The InfoQ Podcast

In this podcast Michael Stiefel spoke to Luca Mezzalira about software architecture as a socio-technical discipline that balances technological design with an organization's social and managerial context. They explored how architectural choices must be adapted to a company's unique culture and team structure rather than relying blindly on universal best practices, noting that friction within a system serves as critical feedback regarding team and technical alignment. Since placing a dedicated architect on every team is unworkable, the discussion highlighted a shift toward an enablement mindset. Architects should be encouraged to act as coaches who empower developers to make decentralized decisions by establishing clear system guardrails and architectural fitness functions.

The best of architectural education comes from collaborative study and shared experiences rather than traditional lectures, allowing knowledge to organically evolve over time. As AI is increasingly used within systems, the architect must identify the areas of high volatility that require the careful supervision and guidance of experienced engineers, and the generic domains where delegation to AI agents can be more safely done.

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

Newsletter:
Subscribe to the Software Architects' Newsletter, a monthly roundup of the patterns and technologies senior practitioners are working through, with the news and lessons from people doing the work:
https://www.infoq.com/software-architects-newsletter

InfoQ Online Certification Programs:
5-week online cohorts for senior engineers and architects, built around QCon talks. Programs now cover software architecture, AI engineering, and organizational architecture. Each week you join a four-hour live session with a confidential peer group of practitioners from other companies, apply frameworks from QCon talks to the decisions you're making at work, and earn an InfoQ certification. You leave with new approaches, or confirmation that the calls you're already making are the right ones. Learn more:
https://certification.qconferences.com/

Upcoming Events:
QCon San Francisco 2026 (November 16-20, 2026)
https://qconsf.com/

QCon London 2027 (April 13-16, 2027)
https://qconlondon.com/

The InfoQ Podcasts:
Weekly conversations with senior software leaders about how they build systems and teams, including what they'd do differently. 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
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/infoq/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InfoQdotcom
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/infoqdotcom/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/infoq
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/infoq.com

Write for InfoQ:
Share what you've learned building software with a community of senior practitioners, and get your work in front of the people who read InfoQ.
https://www.infoq.com/write-for-infoq

In this episode of the podcast, members of the InfoQ AI and MIL editorial staff and friends of InfoQ discuss the current trends in the domain of AI, ML and Data Engineering.

One of the regular features of InfoQ are the trends reports, which each focus on a different aspect of software development. These reports provide the InfoQ readers and listeners with a high-level overview of the topics to pay attention to this year.

InfoQ AI, ML and Data Engineering editorial team met with an external guest to discuss the 2026 trends in AI and ML areas, and what to watch out for the next 12 months. In addition to the written report and trends graph, this podcast provides a recording of a discussion where expert panelists discuss how innovative AI technologies are disrupting the industry.

Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/47PKZt0

Newsletter:
Subscribe to the Software Architects' Newsletter, a monthly roundup of the patterns and technologies senior practitioners are working through, with the news and lessons from people doing the work:
https://www.infoq.com/software-architects-newsletter

InfoQ Online Certification Programs:
5-week online cohorts for senior engineers and architects, built around QCon talks. Programs now cover software architecture, AI engineering, and organizational architecture. Each week you join a four-hour live session with a confidential peer group of practitioners from other companies, apply frameworks from QCon talks to the decisions you're making at work, and earn an InfoQ certification. You leave with new approaches, or confirmation that the calls you're already making are the right ones. Learn more:
https://certification.qconferences.com/

Upcoming Events:
QCon San Francisco 2026 (November 16-20, 2026)
https://qconsf.com/

QCon London 2027 (April 13-16, 2027)
https://qconlondon.com/

The InfoQ Podcasts:
Weekly conversations with senior software leaders about how they build systems and teams, including what they'd do differently. 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
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/infoq/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InfoQdotcom
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/infoqdotcom/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/infoq
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/infoq.com

Write for InfoQ:
Share what you've learned building software with a community of senior practitioners, and get your work in front of the people who read InfoQ.
https://www.infoq.com/write-for-infoq

Rachel Lee Nabors, former React core team member, dives into the architecture and philosophy behind local-first applications, exploring how small language models (SLMs) running directly on-device can deliver privacy-focused, low-latency, and cost-effective alternatives to cloud-hosted LLM wrappers. Rachel shares key insights on evaluating models with golden datasets and leveraging client-side AI for moderation and social content aggregation.

The discussion also looks ahead to the future of web and application architectures in an AI-driven ecosystem. From the potential rise of OS-level personal agents and dynamic UI rendering standards like A2UI, to the evolving skill set required of software engineers.

