Architecture
Shared clarity
Architecture is not control from above. It is the practice of making choices, boundaries, and consequences visible so teams can move with confidence.
Mindful Engineering
Better software starts with
better attention.
I am Roel van Bergen, a hands-on software engineer, coach, speaker, and Zen teacher. I write and speak about software, AI, architecture, attention, and the very human work of building things together.
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I keep coming back to the space between code and people.
Good software is not only the result of good code. It also comes from the things around the code: the assumptions we notice, the decisions we write down, the feedback loops we trust, and the care we bring into messy technical work.
AI-assisted engineering
Deliberate acceleration
AI is a powerful mirror. It shows where context is missing, where verification is weak, and where engineering practice was too implicit.
Human systems
Trust and attention
Software is built by people. Delivery, DevOps, leadership, feedback, and psychological safety shape technical outcomes every day.
Software engineering is a practice of seeing clearly.
From the garden
Latest writing from the messy middle.
Executable specifications for Agentic Coding
Using Vale and EARS as a deterministic quality gate in OpenSpec propose before coding agents turn ambiguous specifications into code.
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Our AI editorial team cost less than $250. The hard part wasn’t writing the whitepaper
Across 74 AI sessions and 186 million tokens, generating text turned out to be the easy part. Keeping editorial ownership human was harder.
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Your AI Agent Isn’t the Problem. Your Engineering Discipline Is.
AI coding agents expose the implicit knowledge your team has been expecting humans to infer.
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Featured work
Principal author · 2026
AI Assisted Development The Rockstars Way
A practical handbook for engineering teams that want to use coding agents without giving up ownership of the change.
From defining intent and curating context to harnessed execution, verification, and a pull request a human can actually review. Execution can move toward the agent. Engineering ownership stays with the team.
Speaking and collaboration
For teams navigating architecture, AI, delivery, and the human side of engineering.
I turn these ideas into practical talks, workshops, and reflective sessions that help engineering teams slow down just enough to see clearly, decide better, and work together with confidence.