Stay ConnectedCockroach Lab’s Big Ideas in App Architecture is a podcast for architects and engineers building modern data-intensive applications and systems. In every weekly episode, an innovator joins the show to share useful insights from their experiences building reliable, scalable, maintainable systems.
Welcome to Big Ideas in App Architecture!
Copyright: © Copyright Cockroach Labs
In this episode, David welcomes Ari LiVigni, Senior Cloud Solutions Architect at GitHub, for an engaging conversation about cloud infrastructure, cloud adoption, AI, and security.
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Ever wondered how cloud architecture works in the public sector? In this episode, David Joy is joined by Nik Mayer, Principal Cloud Architect at Maximus, a company that partners with state, federal and local governments to provide critical health and human service programs. Nick discusses his journey into cloud architecture, emphasizing the impact of public cloud on innovation and accessibility. He also highlights the key differences between private and public sector cloud strategies, focusing on the heightened security and compliance requirements of government agencies.
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This week, David is joined by Dom Scandinaro, CTO at Cameo, the platform that allows users to send personalized videos from celebrities and creators. Scandinaro gives an in-depth overview of Cameo’s rapid growth from a simple idea into a robust and deeply personalized fan experience platform with the digital infrastructure to match.
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In this episode, our host David Joy speaks with Samarth Shah, Senior Network Architect at Equifax to learn about the steps they took to modernize from the mainframe to the cloud, as well as the impact AI has on the industry.
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In this episode, we dive into the heart of cloud architecture, disaster recovery, observability, and more with OneStream’s Senior VP of Cloud Architecture, Ryan Berry. Whether you're a tech enthusiast or finance professional, this episode offers indispensable knowledge on navigating modern cloud landscapes and optimizing financial software solutions.
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In this episode, David is joined by Head of Product Engineering and Chief Architect at Altimetrik, Ignacio Segovia. From revolutionizing product engineering to harnessing the power of cloud technologies, Ignacio breaks down the themes of digital transformation in today's rapidly evolving landscape, and how Altimetrik fosters cultural alignment and innovation on their engineering teams.
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This week, David is joined by Unmesh Joshi, Principal Consultant at Thoughtworks and author of “Patterns of Distributed Systems” for a conversation on the technical intricacies that keep modern applications running smoothly.
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With a growing library of media properties including CNET, Lonely Planet, and Bankrate, Red Ventures’ data platform has scaled from handling 16 million events per day to nearly 2 billion. To dive into the evolution of their architecture and understand how data effortlessly travels through their systems, our host David Joy sat down with Principal Software Engineer Majid Fatemian.
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For the engineering team at digital analytics company Amplitude, real-time customer feedback and cutting-edge Northstar metrics play a significant role in helping them adapt their tech stack and stay ahead in a rapidly evolving market.
To learn more about the innovative approaches at Amplitude, we sat down with their SVP of Engineering, Shadi Rostami, for a discussion on the significance of ownership, accountability, and a founder's mindset in shepherding a company's growth.
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Modernizing database infrastructure can solve more than just data problems. It can also simplify your software architecture and the way your engineering organization works.
In this episode, David sits down with technical evangelist, Rob Reid from Cockroach Labs, to discuss the importance of architectural simplification through proven patterns, real-world examples, and practical use cases.
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“Customer experience is top priority, if the customer isn’t happy and you scale it, it doesn’t matter, nobody's gonna use it!”
This week, David is joined by Sachin Joshi, Director of Enterprise Architecture at Vimeo, to discuss customer experience as the north star of architecture work, the evolution and impact of AI, and Vimeo's code-to-cash process for business efficiency.
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How to leverage real-time data processing for enterprises
In this episode, David is joined by Andrew Sellers, Head of Technology at Confluent, to discuss the dynamic world of data streaming and its transformative impact in the enterprise as well as everyday applications. Andrew sheds light on the evolution of data infrastructure and how Confluent is constantly working to revolutionize data management with its platform.
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Developers need a toolkit to build AI into their applications – models, functions, & data, Hypermode does just that. To learn how the world of data and databases have been rapidly evolving for the age of AI, we sat down with their CTO Gajanan Chinchwadkar (previously Chief Systems Architect at Visa).
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With over a decade of experience spanning various industries, Chief Architect Joshua Prismon shares insights on his journey from guiding the architecture of FICO to his current role enabling media owners to grow revenue and marketers to reach consumers on any screen at Index Exchange. From the democratization of credit scores to the ethical considerations of AI use, Josh provides a comprehensive overview of the intersection between technology, privacy, and innovation.
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Major retailers from AllBirds to Alo Yoga to Glossier boost sales and increase customer loyalty with Endear’s CRM solution. To learn about the technology behind the scenes enabling omni-channel strategies at these large consumer brands, David Joy sat down with the CTO at Endear, JP Grace.
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Whether you need to send greeting cards or flowers, Moonpig makes personalized gifting for any occasion easy. But behind the simplicity of Moonpig’s platform are complex technologies that enable the deep customization that customers love. To talk about the architecture behind Moonpig, Principal Engineer Alexis Lowe sat down with our host David Joy.
