Why top developers hesitate to hand over the wheel to coding agents

Why are good developers so wary of agentic development?

Experienced developers aren't wary of agentic coding because they fear change or job loss—they know that built isn't the same as working in production. After a week-long experiment where agents wrote all the code, Thoughtworks engineers found the build was frequently red and the team spent most of its time at the whiteboard defining boundaries and feedback loops. DORA's 2025 research confirms AI boosts throughput but lowers stability, raising hard questions about trust, testing, and the last mile.