Thoughtworks Technology Podcast

Join hosts Scott Shaw and Rebecca Parsons as they discuss the challenges and patterns of distributed systems with author Unmesh Joshi. Explore coding miniature versions of Kafka and Cassandra, transitioning from code to English, understanding replication mechanisms, and the evolution of writing topics in this insightful episode.

Thoughtworks experts Michael Fait and Sri discuss the impact of software-defined vehicles on the automotive industry. They explore topics such as the role of software in design and manufacturing, security concerns, testing methods, emerging technologies, open source collaboration, regulations, and the future of mobility.

In this podcast, the hosts discuss the importance of measuring engineering excellence and business outcomes. They introduce EEBO metrics as a tool to align engineering projects with business goals. The podcast explores the principles and considerations of measuring engineering excellence using metrics and showcases a case study of a large bank in Europe. The hosts also provide recommendations for leaders on implementing metrics.

This podcast explores the benefits of asynchronous working, the value of written communication, and the challenges of collaborating remotely. It discusses selecting the right communication channels, documenting decisions, and managing information. The podcast also highlights the advantages of asynchronous collaboration, the role of writing in remote teams, and the trade-offs of asynchronous communication at project and organization levels.

The Thoughtworks Technology Radar team discusses key themes of the industry, including AI-assisted software development, coding assistants, the JavaScript explosion, querying documents with a chat interface, measuring developer productivity, and re-evaluating collaboration styles.

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.

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.

The podcast discusses the impact and reality of generative AI in software development, including advancements in AI-assisted coding, the significance of writing sequel queries correctly, understanding AI-generated code, differences between AI-generated code and traditional programming frameworks, coding assistance and TDD ping pong style, frustrations with the misunderstanding of pair programming, and the usefulness of AI-assisted coding tools.

Srinivasan Sekar and Sai Krishna discuss maintaining AppiumTestDistribution, an open source tool for test automation. They explore the challenges of mobile automation testing and the evolution of Appium. They also talk about expanding the architecture, identifying test failures, and the importance of community support.

The podcast discusses the importance of engineering platforms in organizations. It explores various types of platforms and the concept of developer experience. The importance of defining missions for platform and infrastructure teams is emphasized. The benefits of being a product steward and aligning best practices are discussed. Measuring the outcome of achieving business objectives and the responsibility of developers in uptime management are also covered.