Agentic development and engineering strategy

Agentic development and engineering strategy
6 minutes by Aleix Morgadas

Aleix explores how AI and agent-based development are changing software engineering strategies. He discusses how companies should rethink building versus buying software, measure productivity, support adoption, and choose AI tools. He also highlights the importance of balancing faster development with maintenance costs and using AI wisely without losing the unique features that make a product stand out.

Design for delegation with progressive autonomy
sponsored by Progress Telerik

Progressive autonomy for agents works the same as delegating a presentation to a 20-year-old new hire. But full autonomy on day one is maybe not a great idea. It is not a switch or a setting you flip. Let users control what they hand over to agents, like a dial they can turn in either direction. Let your software show enough that they can chaperone the work alongside.

How can I recover from sustained stress and avoid exhaustion?
15 minutes by Andi Roberts

Sustained stress requires deliberate recovery, not just stepping away from work. Andi points out that sleep comes first, but short breaks, personal time, and longer planned rest all matter. As fatigue builds, judgment, emotional control, and relationships quietly weaken, affecting both leaders and those around them. Match your recovery to the type and size of the load, and schedule it before the diary fills.

How to sequence annual planning and reorgs
5 minutes by Yue Zhao

Annual planning gets messy when teams must keep current work running while scoping new directions. Reshuffling teams too early disrupts delivery, but planning with existing teams produces plans that just mirror today's structure. Yue suggests a simple fix is "planning teams," temporary cross-functional groups formed around next year's key investment areas. They run parallel to current work, stay separate from official org structures, and give leaders a low-risk way to test new team dynamics before making anything permanent.

The art of showing up
8 minutes by Deb Liu

Showing up consistently for others, even when busy, builds real relationships and trust. During a cancer diagnosis, many people face abandonment from friends and partners, making presence even more valuable. Showing up at work events, group calls, or personal moments of need creates connections that matter when it counts. Don't wait until you need someone. Build those bridges now.

Building an AI hive mind to understand systems as a manager
12 minutes by Candost Dagdeviren

Candost explains how he built an AI-powered “hive mind” to understand complex systems across multiple teams and repositories. Using custom AI agents, GitHub, Notion, and Slack, the system gathers technical and organisational knowledge, investigates problems, and suggests solutions. Weekly updates help keep information accurate, reducing the need to rely on multiple people to understand how systems work.

industry

• US tech giants' hidden AI debt swells 90% to $3.2tn in 6 months
• Anthropic reports $17 billion in Q3 revenue, purchase commitments of $895.4 billion
• Some memories of early Anthropic
• Selling Slack to Salesforce

security

• North Korean fake job interview led to $6.3B Binance heist
• Shop freezers in seven European countries hit by cyber-attack
• This is not sustainable
• Malicious version of Claude Code identified in the Cursor VS Code Extension Marketplace

And the most popular article from the last issue was:

• Fast and slow ways to improve your reputation