# Jan Henrik Gundelsby

> Head of Knowit Research and part-time Lecturer in Software Engineering at the University of Oslo, researching how organizations adopt AI agents in software development: human-AI collaboration, agentic software engineering, technical debt, and large-scale agile. ORCID: 0000-0001-5275-6553.

- Website: https://gundelsby.com/
- Email: janhenrik@gundelsby.com · jangu@ifi.uio.no
- Location: Oslo, Norway
- ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5275-6553
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=4bw3LsEAAAAJ
- Semantic Scholar: https://www.semanticscholar.org/author/117950039
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janhenrikgundelsby/
- GitHub: https://github.com/janhenrik
- University of Oslo profile: https://www.mn.uio.no/ifi/?vrtx=person-view&uid=jangu
- Knowit Research: https://www.knowit.no/om-oss/forskning/

## Summary

Head of Knowit Research and part-time Lecturer in Software Engineering at the University of Oslo. I study how organizations adopt AI agents in software development, and help them do it. Bridging academia and practice on human-AI collaboration, agentic software engineering, technical debt, and large-scale agile. 

 Over 30 years as a developer, architect, and technology leader, from microservices and DevOps in Oslo municipality to building and running agentic development setups today. IT strategy, technical leadership, mentoring, and lifelong learning for consultants. 

 Published researcher on agile teams, human-AI collaboration, and technical debt. Regular speaker at JavaZone, XP, and other venues – see [talks](/talks/).

## Technical Specialties

- **Agentic software engineering:** adopting and scaling AI coding agents in teams, human-in-the-loop workflows, and harness and context engineering (skills, agent instructions, evaluation)
- **AI adoption research:** following organizations through agent-driven change, maturity baselines, and measuring real effect beyond the hype
- **Technical and cognitive debt:** managing debt in codebases and teams, including the new kinds AI-generated code creates
- **Platforms and organization:** platform engineering, product organization, DevOps, and large-scale agile in large enterprises and the public sector
- **Cloud and data:** AWS and Databricks certified; microservices and integration architecture

## Experience

### Head of Knowit Research — Knowit (September 2020 – Present)
- Researcher in KAIROS (2025–2029), a Knowit-led research project with SINTEF and industry partners on human-AI collaboration in software development
- Led TransformIT (2021–2025), a Knowit research project with SINTEF and industry partners on data-driven digital transformation, product teams, hybrid work, and team improvement
- Embedded research on agent-driven development with clients, including a following study of an agentic migration at Tet Digital
- Research partner in TechDebtOps (NFR IPN) on technical debt and PROSPECTS 5.0 (Horizon Europe) on Industry 5.0
- Building research funding applications with SINTEF, UiO, NTNU, and international universities
- Advocating communities of practice and lifelong learning for consultants
- Technology advisory, public speaking, and support for bids

### Lecturer (Universitetslektor), Software Engineering – part-time — Department of Informatics, University of Oslo (2026 – Present)
- Part-time teaching position in software engineering, alongside the role at Knowit
- Bringing industry experience and research on agile teams, human-AI collaboration, and agentic development into teaching

### Service Platform Lead — Oslo Origo (April 2020 – September 2020)
- Led the service platform in Oslo municipality
- Enabled innovation through open and transparent self-service platform
- Facilitated open data reuse in public and private sectors

### CTO and Principal Engineer / Expert Consultant — Knowit Objectnet (June 2018 – April 2020)
- Chief Technology Officer role
- Led the DevOps community

### Expert Consultant and DevOps-lead — Knowit Objectnet (January 2012 – April 2015)
- Enterprise architecture and tech leadership for Oslo municipality's central integration platform

### Expert Consultant and Manager — Knowit (2008 – January 2012)
- Enterprise architecture for Oslo municipality integration platform

### Expert Consultant / Senior Consultant — Unified Consulting (2003 – 2008)
- Enterprise architecture for Oslo municipality integration platform
- Technical project leadership (GWT with Spring/Hibernate)

