Looking Glass 2024: https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/looking-glass

Transcribed - Published: 21 March 2024

A few years ago, Thoughtworker and (prolific) author Neal Ford published Fundamentals of Software Architecture with Mark Richards. They're now back with another book on software architecture — written with co-author Raju Gandhi — which offers readers a very different learning experience. Described as a combination of technical book and graphic novel, Head First Software Architecture dispenses with dense prose to present and explain software architecture concepts and ideas in some highly innovative and novel ways. In this episode of the Technology Podcast, the authors — alongside their editor, Sarah Grey — join Rebecca Parsons to discuss their new book. They explain the thinking behind the approach, how it diverges from Fundamentals of Software Architecture and detail some of the challenges of writing in a new format. Whether you're interested in getting started with software architecture or simply curious about technical communication and learning, listen to find out more. Learn more about Head First Software Architecture: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/head-first-software/9781098134341/

Transcribed - Published: 7 March 2024

Distributed systems are ubiquitous yet complex. They can be particularly demanding for software developers and architects tasked with dealing with the sometimes unpredictable nature of the interactions between their various parts. That's why Thoughtworker Unmesh Joshi wrote Patterns of Distributed Systems. Published at the end of 2023, the book explores a number of patterns that characterize distributed systems, and uses them to not only help readers better understand how such systems work but also to solve problems and challenges that often arise. On this episode of the Technology Podcast, Unmesh joins hosts Scott Shaw and Rebecca Parsons to talk about his book, explaining where the idea came from, how he put it together and why it's important to get beneath neat abstractions to really get to grips with the inner workings of distributed systems. Learn more about Patterns of Distributed Systems: https://www.pearson.com/subject-catalog/p/patterns-of-distributed-systems/P200000011305/9780138221980

Transcribed - Published: 22 February 2024

A few decades ago, it would have probably seemed strange to put software and automobility together. However, today software is embedded in all kinds of modern vehicles, enabling capabilities in everything from driving to passenger entertainment. But what exactly does this all mean for the automotive industry? And what demands does it place on design and manufacturing processes? In this episode of the Technology Podcast, two Thoughtworks experts on software-defined vehicles — Michael Fait and Sriram J. — speak to Ashok Subramanian and Ken Mugrage about how the automotive industry has been changed by software. They cover everything from the implications software has for the way we think about design, manufacturing and regulation across the industry to the skills and practices developers need to work in this exciting space.

Transcribed - Published: 8 February 2024

Is it really possible to measure the impact engineering teams have on a business' success? At a time when growth is challenging for many organizations and questions about productivity and effectiveness dominate industry conversations, getting it right is crucial. And although the DORA metrics are today well-established and extremely useful is it really enough? Do they actually help us tie the work we do to tangible business results?  In attempting to answer these questions, a group of Thoughtworkers have developed what they call EEBO metrics. These are designed to measure engineering excellence to business outcomes.  To discuss EEBO metrics, hosts Prem Chandrasekaran and Scott Shaw (CTO, Thoughtworks APAC) are joined by Dinker Charak (Principal Product Strategist) and Sachin Dharmapurikar (Global Product Manager). Charak and Dharmapurikar helped to develop EEBO metrics; they believe it can be a valuable tool in aligning often complex engineering projects and activities with high-level business goals and objectives. Listen as they explain what EEBO metrics are (and aren't) and how businesses should think about using them.

Transcribed - Published: 25 January 2024

Thanks to the pandemic, asynchronous working is, today, fairly common. However, it's often easily confused with simply working remotely — and while there are certainly neat synergies between the two, asynchronous working isn't just a description of your working arrangement: it's a set of intentional practices and artifacts that allow people to work together without having to physically be together. On this episode of ther Technology Podcast, Thoughtworkers Sumeet Gayathri Moghe — author of The Async-First Playbook — and Maya Ormaza join hosts Neal Ford and Ken Mugrage to offer their perspectives on asynchronous working. Taking in everything from the value of written communication, work that demands synchronicity and the importance of leadership to async working, listen to gain a fresh perspective on the way we work together in 2024. Learn more about Sumeet's Async-First Playbook: https://www.asyncagile.org/the-book Read Sumeet's guide to writing for async workers: https://www.asyncagile.org/blog/the-async-workers-guide-to-writing A guide to reading for asynchronous workers: https://www.asyncagile.org/blog/the-async-workers-guide-to-reading A guide to audio and visual content when working asynchronously: https://www.asyncagile.org/blog/the-async-workers-guide-to-reading  

Transcribed - Published: 11 January 2024

With each edition of the Thoughtworks Technology Radar, we identify a number of key themes that we see as significant in the industry. In the most recent edition — volume 29, published in September — we picked out AI-assisted software development, the challenges of measuring productivity, the rapid growth of LLMs and remote delivery workarounds beginning to mature in a post-pandemic world. For this, the final Technology Podcast episode of 2023, a few members of the team involved in putting the Technology Radar together — Neal Ford, Rebecca Parsons, Scott Shaw and Erik Doernenberg — got together to discuss these themes in more detail and offer their perspectives. As we leave the year behind, it's a great way to review some of the key issues and stories that shaped the way the world builds software.

