Safely Changing Software to Avoid Incidents: A Conversation with Justin Sheehy

In this podcast, Michael Stiefel spoke with Justin Sheehy about how to safely put software into production without creating production incidents. Among the topics discussed were the futility of root cause analysis, and the importance of having a shared language for discussing incidents. This discussion included the need for software to be malleable as well as observable, and noted the fact that there are no pure technology decisions, every one of them is a business decision. They also discussed how the growth and use of artificial intelligence poses a major problem for the ability of engineers to understand and fix production incidents.

Read a transcript of this interview: bit.ly/4o7iJsW

Subscribe to the Software Architects’ Newsletter for your monthly guide to the essential news and experience from industry peers on emerging patterns and technologies:
infoq.com/software-architects-newsletter

Upcoming Events:

InfoQ Dev Summit Munich (October 15-16, 2025)
Essential insights on critical software development priorities.
devsummit.infoq.com/conference/munich2025

QCon San Francisco 2025 (November 17-21, 2025)
Get practical inspiration and best practices on emerging software trends directly from senior software developers at early adopter companies.
qconsf.com

QCon AI New York 2025 (December 16-17, 2025)
ai.qconferences.com

QCon London 2026 (March 16-19, 2026)
qconlondon.com

The InfoQ Podcasts:
Weekly inspiration to drive innovation and build great teams from senior software leaders. Listen to all our podcasts and read interview transcripts:

- The InfoQ Podcast infoq.com/podcasts
- Engineering Culture Podcast by InfoQ infoq.com/podcasts/#engineering_culture
- Generally AI: infoq.com/generally-ai-podcast

Follow InfoQ:
- Mastodon: techhub.social/@infoq
- X: x.com/InfoQ?from=@
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/infoq
- Facebook: facebook.com/InfoQdotcom#
- Instagram: instagram.com/infoqdotcom/?hl=en
- Youtube: youtube.com/infoq
- Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/infoq.com

Write for InfoQ: Learn and share the changes and innovations in professional software development.
- Join a community of experts.
- Increase your visibility.
- Grow your career.
infoq.com/write-for-infoq