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What Nicole Forsgren thinks about coding agents

@nicole-forsgren · 18 positions · 0 changes of mind

Researcher of software delivery performance, co-author of "Accelerate" and of the DORA, SPACE and DevEx frameworks, and author of "Frictionless".

Nicole Forsgren did not write this page.

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6 dated positions, 2026, in their own words. Our reading of what Nicole Forsgren has said — not written or endorsed by them.

  1. Our readingAI did not create the bottlenecks in software delivery; it threw gas on processes everybody already knew were weak.

    Their wordsThere were a handful of people probably managing a security review process or a launch process or a deployment process or, you know, sometimes reviews were a little slow and they got backed up. Well, now we just threw gas on the fire and so all of that is a problem.

    ↗Nicole Forsgren: Leading high-performing engineering teams in the age of AI - The Pragmatic Summityoutube.com 1st of 18 in this recording

    Interesting

  3. Our readingAI sped up the part of software work we could see, and it is the delivery systems downstream that are now being overwhelmed.

    Their wordsAnd so, like in the immediate term, yeah, we were getting more out, but now our systems, whether technology systems or human systems or processes, are really kind of getting overwhelmed.

    ↗Nicole Forsgren: Leading high-performing engineering teams in the age of AI - The Pragmatic Summityoutube.com 2nd of 18 in this recording

    Interesting

  5. Our readingReview became a worse bottleneck under AI, because companies removed the review automation they had once AI started writing the code.

    Their wordsAnd not only that, but like humans were already a bit of a bottleneck in the review process. Now it can be worse because things that we fairly straightforward changes that some companies had automation around reviewing, they've removed that reviewing because if AI is involved and they're worried about the verifiability or the reliability of the code.

    ↗Nicole Forsgren: Leading high-performing engineering teams in the age of AI - The Pragmatic Summityoutube.com 3rd of 18 in this recording

    Interesting

  7. Our readingRelease management is human group sense-making, and it does not scale to the volume of change AI now produces.

    Their wordsso many times that process has been managed by humans because you're selecting the right candidate build and you're verifying it and you're thinking, you know, you're figuring out cherry picks and then you like rebundle and then you send it out and that doesn't scale if you have one or two or a handful of people trying to make group decisions and do group sense making.

    ↗Nicole Forsgren: Leading high-performing engineering teams in the age of AI - The Pragmatic Summityoutube.com 4th of 18 in this recording

    Interesting

  9. Our readingFast feedback is no longer straightforwardly good: agent-speed loops make you rebuild your mental model dozens of times in half an hour.

    Their wordsWell, now I'm getting feedback so quickly that I'm having to sometimes rebuild my mental model dozens of times in like a 30-minute period.

    ↗Nicole Forsgren: Leading high-performing engineering teams in the age of AI - The Pragmatic Summityoutube.com 8th of 18 in this recording

    Interesting

  11. Our readingThe front end of software work has already collapsed into rapid prototyping, and part of the outer loop will collapse next.

    Their wordsright now, that whole front end has been like kind of smooshed because many times we can just like prototype really really rapidly and kind of solidify some of what we're thinking in terms of like ideas and coding. So I fully expect that part of the outer loop is just going to be collapsed as well, right?

    ↗Nicole Forsgren: Leading high-performing engineering teams in the age of AI - The Pragmatic Summityoutube.com 18th of 18 in this recording

    Interesting