The InfoQ Podcast

In this episode, Thomas Betts and Adi Polak talk about the need for context engineering when interacting with LLMs and designing agentic systems. Prompt engineering techniques work with a stateless approach, while context engineering allows AI systems to be stateful.

Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/4168Wcj

Subscribe to the Software Architects’ Newsletter for your monthly guide to the essential news and experience from industry peers on emerging patterns and technologies:

https://www.infoq.com/software-architects-newsletter

Upcoming Events:

QCon AI Boston 2026 (June 1-2, 2026)

Learn how real teams are accelerating the entire software lifecycle with AI.

https://boston.qcon.ai

QCon San Francisco 2026 (November 16-20, 2026)

https://qconsf.com/

The InfoQ Podcasts:

Weekly inspiration to drive innovation and build great teams from senior software leaders. Listen to all our podcasts and read interview transcripts:

- The InfoQ Podcast https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/

- Engineering Culture Podcast by InfoQ https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/#engineering_culture

- Generally AI: https://www.infoq.com/generally-ai-podcast/

Follow InfoQ:

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Write for InfoQ: Learn and share the changes and innovations in professional software development.

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In this podcast Michael Stiefel spoke to Lorin Hochstein about how real-world failures provide insight into how software systems actually work. Our first topic was understanding that while automated fault injection tools can introduce basic robustness into a system, they cannot replicate the understanding that comes from mitigating complicated software failures in the real world. We then pondered how do we get this information to software architects so that they can learn from failure. Ironically, in reliable systems, adding more reliability can often lead to complexity which can lead to new failures. We often focus on making our systems robust against known failure patterns, but we have not learnt how to make software systems resilient to unknown failure modes, or failures due to changes in the external world or the evolving system design.

Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/3NVhtf3

Subscribe to the Software Architects’ Newsletter for your monthly guide to the essential news and experience from industry peers on emerging patterns and technologies:

https://www.infoq.com/software-architects-newsletter

Upcoming Events:

QCon AI Boston 2026 (June 1-2, 2026)

Learn how real teams are accelerating the entire software lifecycle with AI.

https://boston.qcon.ai

QCon San Francisco 2026 (November 16-20, 2026)

https://qconsf.com/

The InfoQ Podcasts:

Weekly inspiration to drive innovation and build great teams from senior software leaders. Listen to all our podcasts and read interview transcripts:

- The InfoQ Podcast https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/

- Engineering Culture Podcast by InfoQ https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/#engineering_culture

- Generally AI: https://www.infoq.com/generally-ai-podcast/

Follow InfoQ:

- Mastodon: https://techhub.social/@infoq

- X: https://x.com/InfoQ?from=@

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/infoq/

- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InfoQdotcom#

- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/infoqdotcom/?hl=en

- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/infoq

- Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/infoq.com

Write for InfoQ: Learn and share the changes and innovations in professional software development.

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https://www.infoq.com/write-for-infoq

Are you ready for your new non-deterministic co-workers?

Autonomous agents promise to help build, operate, and run software systems, but they can also be unpredictable, chaotic, and difficult to control without the right operating model. In this episode of Next Generation Architecture Playbook, Shweta Vohra and Joseph Stein explore what changes when software systems start planning, acting, and making decisions on their own. The conversation distinguishes truly agentic use cases from traditional automation and looks at how architects and engineers should think about boundaries, orchestration, and system design in this new environment.

The episode also explores the practical realities organisations face early in adoption. These include emerging risks such as prompt injection and tool misuse, the growing need for stronger observability and explainability, and how human-in-the-loop models fit into autonomous workflows. Joseph shares lessons from building a centralised AI platform used across multiple teams and products, including the unexpected operational challenges that arise when internal adoption accelerates quickly. The discussion offers a grounded look at how enterprises can experiment with agentic systems while keeping control over risk, cost, and operational complexity.

Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/4lv6iGa

Subscribe to the Software Architects’ Newsletter for your monthly guide to the essential news and experience from industry peers on emerging patterns and technologies:

www.infoq.com/software-architects-newsletter

Upcoming Events:

QCon AI Boston 2026 (June 1-2, 2026)

Learn how real teams are accelerating the entire software lifecycle with AI.

boston.qcon.ai

QCon San Francisco 2026 (November 16-20, 2026)

qconsf.com/

The InfoQ Podcasts:

Weekly inspiration to drive innovation and build great teams from senior software leaders. Listen to all our podcasts and read interview transcripts:

- The InfoQ Podcast www.infoq.com/podcasts/

- Engineering Culture Podcast by InfoQ www.infoq.com/podcasts/#engineering_culture

- Generally AI: www.infoq.com/generally-ai-podcast/

Follow InfoQ:

- Mastodon: techhub.social/@infoq

- X: x.com/InfoQ?from=@

- LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/infoq/

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- Youtube: www.youtube.com/infoq

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Write for InfoQ: Learn and share the changes and innovations in professional software development.