Transcribed - Published: 28 December 2023

Generative AI has, unsurprisingly, been a major topic of conversation within Thoughtworks in 2023. However, as enjoyable as it is to get sucked into discussions about the reality, the risks and the benefits of this new technology, what's really interesting — and most important — is understanding how organizations can actually leverage generative AI in a way that's both safe and effective.  For this episode of the Technology Podcast, Rebecca Parsons and Birgitta Böckeler spoke to Andreas Nauerz, CTO and Executive Vice President of Bosch Digital, who explained how he and his team have been thinking about generative AI and exploring the ways it can be leveraged across a huge multinational organization. He discusses where generative AI has already been effective, managing risk and the challenges of bring a large organization with you as you seek to implement something new.

Transcribed - Published: 14 December 2023

It's easy for key industry players to talk up AI's potential positive social impact, but what does building for social impact actually look like? At Thoughtworks, a small team has been working on a project called "Jugalbandi," designing AI-driven systems and tools for civil society initiatives, such as a chatbot that helps Indian citizens find information about government programs and schemes in their native language. Earlier this year, Jugalbandi caught the attention of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who saw it as evidence of AI's power to drive transformative change to every single part of the world. In this episode of the Technology Podcast, Jugalbandi team members Vinod Sankaranarayanan and Prathamesh Kalamkar offer an inside look at the project, talking in detail about the work they've done, some of the challenges they've faced and how they're looking to expand and increase its impact in the months and years to come.

Transcribed - Published: 30 November 2023

Generative AI appears to be making an impact in a huge range of fields, but one that we're particularly interested in at Thoughtworks is its use in software development. In recent months, there's been a lot of talk in the industry around issues like whether AI might boost developer productivity and if it can be used for pair programming, but in this episode of the Technology Podcast we try to get beneath the hype to explore the reality of generative AI and software development — how is it actually being used today? What works? And what doesn't? To dive deeper into all this, Chief of AI Mike Mason and Global Lead for AI-Assisted Software Delivery Birgitta Böckeler join hosts Prem Chandrasekaran and Neal Ford, discussing everything from the current tooling to the way GenAI is shaping developer practices and workflows.

Transcribed - Published: 16 November 2023

Open source contributors and maintainers play a vital role in the technology ecosystem. But what's it like to develop and maintain an open source tool — especially one that thousands of other developers use and depend on? In this episode of the Technology Podcast, Srinivasan Sekar and Sai Krishna join hosts Rebecca Parsons and Scott Shaw to discuss their work on AppiumTestDistribution, an open source tool that supports test automation framework Appium. AppiumTestDistribution won a LambdaTest Delta Award at the August 2023 Testμ Conference. Listen to Sekar and Krishna explain how the project emerged, how they approach maintaining and evolving the tool and what it takes to be a part of an award-winning open source project.

Transcribed - Published: 2 November 2023

The concept of the developer platform and the discipline of platform engineering have been important in shaping how the industry thinks about enabling developers. But what does it mean to actually build and maintain a platform? How can you ensure it actually supports the people that need it? In this episode of the Technology Podcast, hosts Ken Mugrage and Rebecca Parsons are joined by Chris Ford of Thoughtworks Spain and Aidan Donnelly, Director of Technology Platform at Personio, to discuss the importance of engineering platforms in organizations today. Read Aidan's writing on Medium: https://medium.com/@aidan.donnelly  

Transcribed - Published: 19 October 2023

Many of the scale-ups we’ve partnered with over the years will hit road bumps along the way. One common bottleneck we’ve seen are unexpected and dramatic rises in costs. In this episode we talk to members of our Digital Scale-up Studio, to hear their experience of gaining better visibility, improving operational efficiency at scale-ups, while the business maintains growth and gains greater knowledge of customer requirements.   Podcast hosts: Rebecca Parsons, Premanand Chandrasekaran,  Podcast guests: Stefania Stefansdottir, Sofia Tania  

Transcribed - Published: 3 October 2023

The evolution of SQL and the ease of access to ever larger sizes of computational power has made SQL and ETL a useful pairing for practitioners in the data space. But how do they work together exactly? And what challenges can it pose? Bharani Subramaniam and Madhu Podila discuss these issues and much more with hosts Neal Ford and Rebecca Parsons on the latest episode of the Thoughtworks Technology Podcast.    

Transcribed - Published: 21 September 2023

Radio astronomy — a subfield of astronomy that studies the sky using radio frequencies — is data-intensive. That poses a challenge for radio astronomers: building and then communicating scientific insights requires significant processing and analytical work. Thoughtworks has been working with Dr. Neeraj Gupta from the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) in India to develop solutions to these challenges, including a data processing pipeline, a collaborative platform for analysis and a digital catalog for publishing and communicating research. In this episode of the Technology Podcast Dr. Gupta joins Justin Jose of Thoughtworks India's Engineering for Research (E4R) team as they speak to hosts Rebecca Parsons and Prem Chandrasekaran about their work together. Dr. Gupta explains the benefits of Thoughtworks work from an astronomer perspective, while Justin highlights the challenges of building software solutions in a highly specialized domain.

