Thoughtworks Technology Podcast

Given the remarkable pace of change in software engineering throughout 2026, the latest edition of the Thoughtworks Technology Radar — vol. 35, due to be published November 4 — is an opportunity to take stock of the current state of the industry and to look ahead at how things might develop in 2027.
The themes in particular tell an interesting story about current challenges and areas of focus. They are: harness engineering at scale; putting more agents to work; beyond frontier models; and the economics of running AI at scale. Clearly, we're at a point where we're grappling with what it means to work with larger and more complex agent systems and the real material implications, whether that's in terms of money or how developers actually spend their time.
On this episode of the Technology Podcast, host Lilly Ryan is joined by Thoughtworks Chief Architect Chris Ford and Security Specialist Effy Elden (both of whom helped put volume 35 together) to discuss the themes in the new edition and unpack what they mean. They discuss everything from harnesses to local coding models and explore what Technology Radar Vol.35 might be able to teach us about software and what it means to be a developer today.
Explore Thoughtworks Technology Radar (vol.35 published Nov. 4, 2026): https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar
Learn more about Chris Ford's Agentic Engineering at Scale: https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/books/agentic-engineering-scale

As fun as it is to discuss new terminology or debate the latest techniques, at some point the rubber needs to hit the proverbial road when it comes to AI. That's where things get really hard: when, say, your new agentic platform collides with the day-to-day realities of being an engineering team in a large organization with all the typical constraints and occasional firefighting. 
On this episode of the Technology Podcast we're taking a closer look at one real-world experience of adopting an agentic platform by talking about some of the work Thoughtworks has been doing with Splio, an AI-first CRM platform. Talking with host Ken Mugrage, Thoughtworker Carolina Allende Amen is joined by Splio's VP of Engineering François Bonicel and CTO Philippe Donon to dive into the challenges, learnings and surprises that emerged as they worked together on Splio's ambitious agentic project.
Learn more about Thoughtworks' work with Splio: https://www.thoughtworks.com/clients/Splio
Dive deeper into the topic with this blog post written by Philippe and Thoughtworkers Amy Raygada and Johnny Sayers: https://www.thoughtworks.com/insights/articles/the-action-gap-customer-insight
Find out more about Thoughtworks' partnership with AWS and the Agentic Catalyst Program: https://www.thoughtworks.com/about-us/partnerships/cloud/aws/aws-software-isv

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 Schutta is joined by Thoughtworks colleague and Data and AI Lead Lorisa Perdoci and Lauren Hartman, Cloud Solution Architect at Microsoft, to discuss everything from data products to data agents. They also explore Microsoft Fabric, discussing how its evolution in 2026 to include new features and capabilities built for AI agents and today's data integration and governance challenges, reflects the direction of travel in this field.

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 Mugrage and Caer Sanders are joined by former Thoughtworkers Cassie Shum (formerly VP of Ecosystem and Product Engineering at RelationalAI) and Tim Cochran (recently a Principal at AWS) to discuss their new company Praxa Inc., a venture shaped by the industry's need to rethink the way we collaborate and structure our work in a world of AI agents. They discuss today's challenges, how software engineering is changing and how Praxa can help organizations navigate this period of evolution.
Learn more about Praxa: https://teaser.getpraxa.ai/

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 kinds of models, to governance and hardware challenges.