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www.infoq.com/write-for-infoq

Andres Almiray, a serial open-source contributor and the creator of JReleaser, discusses the project's state, noting that the tool is usable across any ecosystem, not just Java. He also touches on the Common House Foundation's mission.

Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/4sGNOFg

Subscribe to the Software Architects’ Newsletter for your monthly guide to the essential news and experience from industry peers on emerging patterns and technologies:

https://www.infoq.com/software-architects-newsletter

Upcoming Events:

QCon London 2026 (March 16-19, 2026)

QCon London equips senior engineers, architects, and technical leaders with trusted, practical insights to lead the change in software development. Get real-world solutions and leadership strategies from senior software practitioners defining current trends and solving today's toughest software challenges.

https://qconlondon.com/

QCon AI Boston 2026 (June 1-2, 2026)

Learn how real teams are accelerating the entire software lifecycle with AI.

https://boston.qcon.ai

QCon San Francisco 2026 (November 16-20, 2026)

https://qconsf.com/

The InfoQ Podcasts:

Weekly inspiration to drive innovation and build great teams from senior software leaders. Listen to all our podcasts and read interview transcripts:

- The InfoQ Podcast https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/

- Engineering Culture Podcast by InfoQ https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/#engineering_culture

- Generally AI: https://www.infoq.com/generally-ai-podcast/

Follow InfoQ:

- Mastodon: https://techhub.social/@infoq

- X: https://x.com/InfoQ?from=@

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/infoq/

- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InfoQdotcom#

- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/infoqdotcom/?hl=en

- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/infoq

- Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/infoq.com

Write for InfoQ: Learn and share the changes and innovations in professional software development.

- Join a community of experts.

- Increase your visibility.

- Grow your career.

https://www.infoq.com/write-for-infoq

In this episode, Thomas Betts and Sam McAfee discuss how AI hype is reshaping organizational behavior, why many companies struggle with experimentation, and how unclear decision structures create friction. They explore psychological safety and mindful leadership as essential foundations for healthier, more effective engineering cultures.

Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/4l6G7FN

Subscribe to the Software Architects’ Newsletter for your monthly guide to the essential news and experience from industry peers on emerging patterns and technologies:

https://www.infoq.com/software-architects-newsletter

Upcoming Events:

QCon London 2026 (March 16-19, 2026)

QCon London equips senior engineers, architects, and technical leaders with trusted, practical insights to lead the change in software development. Get real-world solutions and leadership strategies from senior software practitioners defining current trends and solving today's toughest software challenges.

https://qconlondon.com/

QCon AI Boston 2026 (June 1-2, 2026)

Learn how real teams are accelerating the entire software lifecycle with AI.

https://boston.qcon.ai

QCon San Francisco 2026 (November 16-20, 2026)

https://qconsf.com/

The InfoQ Podcasts:

Weekly inspiration to drive innovation and build great teams from senior software leaders. Listen to all our podcasts and read interview transcripts:

- The InfoQ Podcast https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/

- Engineering Culture Podcast by InfoQ https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/#engineering_culture

- Generally AI: https://www.infoq.com/generally-ai-podcast/

Follow InfoQ:

- Mastodon: https://techhub.social/@infoq

- X: https://x.com/InfoQ?from=@

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/infoq/

- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InfoQdotcom#

- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/infoqdotcom/?hl=en

- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/infoq

- Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/infoq.com

Write for InfoQ: Learn and share the changes and innovations in professional software development.

- Join a community of experts.

- Increase your visibility.

- Grow your career.

https://www.infoq.com/write-for-infoq

This conversation explores why generative AI is not just another automation layer but a shift into autonomy. The key idea is that we cannot retrofit AI into old procedural workflows and expect it to behave. Once autonomy is introduced, systems will drift, show emergent behaviour, and act in ways we did not explicitly script. The real architectural shift is not about controlling every step, but about defining clear boundaries. Instead of telling AI exactly how to do the work, we must define what it cannot do, what it is allowed to touch, what decisions it can make, and what goal it must achieve. Governance and design must be built together from the start, not added later.

Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/4aX34GS

Subscribe to the Software Architects’ Newsletter for your monthly guide to the essential news and experience from industry peers on emerging patterns and technologies:

https://www.infoq.com/software-architects-newsletter

Upcoming Events:

QCon London 2026 (March 16-19, 2026)

QCon London equips senior engineers, architects, and technical leaders with trusted, practical insights to lead the change in software development. Get real-world solutions and leadership strategies from senior software practitioners defining current trends and solving today's toughest software challenges.

https://qconlondon.com/

QCon AI Boston 2026 (June 1-2, 2026)

Learn how real teams are accelerating the entire software lifecycle with AI.

https://boston.qcon.ai

QCon San Francisco 2026 (November 16-20, 2026)

https://qconsf.com/

The InfoQ Podcasts:

Weekly inspiration to drive innovation and build great teams from senior software leaders. Listen to all our podcasts and read interview transcripts:

- The InfoQ Podcast https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/

- Engineering Culture Podcast by InfoQ https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/#engineering_culture

- Generally AI: https://www.infoq.com/generally-ai-podcast/

Follow InfoQ:

- Mastodon: https://techhub.social/@infoq

- X: https://x.com/InfoQ?from=@

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/infoq/

- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InfoQdotcom#

- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/infoqdotcom/?hl=en

- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/infoq

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Write for InfoQ: Learn and share the changes and innovations in professional software development.

- Join a community of experts.

- Increase your visibility.

- Grow your career.

https://www.infoq.com/write-for-infoq

In this episode, Thomas Betts talks with Dr. Nicole Forsgren, the author of Accelerate and one of the most prominent and important minds in DevOps and developer productivity. The conversation is about identifying and removing developer friction, the subject of her new book, Frictionless.

Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/40vbpMN

Subscribe to the Software Architects’ Newsletter for your monthly guide to the essential news and experience from industry peers on emerging patterns and technologies:

https://www.infoq.com/software-architects-newsletter

Upcoming Events:

QCon London 2026 (March 16-19, 2026)

QCon London equips senior engineers, architects, and technical leaders with trusted, practical insights to lead the change in software development. Get real-world solutions and leadership strategies from senior software practitioners defining current trends and solving today's toughest software challenges.

https://qconlondon.com/

QCon AI Boston 2026 (June 1-2, 2026)

Learn how real teams are accelerating the entire software lifecycle with AI.

https://boston.qcon.ai

QCon San Francisco 2026 (November 16-20, 2026)

https://qconsf.com/

The InfoQ Podcasts:

Weekly inspiration to drive innovation and build great teams from senior software leaders. Listen to all our podcasts and read interview transcripts:

- The InfoQ Podcast https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/

- Engineering Culture Podcast by InfoQ https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/#engineering_culture

- Generally AI: https://www.infoq.com/generally-ai-podcast/

Follow InfoQ:

- Mastodon: https://techhub.social/@infoq

- X: https://x.com/InfoQ?from=@

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/infoq/

- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InfoQdotcom#

- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/infoqdotcom/?hl=en

- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/infoq

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Write for InfoQ: Learn and share the changes and innovations in professional software development.

- Join a community of experts.

- Increase your visibility.

- Grow your career.

https://www.infoq.com/write-for-infoq

In this podcast, Michael Stiefel spoke with Chris Richardson about using microservices to modernize software applications and the use of artificial intelligence in software architecture. We first discussed the problems of monolithic enterprise software and how to use microservices to evolve them to enable fast flow - the ability to achieve rapid software delivery. The discussion also focused on some of the key problems in accomplishing this. We also discussed how greenfield development fails because you can wait years for your product to be validated in a rapidly changing business environment.

Then the discussion focused on the problems using generative artificial intelligence in understanding an existing code base as well as the usefulness of artificial intelligence in architecting systems.

Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/4qQpkbb

Subscribe to the Software Architects’ Newsletter for your monthly guide to the essential news and experience from industry peers on emerging patterns and technologies:

https://www.infoq.com/software-architects-newsletter

Upcoming Events:

QCon London 2026 (March 16-19, 2026)

QCon London equips senior engineers, architects, and technical leaders with trusted, practical insights to lead the change in software development. Get real-world solutions and leadership strategies from senior software practitioners defining current trends and solving today's toughest software challenges.

https://qconlondon.com/

QCon AI Boston 2026 (June 1-2, 2026)

Learn how real teams are accelerating the entire software lifecycle with AI.

https://boston.qcon.ai

QCon San Francisco 2026 (November 16-20, 2026)

https://qconsf.com/

The InfoQ Podcasts:

Weekly inspiration to drive innovation and build great teams from senior software leaders. Listen to all our podcasts and read interview transcripts:

- The InfoQ Podcast https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/

- Engineering Culture Podcast by InfoQ https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/#engineering_culture

- Generally AI: https://www.infoq.com/generally-ai-podcast/

Follow InfoQ:

- Mastodon: https://techhub.social/@infoq

- X: https://x.com/InfoQ?from=@

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/infoq/

- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InfoQdotcom#

- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/infoqdotcom/?hl=en

- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/infoq

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Write for InfoQ: Learn and share the changes and innovations in professional software development.

