For years, we have been cutting back on good engineering practices to deliver on time. Now that we can delegate much of the implementation to AI, we have an opportunity to review, and an obligation to improve, our processes from end to end.

I have been developing software for more than twenty years. Over the last few years, working with AI has made me rethink many things: what my project needs to work with agents, what agents need to adapt to the project, how to ensure technical decisions are respected, and how to validate that what is delivered matches what was expected.

In this talk, I will share what I am putting into practice and what I am still refining. We will discuss agentic development, Spec-Driven Development, hard and soft guardrails, and the evolving concept of software product definition. Using real examples, I will explain the advantages and drawbacks of AI at each stage of the process and what still depends entirely on us.

AI is changing software engineering, and this is how some of us are shaping the way we will practise our profession in the years ahead.