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 P ..read more

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 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, ho ..read more

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 G ..read more

A few years ago, Thoughtworker and (prolific) author Neal Ford published Fundamentals of Software Architecture with Michael 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 edito ..read more

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, Un ..read more

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 chang ..read more

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 ..read more

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 perspectiv ..read more

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 togethe ..read more

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 ..read more