Advertise on podcast: The Engineering Room with Dave Farley

AI assistants and large language models automate boilerplate implementation, shifting the software engineer's primary task from typing code to clearly specifying problems and verifying outcomes. Rather than eliminating engineering, modern tooling elevates it: developers must organize complexity, define modular boundaries, and enforce deterministic verification pipelines to avoid the trap of "spaghetti prompts." Andrey Breslav is a distinguished language designer, educator, and entrepreneur who spent a decade leading the design of the Kotlin programming language at JetBrains. Having authored a significant portion of the Kotlin compiler and served as president of the Kotlin Foundation, he also sat on the Java Community Process expert group for Project Lambda. Today, he is the founder and CEO of CodeSpeak, a platform rethinking developer tooling to transform conversational intent into structured, verifiable functional requirements. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Only Patreon supporters get to see the full length video episodes of "The Engineering Room” Sign up here: https://www.patreon.com/c/continuousdelivery Andrey Breslav LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/abreslav/ Andrey Breslav website: https://www.abreslav.com/ Andrey Breslav "X" (formerly "Twitter"): https://x.com/abreslav Equal Experts is a product software development consultancy with a network of over 1,000 experienced technology consultants globally. They increase the pace of innovation by using modern software engineering practices that embrace Continuous Delivery, Security, and Operability from the outset ➡️ https://bit.ly/3ASy8n0 📖 "The Software Developers’ Guidebook Amazon ➡️ https://amzn.to/4f9ozFK ebook version ➡️ https://leanpub.com/softwaredevelopersguidebook 📖 The original, award-winning "Continuous Delivery" book by Dave Farley and Jez Humble ➡️ https://amzn.to/2WxRYmx 📖 "Continuous Delivery Pipelines" by Dave Farley Paperback ➡️ https://amzn.to/3gIULlA ebook version ➡️ https://leanpub.com/cd-pipeline

Sam Newman is the author of "Building Microservices" and "Monolith to Microservices", two of the most influential books on distributed systems design. He is an independent consultant and former ThoughtWorks technologist, he has spent decades helping organizations worldwide decompose monoliths, adopt cloud and CI/CD practices, and reason clearly about service boundaries. He is one of the most recognized voices on microservices and software architecture in the industry. So is AI really replacing software architects? Find out what Dave Farley and Sam Newman think about that in this episode of " The Engineering Room". ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Only Patreon supporters get to see the full length video episodes of "The Engineering Room” Sign up here: https://www.patreon.com/c/continuousdelivery Sam Newman on "X" (formerly "Twitter"): https://x.com/samnewman?lang=en 📖 "Building Microservices" 1st Ed., Sam Newman: https://samnewman.io/books/building_microservices/ 📖 "Building Microservices" 2nd Ed., Sam Newman: https://samnewman.io/books/building_microservices_2nd_edition/ 📖 "Monolith To Microservices", Sam Neewman:https://samnewman.io/books/monolith-to-microservices/ Equal Experts is a product software development consultancy with a network of over 1,000 experienced technology consultants globally. They increase the pace of innovation by using modern software engineering practices that embrace Continuous Delivery, Security, and Operability from the outset ➡️ https://bit.ly/3ASy8n0 📖 "The Software Developers’ Guidebook Amazon ➡️ https://amzn.to/4f9ozFK ebook version ➡️ https://leanpub.com/softwaredevelopersguidebook 📖 The original, award-winning "Continuous Delivery" book by Dave Farley and Jez Humble ➡️ https://amzn.to/2WxRYmx 📖 "Continuous Delivery Pipelines" by Dave Farley Paperback ➡️ https://amzn.to/3gIULlA ebook version ➡️ https://leanpub.com/cd-pipeline

