ITMC Innovationsforum
Universität Hamburg - Juni 2026
Building a Coding Factory
How AI Agents Are Reshaping Software Engineering
Marvin Kruse
Technical Lead at OTTO
Hi, I'm Marvin
| Role | Technical Lead at OTTO |
| Since | June 2024 |
| Experience | >15 years — in various industries |
| Focus | Platform & AI-Engineering, Developer Experience, Architecture & Distributed Systems |
| Alma Mater | Dipl. Wirtschaftsinformatik, Uni Hamburg 🎓 |
Agenda
The Evolution of the Coding Setup
Internals of a Coding Factory
Demo
Key Takeaways & Outlook
Three Eras of Coding
Classic
Nerd + Coffee + Laptop + IDE
You write everything
Modern
Nerd + Coffee + Laptop + IDE + Copilot
You write, AI assists
AI Coding Factory
Nerd + Coffee + Phone/Browser
You steer, AI writes
Your laptop is just the steering wheel — the engine runs elsewhere.
What Changed?
LLMs can write code — everyone knows that by now
But: Agents can also plan, structure, and execute code autonomously
The shift: from "AI as autocomplete" to "AI as a coworker who works independently"
How We Build Software — Today
What if Coding Was a Factory?
Why Build Your Own?
Offload compute from the laptop
Agents work async — even while you sleep
Codex, Copilot Agent, Devin go there — DIY teaches you what's real
Self-experiment: how far can you push it today?
The Factory — Schematic
The Control Plane
Happier — Start sessions, monitor progress, intervene (Web + iOS)
Lateralus — Orchestrator for multi-agent runs (planned)
GitHub — Source of truth: Issues, PRs, Code
You define what gets built. The control plane makes it happen.
Happier — The Control Interface
Web + iOS app — relay to the coding factory
Start sessions from a GitHub Issue or prompt
Monitor agent progress in real-time
Intervene: cancel, redirect, or approve
You'll see this in action in the demo.
The Execution Plane
Ubuntu VM — Homelab or cloud
Bubblewrap — Sandbox container, restricted network
Schism — CLI shim that blocks destructive/expensive commands (human-in-the-loop)
Agent (Kiro / OpenCode) — Reads spec, plans tasks, writes code, commits
Matroschka: VM → Bubblewrap → Schism → Agent. Each layer adds safety.
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Your PC ran into a problem and needs to restart.
We're just collecting some error info, and then we'll restart for you.
37% complete
Stop code: DEMO_GODS_HAVE_SPOKEN
① We're Just Getting Started
You can build your own coding factory — today
Vendors are productizing it: Codex, Cursor, Github, Multica, etc.
The patterns are emerging — coding factories will become a commodity
② The Skills That (Still) Matter
Systems thinking
Distributed systems & clean architecture
Unix fundamentals
Can't review what you don't understand
15 years of building systems without AI — that foundation still matters
③ LLMs Are Not Intelligent
Stochastic — plausible, but no understanding
Security holes
Hallucinated libraries
Inefficient approaches
The agent is only as good as the senior who reviews
