How AI will change software engineering – with Martin FowlerMartin Fowler breaks down how AI is transforming software architecture and development, from refactoring and deterministic techniques to the timeless principles that still anchor great engineering.
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• Statsig — The unified platform for flags, analytics, experiments, and more. AI-accelerated development isn’t just about shipping faster: it’s about measuring whether, what you ship, actually delivers value. This is where modern experimentation with Statsig comes in. Check it out. • Linear — The system for modern product development. I had a jaw-dropping experience when I dropped in for the weekly “Quality Wednesdays” meeting at Linear. Every week, every dev fixes at least one quality isse, large or small. Even if it’s one pixel misalignment, like this one. I’ve yet to see a team obsess this much about quality. Read more about how Linear does Quality Wednesdays – it’s fascinating! — In this episodeMartin Fowler is one of the most influential people within software architecture, and the broader tech industry. He is the Chief Scientist at Thoughtworks and the author of Refactoring and Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture, and several other books. He has spent decades shaping how engineers think about design, architecture, and process, and regularly publishes on his blog, MartinFowler.com. In this episode, we discuss how AI is changing software development: the shift from deterministic to non-deterministic coding; where generative models help with legacy code; and the narrow but useful cases for vibe coding. Martin explains why LLM output must be tested rigorously, why refactoring is more important than ever, and how combining AI tools with deterministic techniques may be what engineering teams need. We also revisit the origins of the Agile Manifesto and talk about why, despite rapid changes in tooling and workflows, the skills that make a great engineer remain largely unchanged.  Interesting quotes from the episodeOn what non-determinism introduced by LLMs will mean for software engineering:
On how many big companies are “complicated messes,” because of humans.
The Pragmatic Engineer deepdives relevant for this episodeTimestamps(00:00) Intro (01:50) How Martin got into software engineering (07:48) Joining Thoughtworks (10:07) The Thoughtworks Technology Radar (16:45) From Assembly to high-level languages (25:08) Non-determinism (33:38) Vibe coding (39:22) StackOverflow vs. coding with AI (43:25) Importance of testing with LLMs (50:45) LLMs for enterprise software (56:38) Why Martin wrote Refactoring (1:02:15) Why refactoring is so relevant today (1:06:10) Using LLMs with deterministic tools (1:07:36) Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture (1:18:26) The Agile Manifesto (1:28:35) How Martin learns about AI (1:34:58) Advice for junior engineers (1:37:44) The state of the tech industry today (1:42:40) Rapid fire round ReferencesWhere to find Martin Fowler: • X: https://x.com/martinfowler • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-fowler-com • Website: https://martinfowler.com Mentions during the episode: • The code migration tool mentioned in the episode: OpenRewrite https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar/tools/openrewrite • UK Atomic Energy Authority: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/uk-atomic-energy-authority • Books by Jim Odell: https://www.amazon.com/stores/James-J.-Odell/author/B001HMPDVG • Thoughtworks: https://www.thoughtworks.com • TDD, AI agents and coding with Kent Beck: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/tdd-ai-agents-and-coding-with-kent • Extreme Programming: https://martinfowler.com/bliki/ExtremeProgramming.html • Software architecture with Grady Booch: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/software-architecture-with-grady-booch • Thoughtworks Technology Radar: https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar • Rebecca Parsons on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-rebecca-parsons • Conversation: LLMs and Building Abstractions: https://martinfowler.com/articles/convo-llm-abstractions.html • James Lewis on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-lewis-microservices • Cursor: https://cursor.com • Resharper: https://www.jetbrains.com/resharper • The Learning Loop and LLMs: https://martinfowler.com/articles/llm-learning-loop.html • Godot: https://godotengine.org • Stackoverflow: https://stackoverflow.com • Inside Linear’s Engineering Culture: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/linear • Waterfall model: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_model • Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code: https://www.amazon.com/Refactoring-Improving-Existing-Addison-Wesley-Signature/dp/0134757599 • Ralph Johnson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ralphejohnson • John Brant on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-brant-80b87056 • Don Roberts: https://refactory.com/don-roberts • Adam Tornhill’s website: https://www.adamtornhill.com • Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture: https://www.amazon.com/Patterns-Enterprise-Application-Architecture-Martin/dp/0321127420 • Patterns of Distributed Systems: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0138221987 • Jim Highsmith on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jhighsmith • Bob Martin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-martin-7395b0 • How Claude Code is built: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/how-claude-code-is-built • Birgitta Böckeler on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/birgittaboeckeler • Simon Willison’s Weblog: https://simonwillison.net • Applying Domain-Driven Design and Patterns: With Examples in C# and .NET: https://www.amazon.com/Applying-Domain-Driven-Design-Patterns-Examples-ebook/dp/B0054KOKQQ • Expert Generalists: https://martinfowler.com/articles/expert-generalist.html • Ruby: https://www.ruby-lang.org • Smalltalk: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smalltalk • Thinking Fast and Slow: https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555 • The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York: https://www.amazon.com/Power-Broker-Robert-Moses-Fall/dp/0394720245 • The Path to Power (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Volume 1): https://www.amazon.com/Path-Power-Years-Lyndon-Johnson/dp/0679729453 • Concordia: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/124361/concordia — Production and marketing by Pen Name. You’re on the free list for The Pragmatic Engineer. For the full experience, become a paying subscriber. Many readers expense this newsletter within their company’s training/learning/development budget. If you have such a budget, here’s an email you could send to your manager. This post is public, so feel free to share and forward it. If you enjoyed this post, you might enjoy my book, The Software Engineer's Guidebook. Here is what Tanya Reilly, senior principal engineer and author of The Staff Engineer's Path said about it:
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