Hosted by Dave Farley - co-author of Continuous Delivery (Jolt Award winner), author of Modern Software Engineering, and inventor of the Deployment Pipeline. David Yanacek is a Senior Principal Engineer at AWS and a lead advisor on the Agentic AI team, having played a foundational role in the development of DynamoDB and CloudWatch. He is currently a primary driver behind the Kiro IDE and Amazon’s operational agents, specializing in building and operating resilient, high-scale distributed systems. David and Dave talk about the transition from simple AI code completion to autonomous agentic development and the fundamental engineering principles are more critical than ever in an era of AI-generated code. ------------------------ Only Patreon supporters get to see the full length video episodes of "The Engineering Room” Sign up here: https://www.patreon.com/c/continuousdelivery LinkedIn David Yanacek - https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-yanacek/?isSelfProfile=false Equal Experts is a product software development consultancy with a network of over 1,000 experienced technology consultants globally. They increase the pace of innovation by using modern software engineering practices that embrace Continuous Delivery, Security, and Operability from the outset ➡️ https://bit.ly/3ASy8n0 📖 "The Software Developers’ Guidebook Amazon ➡️ https://amzn.to/4f9ozFK ebook version ➡️ https://leanpub.com/softwaredevelopersguidebook 📖 The original, award-winning "Continuous Delivery" book by Dave Farley and Jez Humble ➡️ https://amzn.to/2WxRYmx 📖 "Continuous Delivery Pipelines" by Dave Farley Paperback ➡️ https://amzn.to/3gIULlA ebook version ➡️ https://leanpub.com/cd-pipeline

Join Dave Farley — co-author of Continuous Delivery (Jolt Award winner), author of Modern Software Engineering, and inventor of the CD Deployment Pipeline - and guest Steve Freeman in this fascinating episode. Steve is a pioneer of the software craftsmanship movement and a foundational figure in the global Agile community. He is the co-author of the seminal book Growing Object-Oriented Software, Guided by Tests, a winner of the Gordon Pask Award, and the co-creator of JMock. With a PhD from Cambridge, Steve has spent decades refining the "London School" of TDD, shifting testing from a verification step to a profound tool for architectural design. ---------------------------------------- Only Patreon supporters get to see the full length video episodes of "The Engineering Room” Sign up here: https://www.patreon.com/c/continuousdelivery LinkedIn Steve Freeman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevefreeman/ Equal Experts is a product software development consultancy with a network of over 1,000 experienced technology consultants globally. They increase the pace of innovation by using modern software engineering practices that embrace Continuous Delivery, Security, and Operability from the outset ➡️ https://bit.ly/3ASy8n0 📖 "The Software Developers’ Guidebook Amazon ➡️ https://amzn.to/4f9ozFK ebook version ➡️ https://leanpub.com/softwaredevelopersguidebook 📖 The original, award-winning "Continuous Delivery" book by Dave Farley and Jez Humble ➡️ https://amzn.to/2WxRYmx 📖 "Continuous Delivery Pipelines" by Dave Farley Paperback ➡️ https://amzn.to/3gIULlA ebook version ➡️ https://leanpub.com/cd-pipeline

In this episode of The Engineering Room, Dave Farley welcomes Dan Abel, a veteran technical leader with over 30 years of experience, to explore the nuances of engineering leadership and the evolution of high-performing teams. This episode is a masterclass in dismantling silos, reducing cognitive load through platform engineering, and aligning technical excellence with core business values. --------------- Dan Abel LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-abel/ Equal Experts is a product software development consultancy with a network of over 1,000 experienced technology consultants globally. They increase the pace of innovation by using modern software engineering practices that embrace Continuous Delivery, Security, and Operability from the outset ➡️ https://bit.ly/3ASy8n0 Only Patreon Supporters get to see the FULL VIDEO Episodes of The Engineering Room, sign up here: https://www.patreon.com/c/continuousdelivery 📖 "The Software Developers’ Guidebook Amazon ➡️ https://amzn.to/4f9ozFK ebook version ➡️ https://leanpub.com/softwaredevelopersguidebook 📖 The original, award-winning "Continuous Delivery" book by Dave Farley and Jez Humble ➡️ https://amzn.to/2WxRYmx 📖 "Continuous Delivery Pipelines" by Dave Farley Paperback ➡️ https://amzn.to/3gIULlA ebook version ➡️ https://leanpub.com/cd-pipeline