Transcribed - Published: 7 September 2023

XR is a potentially transformative technology, but it needs to be leveraged in a way that drives value. That isn't straightforward — given effective XR initiatives often require significant experimentation and exploration, simply aligning XR with strict organizational goals and aims will often make it harder to achieve success. How can technologists and product leaders get the balance right? In this episode of the Technology Podcast, Vaibhav Tikekar and Shea Clark-Tieche join hosts Rebecca Parsons and Ken Mugrage to discuss how to use XR effectively, talking through their experiences working with clients in recent years and providing their perspectives on how experimentation and innovation can be brought in alignment with organizational goals and objectives.

Transcribed - Published: 24 August 2023

Leadership is an important if often-overlooked quality in the technology industry. However, it is also a complex and multi-faceted thing: it isn't a discrete set of skills, but rather an ability to respond and adapt to the needs of a situation, team or individual. In this episode of the Technology Podcast, Ricardo Cavalcanti (Caval) and Arturo Santos from Thoughtworks Brazil join hosts Alexey Boas and Scott Shaw to discuss their experiences of leadership and offer their perspective on the value of building a diverse repertoire of leadership styles.    

Transcribed - Published: 10 August 2023

Design leader and Thoughtworks alumnus Emma Carter recently published her second book, DesignedUp. In it, she explains how designers can win a seat at the leadership table inside technolology organizations and become effective evangelists and advocates for good design principles and practices. In this episode of the Technology Podcast, Emma joins hosts Rebecca Parsons and Scott Shaw to discuss her new book and talks through some of the challenges designers face in even the most forward-thinking technology companies. She highlights that design is, today, far more than just UI design — it can, and should, touch many parts of an organization, ensuring that products and services are properly aligned with the aims, goals and needs of users. You can find Emma's book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/DesignedUp-Emma-Carter/dp/1032202017/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Transcribed - Published: 27 July 2023

Thoughtworks recently established a new role — Chief AI Officer. Taking up the position is Mike Mason, a veteran of Thoughtworks with over 20 years at the company, in technology roles spanning developer to technology strategist and author (and occasional Technology Podcast host). Mike will help guide Thoughtworks AI strategy and ensure that we're equipped to support clients trying to leverage AI.  In this episode of the Technology Podcast, Mike talks with hosts Neal Ford and Prem Chandrasekaran about his new role and explains why it's important that the company has someone leading on AI. He also discusses the hype, opportunities and risks of generative AI that — high on everyone's agenda at the moment — and explores how it might change knowledge work in general and software engineering more specifically. Listen as Mike talks through some of his own experiments with ChatGPT and offers his perspective on its likely impact on jobs in the months and years to come.

Transcribed - Published: 13 July 2023

It seems obvious to say that mobile usage has grown dramatically over the last decade, but for businesses that have to move to accomodate this type of user behavior, it presents many challenges. While some have successfully gone all-in on mobile experiences, for others, trying to build effectively for multiple channels is as much an organizational challenge as it is a product one. In this episode of the Technology Podcast, hosts Scott Shaw and Birgitta Böckeler are joined by Head of Technology Alexandra Lovin and Principal Mobile Consultant Andres Kievsky to discuss the current state of play in mobile development. They discuss the challenges of scaling mobile delivery, taking in everything from addressing privacy issues to application architecture.

Transcribed - Published: 29 June 2023

A changing regulatory environment has made it more important than ever for organizations to embed privacy in their data infrastructure. Doing so, however, can be complicated — that means data scientists have an vital role to play in ensuring privacy is a key concern from both a technical and commercial perspective.  Thoughtworker and data scientist Katharine Jarmul is eager to help fellow data scientists master privacy principles and techniques. Her new book, Practical Data Privacy, covers everything from the fundamentals of governance and anonymization through to advanced approaches to data privacy like federated learning and encrypted computation. In this episode of the Technology Podcast, Katharine joins hosts Rebecca Parsons and Birgitta Böckeler to discuss the book and explain why data scientists need to be on the frontline in the fight for privacy.  Find Practical Data Privacy on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Data-Privacy-Enhancing-Security/dp/1098129466    

Transcribed - Published: 15 June 2023

When cloud first hit the mainstream more than a decade ago, its attraction was rooted, in part, in its apparent elegance and simplicity. As it has become an established norm in the industry, such simplicity has given way to more fragmentation and complexity. The growth of "multi-cloud" and adjacent terms such as "hybrid cloud" and "poly cloud" mean that cloud is a field that needs to be sensitively navigated by technology leaders and their organizations. In this episode of the Technology Podcast, hosts Neal Ford and Prem Chandrasekaran discuss multi-cloud with Thoughtworks colleagues Rashmi Tambe and Sunit Parekh, who co-lead the Enterprise Modernization, Platforms and Cloud service line. In the episode they discuss terminology, the challenges of migrating to multiple cloud platforms, governance issues and some common antipatterns. They also offer advice for teams considering exploring the potential of multi-cloud.

Transcribed - Published: 1 June 2023