AI-assisted programming has moved far beyond autocomplete. Large language models are now capable of editing entire codebases, coordinating long-running tasks, and collaborating across multiple systems. As these capabilities mature, the core challenge in software development is shifting away from writing code and toward orchestrating work, managing context, and maintaining shared understanding across fleets of agents.
Steve Yegge is a software engineer, writer, and industry veteran whose essays have shaped how many developers think about their work. Over the past year, Steve has been exploring the frontier of agentic software development, building tools like Beads and Gas Town to experiment with multi-agent coordination, shared memory, and AI-driven software workflows.
In this episode, Steve joins Kevin Ball to discuss the evolution of AI coding from chat-based assistance to full agent orchestration, the technical and cognitive challenges of managing fleets of agents, how concepts like task graphs and Git-backed ledgers change the nature of work, and what these shifts mean for software teams, tooling, and the future of the industry.
Kevin Ball or KBall, is the vice president of engineering at Mento and an independent coach for engineers and engineering leaders. He co-founded and served as CTO for two companies, founded the San Diego JavaScript meetup, and organizes the AI inaction discussion group through Latent Space.
Please click here to see the transcript of this episode.
Sponsors
In mobile application security, ‘good enough’ is a risk.
Guardsquare uses advanced, multi-layered code hardening techniques and automated runtime application self-protection and mobile application security testing, combined with real-time threat monitoring, to deliver the highest level of mobile app security.
Discover how Guardsquare brings all these together to provide mobile app security for your Android and iOS apps without compromise at www dot Guardsquare dot com.
Why is there always a meeting bot in your Zoom call?
Blame Recall.ai.
Recall.ai powers the meeting bots and desktop recording apps behind products like Cluely, HubSpot, and ClickUp. They handle the hard infrastructure work—capturing clean recordings, transcripts, and metadata across Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, in-person meetings, and more—so developers don’t have to build it themselves.
If you’re building a meeting notetaker or anything involving conversation data, Recall.ai is the API for meeting recording.
Get started today with $100 in free credits at recall.ai/software