In this episode of The Engineering Room, Dave Farley talks with with Gene Kim, the bestselling author of "The Phoenix Project," "The Unicorn Project," and "Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps." They discuss the controversial topic of "Vibe Coding," a concept Gene explored in his recent collaboration with Steve Yegge. While Dave initially described Vibe Coding as "one of the worst ideas of 2025," this conversation unpacks whether AI actually represents a fundamental shift in how we build software. ---------------------- Gene Kim LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/realgenekim/ Gene Kim ''X'' (formerly "'Twitter") https://x.com/@RealGeneKim Equal Experts is a product software development consultancy with a network of over 1,000 experienced technology consultants globally. They increase the pace of innovation by using modern software engineering practices that embrace Continuous Delivery, Security, and Operability from the outset ➡️ https://bit.ly/3ASy8n0 Only Patreon Supporters get to see the FULL VIDEO Episodes of The Engineering Room, sign up here: https://www.patreon.com/c/continuousdelivery 📖 "The Software Developers’ Guidebook Amazon ➡️ https://amzn.to/4f9ozFK ebook version ➡️ https://leanpub.com/softwaredevelopersguidebook 📖 The original, award-winning "Continuous Delivery" book by Dave Farley and Jez Humble ➡️ https://amzn.to/2WxRYmx 📖 "Continuous Delivery Pipelines" by Dave Farley Paperback ➡️ https://amzn.to/3gIULlA ebook version ➡️ https://leanpub.com/cd-pipeline

What does it truly take to build a high-performing software team? Is it about hiring the legendary "10x engineer," or is it about crafting the right environment? In this episode of The Engineering Room, Dave Farley is joined by Charity Majors, CTO and Co-founder of Honeycomb and co-author of Observability Engineering, for an unvarnished look at the reality of modern software development. ----------------------------------------------- Charity Majors LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/charity-majors/ Charity Majors Website https://charity.wtf/ Equal Experts is a product software development consultancy with a network of over 1,000 experienced technology consultants globally. They increase the pace of innovation by using modern software engineering practices that embrace Continuous Delivery, Security, and Operability from the outset ➡️ https://bit.ly/3ASy8n0 Only Patreon Supporters get to see the FULL VIDEO Episodes of The Engineering Room, sign up here: https://www.patreon.com/c/continuousdelivery 📖 "The Software Developers’ Guidebook Amazon ➡️ https://amzn.to/4f9ozFK ebook version ➡️ https://leanpub.com/softwaredevelopersguidebook 📖 The original, award-winning "Continuous Delivery" book by Dave Farley and Jez Humble ➡️ https://amzn.to/2WxRYmx 📖 "Continuous Delivery Pipelines" by Dave Farley Paperback ➡️ https://amzn.to/3gIULlA ebook version ➡️ https://leanpub.com/cd-pipeline

In this episode of The Engineering Room, Dave Farley speaks with Sam Newman, renowned author of "Building Microservices" and "Monolith to Microservices," about distributed systems, architectural decisions, and the future of software development. ------------------------- Sam Newman on "X" (formerly "Twitter"): https://x.com/samnewman?lang=en 📖 "Building Microservices" 1st Ed., Sam Newman: https://samnewman.io/books/building_microservices/ 📖 "Building Microservices" 2nd Ed., Sam Newman: https://samnewman.io/books/building_microservices_2nd_edition/ Equal Experts is a product software development consultancy with a network of over 1,000 experienced technology consultants globally. They increase the pace of innovation by using modern software engineering practices that embrace Continuous Delivery, Security, and Operability from the outset ➡️ https://bit.ly/3ASy8n0 Only Patreon Supporters get to see the FULL VIDEO Episodes of The Engineering Room, sign up here: https://www.patreon.com/c/continuousdelivery 📖 "The Software Developers’ Guidebook Amazon ➡️ https://amzn.to/4f9ozFK ebook version ➡️ https://leanpub.com/softwaredevelopersguidebook 📖 The original, award-winning "Continuous Delivery" book by Dave Farley and Jez Humble ➡️ https://amzn.to/2WxRYmx 📖 "Continuous Delivery Pipelines" by Dave Farley Paperback ➡️ https://amzn.to/3gIULlA ebook version ➡️ https://leanpub.com/cd-pipeline

