From Pair Programming to Co-Steering

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 09:00:00 +0000

This is part 2 of a 5-part series on agentic engineering. Part 1 made the case that Agile values still matter; the mechanisms are what change. This post takes the most contested of those mechanisms — pair programming — and looks at what happens to it when one of the “pair” doesn’t need a keyboard.

I’ve been a fan of pair programming for a long time. At Triptease we’ve leaned on it because it improves quality, accelerates learning, spreads context, builds resilience, and quietly does a lot of work for team cohesion. Those outcomes still matter.

From Agile Engineering to Agentic Engineering

Sun, 26 Apr 2026 09:00:00 +0000

For most of my career, “doing engineering well” has meant doing Agile well. Fast feedback, sustainable pace, simple design, close customer collaboration, all the values from the Agile Manifesto that I’ve spent twenty-odd years arguing about over coffee. At Triptease those values still pay rent: they help us deliver, adapt, collaborate, and not burn out.

What’s changing is who is doing the work.

The hard part of software has never been the typing. It’s always been translating fuzzy intent into a working solution: understanding the problem, choosing the design, working out what “correct” actually means, and keeping all of that consistent as things change. That’s where the real time has always gone.

Agile on Yesterday I was wrong

From Pair Programming to Co-Steering

From Agile Engineering to Agentic Engineering