### Senior Consultant — Software Innovation ASA (2002 – 2003)
- Developed Genova 8.0 XML integration

### Systems Consultant — Genera AS (1997 – 2002)
- Architected ticketing system for Norwegian Railways (NSB-LISA)
- Technical project lead (Visual Basic 6 projects)

### Part-time Consultant — Sysdeco Innovation (1995 – 1997)
- Software development in Systemator 5, C, and C++
- Unix platform porting, scripting (AWK/SED)

## Education

- **Cand. Scient (Master of Science), Computer Science**, University of Oslo (1993–2002)

## Certificates

- Amazon Web Services Solutions Architect Associate
- Databricks Certified Data Engineer Associate

## Publications (https://gundelsby.com/publications/)

- **"I'll Ask AI First": How GenAI Disrupts Collaboration in Agile Teams** (2026) — *Preprint*. Authors: Gundelsby, Jan Henrik; Berntzen, Marthe; Grøneng, C.; Vigeland, D.. DOI: [10.13140/rg.2.2.19621.67040](https://doi.org/10.13140/rg.2.2.19621.67040)
- **Responsible AI in Agile Software Engineering — An Industry Perspective** (2025) — *LNBIP (Int. Conf. Agile Software Development / XP)*. Authors: Ulfsnes, R.; Moe, Nils Brede; Emmerhoff, J.; Floryan, M.; Griva, A.; Gundelsby, Jan Henrik; et al.. DOI: [10.1007/978-3-031-72781-8_4](https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-72781-8_4)
- **DebtQuest: Discover Technical Debt Management Issues with Survey Visualization** (2025) — *IEEE Working Conf. on Software Visualization (VISSOFT)*. Authors: Irgens, M.; Orucevic, M.; Boye, M.; Gundelsby, Jan Henrik; Martini, A.. DOI: [10.1109/vissoft67405.2025.00011](https://doi.org/10.1109/vissoft67405.2025.00011)
- **The Future of Hybrid Software Development: Challenging Current Assumptions** (2023) — *IEEE Software 40(2)*. Authors: Conboy, K.; Moe, Nils Brede; Stray, Viktoria; Gundelsby, Jan Henrik. DOI: [10.1109/ms.2022.3230449](https://doi.org/10.1109/ms.2022.3230449)
- **How Agile Teams Make Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) Work** (2022) — *ICSSP/ICGSE (Int. Conf. Software and System Processes)*. Authors: Stray, Viktoria; Gundelsby, Jan Henrik; Ulfsnes, R.; Moe, Nils Brede. DOI: [10.1145/3529320.3529332](https://doi.org/10.1145/3529320.3529332)
- **Enabling Autonomous Teams in Large-Scale Agile Through Architectural Principles** (2018) — *XP Companion (19th Int. Conf. Agile Software Development)*. Authors: Gundelsby, Jan Henrik. DOI: [10.1145/3234152.3234183](https://doi.org/10.1145/3234152.3234183)

