From vibe coding to context engineering: 2025 in software development

Taken together, there’s a clear signal of the direction of travel in software engineering and even AI more broadly. After years of the industry assuming progress in AI is all about scale and speed, we’re starting to see that what matters is the ability to handle context effectively.

Vibes, antipatterns, and new innovations 

In February 2025, Andrej Karpathy coined the term vibe coding. It took the industry by storm. It certainly sparked debate at Thoughtworks; many of us were skeptical. On an