Join Dave Farley in conversation with Daniel Terhorst-North, the creator of Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) and pioneering voice in agile software development. In this wide-ranging discussion, Dan shares insights from his time at ThoughtWorks, where he helped establish many practices now considered standard in modern software engineering. Whether you're interested in improving your development practices, leading organizational change, or understanding the historical evolution of agile methodologies, this conversation offers valuable perspectives from one of the field's most influential practitioners. ----------------------------------- Dan Terhorst-North's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tastapod/?originalSubdomain=uk Dan Terhorst-North's Website: https://goalwards.co/ Equal Experts is a product software development consultancy with a network of over 1,000 experienced technology consultants globally. They increase the pace of innovation by using modern software engineering practices that embrace Continuous Delivery, Security, and Operability from the outset ➡️ https://bit.ly/3ASy8n0 Only Patreon Supporters get to see the FULL VIDEO Episodes of The Engineering Room, sign up here: https://www.patreon.com/c/continuousdelivery 📖 "The Software Developers’ Guidebook Amazon ➡️ https://amzn.to/4f9ozFK ebook version ➡️ https://leanpub.com/softwaredevelopersguidebook 📖 The original, award-winning "Continuous Delivery" book by Dave Farley and Jez Humble ➡️ https://amzn.to/2WxRYmx 📖 "Continuous Delivery Pipelines" by Dave Farley Paperback ➡️ https://amzn.to/3gIULlA ebook version ➡️ https://leanpub.com/cd-pipelines

In this episode, Dave Farley explores how SpareBank One transformed their software development approach with Ola Hast (Developer) and Asgaut Mjølne Söderbom (Senior Developer). Working at Norway's second-largest banking alliance serving 1.2 million users, they reveal how pair programming became absolutely essential to achieving true continuous delivery. ------------------------ The Engineering Room is sponsored by Equal Experts. Equal Experts is a product software development consultancy with a network of over 1,000 experienced technology consultants globally. They increase the pace of innovation by using modern software engineering practices that embrace Continuous Delivery, Security, and Operability from the outset ➡️ https://bit.ly/3ASy8n0 Only Patreon Supporters get to see the FULL VIDEO Episodes of The Engineering Room, sign up here: https://www.patreon.com/c/continuousdelivery Dave's NEW BOOK is OUT NOW: https://leanpub.com/softwaredevelopersguidebook Supporting Links: Ola & Asgaut's QCon talk "Continuous Delivery Is Not Possible without Pair Programming": https://www.infoq.com/presentations/cd-pair-programming/ SINTEF Research into Pair Programming in the Bank: https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.19511