- Join a community of experts.

- Increase your visibility.

- Grow your career.

https://www.infoq.com/write-for-infoq

In this episode, Thomas Betts chats with Muzeeb Mohammad about building event-driven microservices for financial systems. The discussion covers some of the core principles and patterns for event-driven architectures, reasons for using these patterns, and some of the challenges related to finance and other highly-regulated industries.

Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/3LZAgoI

Subscribe to the Software Architects’ Newsletter for your monthly guide to the essential news and experience from industry peers on emerging patterns and technologies:

https://www.infoq.com/software-architects-newsletter

Upcoming Events:

QCon London 2026 (March 16-19, 2026)

QCon London equips senior engineers, architects, and technical leaders with trusted, practical insights to lead the change in software development. Get real-world solutions and leadership strategies from senior software practitioners defining current trends and solving today's toughest software challenges.

https://qconlondon.com/

QCon AI Boston 2026 (June 1-2, 2026)

Learn how real teams are accelerating the entire software lifecycle with AI.

https://boston.qcon.ai

QCon San Francisco 2026 (November 16-20, 2026)

https://qconsf.com/

The InfoQ Podcasts:

Weekly inspiration to drive innovation and build great teams from senior software leaders. Listen to all our podcasts and read interview transcripts:

- The InfoQ Podcast https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/

- Engineering Culture Podcast by InfoQ https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/#engineering_culture

- Generally AI: https://www.infoq.com/generally-ai-podcast/

Follow InfoQ:

- Mastodon: https://techhub.social/@infoq

- X: https://x.com/InfoQ?from=@

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/infoq/

- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InfoQdotcom#

- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/infoqdotcom/?hl=en

- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/infoq

- Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/infoq.com

Write for InfoQ: Learn and share the changes and innovations in professional software development.

- Join a community of experts.

- Increase your visibility.

- Grow your career.

https://www.infoq.com/write-for-infoq

AI coding assistants promise speed, but what do they mean for quality, trust, and the architect’s craft? In this inaugural episode of Next Gen Architecture Playbook, Shweta Vohra and Grady Booch explore a principled view of how architecture must evolve when machines begin writing code alongside humans. They unpack the third golden age of software engineering, where productivity gains are real, where the risks lie, and how architects can design review gates and practices that preserve long term integrity.

Drawing on decades of experience across the history of software engineering, the conversation goes beyond hype to examine what should remain firmly human in an AI augmented world, and why architectural judgement, responsibility, and creative thinking matter more now, than ever.

Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/4tmTR30

Subscribe to the Software Architects’ Newsletter for your monthly guide to the essential news and experience from industry peers on emerging patterns and technologies:

https://www.infoq.com/software-architects-newsletter

Upcoming Events:

QCon London 2026 (March 16-19, 2026)

QCon London equips senior engineers, architects, and technical leaders with trusted, practical insights to lead the change in software development. Get real-world solutions and leadership strategies from senior software practitioners defining current trends and solving today's toughest software challenges.

https://qconlondon.com/

QCon AI Boston 2026 (June 1-2, 2026)

Learn how real teams are accelerating the entire software lifecycle with AI.

https://boston.qcon.ai

The InfoQ Podcasts:

Weekly inspiration to drive innovation and build great teams from senior software leaders. Listen to all our podcasts and read interview transcripts:

- The InfoQ Podcast https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/

- Engineering Culture Podcast by InfoQ https://www.infoq.com/podcasts/#engineering_culture

- Generally AI: https://www.infoq.com/generally-ai-podcast/

Follow InfoQ:

- Mastodon: https://techhub.social/@infoq

- X: https://x.com/InfoQ?from=@

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/infoq/

- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InfoQdotcom#

- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/infoqdotcom/?hl=en

- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/infoq

- Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/infoq.com

Write for InfoQ: Learn and share the changes and innovations in professional software development.

- Join a community of experts.

- Increase your visibility.

- Grow your career.

https://www.infoq.com/write-for-infoq