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

Newsletter:
Subscribe to the Software Architects' Newsletter, a monthly roundup of the patterns and technologies senior practitioners are working through, with the news and lessons from people doing the work:
https://www.infoq.com/software-architects-newsletter

InfoQ Online Certification Programs:
5-week online cohorts for senior engineers and architects, built around QCon talks. Programs now cover software architecture, AI engineering, and organizational architecture. Each week you join a four-hour live session with a confidential peer group of practitioners from other companies, apply frameworks from QCon talks to the decisions you're making at work, and earn an InfoQ certification. You leave with new approaches, or confirmation that the calls you're already making are the right ones. Learn more:
https://certification.qconferences.com/

Upcoming Events:
QCon San Francisco 2026 (November 16-20, 2026)
https://qconsf.com/

QCon London 2027 (April 13-16, 2027)
https://qconlondon.com/

The InfoQ Podcasts:
Weekly conversations with senior software leaders about how they build systems and teams, including what they'd do differently. 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
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/infoq/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InfoQdotcom
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/infoqdotcom/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/infoq
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/infoq.com

Write for InfoQ:
Share what you've learned building software with a community of senior practitioners, and get your work in front of the people who read InfoQ.
https://www.infoq.com/write-for-infoq

In this podcast, Michael Stiefel spoke to Joy Ebertz about how the use of artificial intelligence is changing the way architects and developers do their jobs. Focusing on the long term success of the business is one of the most neglected tasks of an architect. This task becomes particularly important as the nature of artificial intelligence changes the landscape of software development. Architects must be especially aware of requirements and their inherent ambiguity. More than ever, they must be expert at explaining technology to the business people, and the business to the technology people. On the flip side, goals must be clearly explained to AI agents, and tests must be unambiguously written. Industry practice is uncertain on how to incorporate changes due to bug reports or new requirements. Should it be done incrementally, or should the module’s or application’s code base be regenerated? This is especially challenging in existing systems, especially old ones where nobody knows what the real requirements were. Unambiguous requirements definition may turn out to be the gating factor in AI driven software development because code reviews seem not to be effective, and verification of the AI work is a great burden.

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

Newsletter:
Subscribe to the Software Architects' Newsletter, a monthly roundup of the patterns and technologies senior practitioners are working through, with the news and lessons from people doing the work:
https://www.infoq.com/software-architects-newsletter

InfoQ Online Certification Programs:
5-week online cohorts for senior engineers and architects, built around QCon talks. Programs now cover software architecture, AI engineering, and organizational architecture. Each week you join a four-hour live session with a confidential peer group of practitioners from other companies, apply frameworks from QCon talks to the decisions you're making at work, and earn an InfoQ certification. You leave with new approaches, or confirmation that the calls you're already making are the right ones. Learn more:
https://certification.qconferences.com/

Upcoming Events:
QCon San Francisco 2026 (November 16-20, 2026)
https://qconsf.com/

QCon London 2027 (April 13-16, 2027)
https://qconlondon.com/

The InfoQ Podcasts:
Weekly conversations with senior software leaders about how they build systems and teams, including what they'd do differently. 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
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/infoq/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InfoQdotcom
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/infoqdotcom/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/infoq
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/infoq.com

Write for InfoQ:
Share what you've learned building software with a community of senior practitioners, and get your work in front of the people who read InfoQ.
https://www.infoq.com/write-for-infoq

In this episode, Chris Swan, engineer at Atsign and security track host at QCon London, reflects on the ideas shared during QCon London 2026 and teases topics of the future edition. The discussion explores how security engineering is shifting from relying on human vigilance toward automated, system-level defences across the entire application stack. As well as the importance of governance and supply chain security in a world that sees rapid shifts toward machine-to-machine interaction.

Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/3Vg15sV

Newsletter:
Subscribe to the Software Architects' Newsletter, a monthly roundup of the patterns and technologies senior practitioners are working through, with the news and lessons from people doing the work:
https://www.infoq.com/software-architects-newsletter

InfoQ Online Certification Programs:
5-week online cohorts for senior engineers and architects, built around QCon talks. Programs now cover software architecture, AI engineering, and organizational architecture. Each week you join a four-hour live session with a confidential peer group of practitioners from other companies, apply frameworks from QCon talks to the decisions you're making at work, and earn an InfoQ certification. You leave with new approaches, or confirmation that the calls you're already making are the right ones. Learn more:
https://certification.qconferences.com/

Upcoming Events:
QCon San Francisco 2026 (November 16-20, 2026)
https://qconsf.com/

QCon London 2027 (April 13-16, 2027)
https://qconlondon.com/

The InfoQ Podcasts:
Weekly conversations with senior software leaders about how they build systems and teams, including what they'd do differently. 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
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/infoq/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InfoQdotcom
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/infoqdotcom/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/infoq
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/infoq.com

Write for InfoQ:
Share what you've learned building software with a community of senior practitioners, and get your work in front of the people who read InfoQ.
https://www.infoq.com/write-for-infoq