In this conversation, Dave Farley explores the innovative Army Software Factory with Matt Flautt (CTO) and Jeff Day (Chief of Platform). They reveal how the U.S. Army is building an internal software development capability by training soldiers—many without prior coding experience—to become proficient developers through rigorous training and pair programming practices. This episode will be of interest to anyone with knowledge in building technical capability within large organisations, transforming non-technical talent into developers, or implementing DevOps practices in regulated environments. Their pragmatic approach to continuous improvement shows how even organisations with strict governance can adopt modern software practices. -------------------- Army Software Factory Website: https://soldiersolutions.swf.army.mil/ Matt Flautt (CTO) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattflautt Jeff Day (Chief of Platform) LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffrey-robert-day Only Patreon Supporters get to see the FULL VIDEO Episodes of The Engineering Room, sign up here: https://www.patreon.com/c/continuousdelivery Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/continuousdelivery 📖 Dave’s NEW BOOK "Modern Software Engineering" is available as paperback, or kindle here ➡️ https://amzn.to/3DwdwT3 and NOW as an AUDIOBOOK available on iTunes, Amazon and Audible. 📖 The original, award-winning "Continuous Delivery" book by Dave Farley and Jez Humble ➡️ https://amzn.to/2WxRYmx 📖 "Continuous Delivery Pipelines" by Dave Farley Paperback ➡️ https://amzn.to/3gIULlA ebook version ➡️ https://leanpub.com/cd-pipelines Equal Experts is a product software development consultancy with a network of over 1,000 experienced technology consultants globally. They increase the pace of innovation by using modern software engineering practices that embrace Continuous Delivery, Security, and Operability from the outset ➡️ https://bit.ly/3ASy8n0

In this engaging conversation with Diana Montalion - former principal systems architect at The Economist and Wikimedia Foundation, and author of "Learning Systems Thinking" - we explore why traditional software development approaches are struggling to keep up with modern system complexity. Diana shares insights from her extensive experience building large-scale information systems, explaining how relationships between components often matter more than the components themselves. She discusses the critical shift from reductionist thinking to systems thinking, illustrated through practical examples from distributed systems and event-driven architectures. Diana and Dave explore what it really means to think systematically about complex software systems. They discuss why the future of software development requires us to move beyond simplistic solutions toward a more nuanced understanding of system dynamics. ------------------------------ Website Diana Montalion- https://montalion.com/ LinkedIn Diana Montalion - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dianamontalion/ Youtube Channel Diana Montalion - https://www.youtube.com/@dianamontalion Bluesky Diana Montalion - https://bsky.app/profile/mentrix.bsky.social Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/continuousdelivery 📖 Dave’s NEW BOOK "Modern Software Engineering" is available as paperback, or kindle here ➡️ https://amzn.to/3DwdwT3 and NOW as an AUDIOBOOK available on iTunes, Amazon and Audible. 📖 The original, award-winning "Continuous Delivery" book by Dave Farley and Jez Humble ➡️ https://amzn.to/2WxRYmx 📖 "Continuous Delivery Pipelines" by Dave Farley Paperback ➡️ https://amzn.to/3gIULlA ebook version ➡️ https://leanpub.com/cd-pipelines Equal Experts is a product software development consultancy with a network of over 1,000 experienced technology consultants globally. They increase the pace of innovation by using modern software engineering practices that embrace Continuous Delivery, Security, and Operability from the outset ➡️ https://bit.ly/3ASy8n0

Join Dave Farley and Michael Nygard, former Chief Scientist at Sabre and current leader in Global Platforms at Nubank, for an illuminating discussion on modern software architecture and data systems. They explore how data mesh solutions enable incremental problem-solving at scale, and why traditional software engineering principles like modularity and separation of concerns remain crucial even as our systems evolve. Nygard shares insights from managing 300,000 datasets at Nubank, explaining how they're tackling the challenges of ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) generation, schema management, and the complex interplay between operational and analytical worlds. Drawing from decades of experience, they examine the industry's evolution, from the simplicity of early systems to today's intricate architectures, offering valuable perspectives on managing growing complexity while maintaining system quality. --------- Thanks to Goto for hosting this chat at their conference in Copenhagen. You can check out Goto on YouTube HERE: https://www.youtube.com/@GOTO Equal Experts is a product software development consultancy with a network of over 1,000 experienced technology consultants globally. They increase the pace of innovation by using modern software engineering practices that embrace Continuous Delivery, Security, and Operability from the outset ➡️ https://bit.ly/3ASy8n0 Find out more about their conferences HERE: https://gotopia.tech/events/upcoming?page=0" X (Formerly ''Twitter'') Michael Nygard : https://x.com/mtnygard?lang=en-GB LikedIn Michael Nygard: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mtnygard/ 📖 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/continuousdelivery 📖 Dave’s BOOK "Modern Software Engineering" is available as paperback, or kindle here ➡️ https://amzn.to/3DwdwT3 and NOW as an AUDIOBOOK available on iTunes, Amazon and Audible. 📖 The original, award-winning "Continuous Delivery" book by Dave Farley and Jez Humble ➡️ https://amzn.to/2WxRYmx 📖 "Continuous Delivery Pipelines" by Dave Farley Paperback ➡️ https://amzn.to/3gIULlA ebook version ➡️ https://leanpub.com/cd-pipelines

