> Markdown version of [/magazine/796-building-an-agentic-software-factory](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/796-building-an-agentic-software-factory). Every page supports `.md` or `Accept: text/markdown`. Links point to the HTML versions so they work for humans too. Agent guide: [/agents.md](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/agents.md). --- # Building an Agentic Software Factory **By:** [Daniel Cranney](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/@daniel-cranney) **Published:** October 30, 2026 **Could your software be fully automated?** That was the question put to the main stage audience at WeAreDevelopers North America by Entire CEO Thomas Dohmke and Factory CEO Matan Grinberg. While most of us can agree a human-in-the-loop is preferable for a whole raft of reasons (not least security), asking the question encourages us to consider bottlenecks for agents or humans, which aspects of engineering can be easily automated and which ones less-so, and how confident we really are in the guardrails and sandboxes designed to keep the agents in check. So, with that in mind here are a few things you can do right away to start moving faster and (hopefully) without breaking things. ### Find your bottlenecks See which tasks are slow to be picked up on or completed by humans, or without regularity. Perhaps it’s a simple switch like allowing agents to conduct initial code reviews, rather than a more manual human-first approach. Finding points in your workflow where progress slows is a great way to find a task that an agent could lend a hand in completing or moving forward. ### Pick one job that’s easy to hand off When we think of automation, we think of repetitive tasks, completed on a scheduling. Look for work that is repetitive, well defined and easy to verify, such as scanning for leaked secrets before a repo goes public, or analysing updates to dependencies to identity potential issues. Automate one simple task, then compare the cost with the time saved. ### Ask what happens when it goes wrong Consider the risks when you’re automating a task. For that job, write down the worst case: a bad merge, an outage, a data leak. Then ask who would notice, how quickly, and how you’d roll it back and take back control if it happened. ### Test your guardrails How confident are you in your sandbox, permissions and branch protection? Give an agent a task it shouldn’t be able to finish, like changing a protected path or reading a secret it shouldn’t have, and see whether it’s stopped in it’s tracks. ### Want more? Watch the full talk https://www.youtube.com/embed/5UhCfmrab7w See Thomas Dohmke of Entire and Matan Grinberg of Entire in [Building the Agentic Software Factory](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100549-building-the-agentic-software-factory) from the WeAreDevelopers World Congress North America. ## Related Articles - [What is Agentic Programming and Why Should Developers Care?](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/625-what-is-agentic-programming-and-why-should-developers-care) - [Do You Trust Your Agents? Five Quick Ways to Contain Them](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/787-do-you-trust-your-agents-five-quick-ways-to-contain-them) - [Never delegate the understanding](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/749-never-delegate-the-understanding) - [Infer Once, Run Everywhere: Zero-Token Architecture](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/783-infer-once-run-everywhere-zero-token-architecture) ## Related Videos - [Building the Agentic Software Factory](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100549-building-the-agentic-software-factory) - [What Is a Software Factory and How to Build One in 20 Minutes](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100483-what-is-a-software-factory-and-how-to-build-one-in-20-minutes) - [State of the Software Factory](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100484-state-of-the-software-factory) - [What Production Knows: Closing the Loop Between AI Agents and the Systems They Build](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100277-what-production-knows-closing-the-loop-between-ai-agents-and-the-systems-they-build) ## Related Jobs - [Staff Software Engineer, Agentic Platform](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/jobs/48464-staff-software-engineer-agentic-platform) at **Docker, Inc.** - [Senior Software Engineer, Sandboxes (Eu Or East Coast Preferred)](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/jobs/ext/2161904-senior-software-engineer-sandboxes-eu-or-east-coast-preferred) at **Docker, Inc.** - [Principal Software Engineer (m/f/x)](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/jobs/48548-principal-software-engineer-m-f-x) at **Dynatrace** - [Senior Software Engineer, Sandboxes (Eu Or East Coast Preferred)](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/jobs/ext/2145730-senior-software-engineer-sandboxes-eu-or-east-coast-preferred) at **Docker, Inc.** - [Senior Software Engineer, Sandboxes (Eu Or East Coast Preferred)](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/jobs/ext/2145616-senior-software-engineer-sandboxes-eu-or-east-coast-preferred) at **Docker, Inc.** - [Head of Agentic AI / Lead AI Engineer](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/jobs/48488-head-of-agentic-ai-lead-ai-engineer) at **1st solution consulting gmbh**