Governance in the Age of AI: A Conversation with Sarah Wells

In this podcast Michael Stiefel spoke to Sarah Wells about the relationship of governance to software architecture. Governance enables teams to work effectively by establishing procedures that minimize system complexity, improve security, and reduce repetitive tasks. Targeted checklists help engineers by reducing the stress over these procedures. This is especially critical in high pressure situations like critical incident response. Architecture should focus on the technical decisions that are difficult to reverse. The conversation then shifted to exploring the relationship of governance to agentic AI software development. While AI can be very effective for writing code, building internal tools, and automating tasks, experienced engineers still need to validate tests, review outputs, establish clear architectural guidelines, and demand that the AI agents be hypercritical of their own work. With the focus on AI software development, architectural skills are at a premium. Talented individuals that demonstrate architectural skills need to be found and sponsored. Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/4fndHG3 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