## Public Speaking / Talks (https://gundelsby.com/talks/)

- **2026 – JavaZone 2026:** Norsk forskning - Hva gjør norske organisasjoner med agentisk utvikling (med Nils Brede Moe) (https://vimeo.com/1223394835)
- **2026 – XP 2026:** "I'll Ask AI First": How GenAI Disrupts Collaboration in Agile Teams (https://conf.researchr.org/track/xp-2026/xp-2026-human-ai-collaboration#program)
- **2025 – JavaZone 2025:** Fremtidens produktutvikling med AI - innsikter fra norsk forskning (med Nils Brede Moe) (https://vimeo.com/1115500728)
- **2024 – JavaZone 2024:** 10 resultater fra 10 år med forskning på team (med Nils Brede Moe) (https://vimeo.com/1006510882)
- **2023 – Undervisning UiO 2023 - IT og Ledelse - Produktorganisering og OKR:** ITLED4350 Produktorganisering og OKR (https://www.slideshare.net/janhenrik2/20230323itledproduktorganiseringogokrpdf)
- **2022 – Arendalsuka 2022:** Organisering av produktutvikling i store organisasjoner (https://www.slideshare.net/janhenrik2/20220818-arendalsuka-organisering-av-produtviklingsteam-i-store-organisasjonerpdf)
- **2021 – JavaZone 2021:** Dynamisk DNS med AWS Lambda og Route 53 (https://vimeo.com/677812664)
- **2021 – NOKIOS 2021:** Hva sier forskningen om datadreven digital transformasjon i offentlig sektor? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCcilTtTxbc)
- **2019 – JavaZone 2019:** Det er greit å gjøre feil: 20 år med tabber (https://vimeo.com/362754811)
- **2019 – Smidig digitalisering 2019:** Slik gjennomfører vi digital transformasjon i Oslo kommune (med Tine Reuterdahl) (https://vimeo.com/339704697)
- **2019 – Software 2019:** Slik gjennomfører vi digital transformasjon i Oslo kommune (med Tine Reuterdahl) (https://event.dnd.no/software/sessions/slik-gjennomforer-vi-digital-transformasjon-i-oslo-kommune/)
- **2018 – JavaZone 2018:** Fra forskningen: hvordan arkitektur kan muliggjøre autonome team i storskala (https://vimeo.com/289520157)
- **2018 – NDC TechTown 2018:** Agile Development at Scale With Autonomous teams (with Thomas Malt) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCk0OcnLMlY)
- **2017 – NOKIOS 2017:** Stor-skala smidig i Oslo kommune (https://www.slideshare.net/janhenrik2/nokios-2017-storskala-smidig)
- **2017 – Software 2017:** Bimodal IT: Kombinasjonen kontinuerlige og tradisjonelle leveranser (https://event.dnd.no/software/sessions/bimodal-it-kombinasjonen-kontinuerlige-og-tradisjonelle-leveranser/)
- **2016 – Smidig 2016:** Video: Kombinasjonen DevOps og tradisjonelle leveranser (https://vimeo.com/190175005)
- **2016 – Software 2016:** Skalering av store enterprisesystemer med API-first (http://www.slideshare.net/janhenrik2/skalering-av-store-enterprisesystmer-med-apifirst)
- **2015 – JavaZone 2015:** Video: Bygg for endring (https://vimeo.com/138769064)
- **2015 – OSWA Meetup 2015:** Mikrotjenester-arki­­tektur i praksis (ingen foiler) (http://www.meetup.com/Oslo-Software-Architecture/events/220440883/?showAttendance=true&showFullList=yes%2Cno#no)
- **2015 – DND 2015:** Integrasjon i Oslo kommune (http://www.dataforeningen.no/integrasjon-i-oslo-kommune-loese-koblinger-og-fleksibilitet-gjennom-mikrotjenester-smidig-utvikling-og-devops-venteliste.5721638-134140.html)
- **2014 – JavaZone 2014:** Video: Erfaringer fra 150 mikrotjenester - fordeler og ulemper (http://vimeo.com/105777594)
- **2014 – Software 2014:** DevOps og kontinuerlige leveranser i Oslo kommune (http://sched.co/1cwkBPI)
- **2013 – JavaZone 2013:** Video: Integrasjon som skalerer ved å gi utviklerne kontrollen (http://vimeo.com/74415652)
- **2013 – Software 2013:** You can go wrong with beige
- **2012 – JavaZone 2012:** Video: Maven release med Ruby (http://vimeo.com/49381224)
- **2012 – GoOpen 2012:** Forvaltning av fri og åpen programvare
- **2012 – Software 2012:** Video: Integrasjon uten et ESB-produkt (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMGJ_9yxlZA)
- **2011 – JavaZone 2011:** Video: SOA uten ESB (http://vimeo.com/28759841)
- **2009 – JavaZone 2009:** Video: Arkitekturtabber vi ikke gjør om igjen (http://vimeo.com/46284670)