In this episode of The Engineering Room, Dave Farley speaks with Holly Cummins, Senior Principal Software Engineer at Red Hat, about the evolving landscape of software development. They explore whether programming is getting harder, discussing how abstraction levels have changed while core problem-solving skills remain essential. Holly shares insights on AI's role in different programming contexts and the challenges of maintaining simplicity in modern software development. The conversation covers platform design principles, mechanical sympathy in programming, and the surprising benefits of garbage collection in Java. Holly explains how her journey from physics to software engineering was driven by a natural inclination to turn problems into programming challenges. They discuss the importance of fun and playfulness in software development teams as indicators of project health and creativity. The episode concludes with Holly explaining Quarkus, a Java framework that challenges traditional assumptions about runtime dynamics to deliver improved performance and developer experience. Sponsored by Equal Experts. ----------- X (Formerly ''Twitter'') Holly Cummins: https://twitter.com/holly_cummins?lang=en LinkedIn Holly Cummins: linkedin.com/in/holly-k-cummins Website Holly Cummins: https://hollycummins.com/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/continuousdelivery 📖 Dave’s NEW BOOK "Modern Software Engineering" is available as paperback, or kindle here ➡️ https://amzn.to/3DwdwT3 and NOW as an AUDIOBOOK available on iTunes, Amazon and Audible. 📖 The original, award-winning "Continuous Delivery" book by Dave Farley and Jez Humble ➡️ https://amzn.to/2WxRYmx 📖 "Continuous Delivery Pipelines" by Dave Farley Paperback ➡️ https://amzn.to/3gIULlA ebook version ➡️ https://leanpub.com/cd-pipelines Equal Experts is a product software development consultancy with a network of over 1,000 experienced technology consultants globally. They increase the pace of innovation by using modern software engineering practices that embrace Continuous Delivery, Security, and Operability from the outset ➡️ https://bit.ly/3ASy8n0

In this insightful episode of "The Engineering Room," join us as we explore the world of software engineering with James Lewis, a prominent figure in microservices and software architecture. Explore the origins and evolution of microservices, the importance of domain boundaries, and the distinction between microservices and distributed monoliths. Discover how generative science and engineering principles can innovate software development, enhancing team efficiency and user experiences. Don't miss this opportunity to learn from an expert on building systems and enhancing organizational scalability.This conversation is a must-watch for anyone interested in software innovation and agile development practices. ---- LinkedIn James Lewis: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-lewis-microservices/?originalSubdomain=uk X (Formerly ''Twitter'') James Lewis: https://twitter.com/boicy Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/continuousdelivery 📖 Dave’s NEW BOOK "Modern Software Engineering" is available as paperback, or kindle here ➡️ https://amzn.to/3DwdwT3 and NOW as an AUDIOBOOK available on iTunes, Amazon and Audible. 📖 The original, award-winning "Continuous Delivery" book by Dave Farley and Jez Humble ➡️ https://amzn.to/2WxRYmx 📖 "Continuous Delivery Pipelines" by Dave Farley Paperback ➡️ https://amzn.to/3gIULlA ebook version ➡️ https://leanpub.com/cd-pipelines Equal Experts is a product software development consultancy with a network of over 1,000 experienced technology consultants globally. They increase the pace of innovation by using modern software engineering practices that embrace Continuous Delivery, Security, and Operability from the outset ➡️ https://bit.ly/3ASy8n0