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Consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton plays a pivotal role in keeping federal agencies including the United States Department of Defense and the VA on the cutting edge. In this episode, host David Joy is joined by Booz Allen Hamilton’s Sr. Solutions Architect, Brian Johnson, for a discussion on the exciting, intricate world of data analysis as well as expert insights on solutions architecture.
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Madalina Tanasie's career has been led by her belief that technology should be purposeful. Embracing choices that reflected this conviction, her professional path ultimately led to the C-suite.
David sits down with Madalina to discuss the always-evolving technology landscape and the recent advancements in AI, especially in the context of her work at Collibra.
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Years before Rod Senra became VP of Engineering, he started out in academia in Brazil. He recalls the early days of Python and teaching computer engineering to his students. Today, he leads as VP of Engineering at Loadsmart, a logistics technology company helping shippers, suppliers and carriers to move goods more efficiently.
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With a growing library of media properties including CNET, Lonely Planet, and Bankrate, Red Ventures’ data platform has scaled from handling 16 million events per day to nearly 2 billion. To dive into the evolution of their architecture and understand how data effortlessly travels through their systems, our host David Joy sat down with Principal Software Engineer Majid Fatemian.
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Revolutionizing education with technology, and classrooms in particular, is no easy lift. But the right interactive tools and the ability to navigate the complexities of scaling in a market driven by digital advancements, is essential for success.
We hear all about the transformative journey of Kami, an education technology company, from Founder and CTO Jordan Thoms. He shares the company's evolution story in New Zealand, its early focus on teacher empowerment, and the pivotal moments in adapting its product direction based on the needs of the education community.
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In this best of 2023 episode, David Joy sits down with Brian Chambers, Chief Architect at Chick-fil-A Corporate.
Behind Chick-fil-A’s speedy service and chicken sandwiches, is a state-of-the-art architecture that collects over 1 billion data points per month. From its cloud infrastructure to the edge compute clusters running Kubernetes in each Chick-fil-A restaurant, the customer experience is the result of a thoughtfully designed, cloud-first, and zero-touch approach.
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In this best of 2023 episode, Tim Veil talks to Peter Mattis, Co-founder and CTO at Cockroach Labs.
In this conversation, Peter goes way under the hood to talk about how CockroachDB is architected, how that architecture has evolved, and how the architecture will continue to evolve to make developers’ lives easier.
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Meg Adams has had a remarkable journey to tech leader — from special education teacher, to retail sales manager at Victoria's Secret and learning to code, to managing teams at Etsy at Condé Nast — and now, her current role as Executive Director of Platform Engineering at Estée Lauder.
To learn about her approaches to leadership, the intricacies of managing cloud infrastructure and analytics, and what it takes to build powerful platforms and top-tier teams, our host David
Joy catches Meg for a first-ever in-person recording.
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Indecisiveness at the drive-through is just one of the many factors that ConverseNow’s conversational AI software for restaurants has to design for. To see what tools, programming languages, and more go into enabling a successful automated food order, we sat down with Akshay Kayastha, Senior Engineering Manager at ConverseNow.
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In the latest episode of "Big Ideas in App Architecture," we dive into the world of utility facilities and their app architecture with guest Grant Muller, Vice President of Applications and Technology Architecture at Xylem. Grant shares valuable insights on bridging end-to-end solutions while focusing on energy efficiency and data collection in utility facilities.
Grant explains IoT standards in utility facilities and the importance of SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems for device automation and control. He emphasizes the need to address cyber security concerns and highlights the significance of dividing the workload through a robust architecture.
The conversation then delves into data management, with a focus on understanding data lakehouse patterns and motivating the centralization of data locations. Grant also gets into his thoughts on Data Mesh and its usage in managing and scaling data effectively.
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This week, Mattias Sio Fjellvang, CTO and Co-Founder of Doubble, joins to discuss the technical challenges he’s faced while building a "double dating" application. Mattias discusses tech stack decisions, developing with a completely distributed team, and the incredible month-to-month growth of the application.
Mattias talks about what it was like for ‘a React guy’ to develop using Dart and Flutter. Taking a prototype built on MongoDB and flipping it to CockroachDB to solve the scalability, reliability, and data compliance issues challenges. Join as we discuss:
In this episode, Adam Koch, Systems Engineering Fellow at Paycor, discusses transitioning from legacy systems to the cloud and its impact on application architecture.
Adam draws on his wealth of knowledge and experience in the field to help frame the evolution of data architecture and infrastructure. He shares his perspective on the limitless possibilities that cloud scale brings, while also giving an honest accounting of the challenges that come with it.
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“Aside from math and physics, there are no laws in software engineering.”
In this episode, Joe Lynch, a technical leader with decades of experience (Google, Twilio…), discusses the fundamental principles of building software efficiently; and the human obstacles that get in our way. Joe explains the difference between "laws" and tendencies in software engineering and how understanding Conway's law can lead to better organizational structure, better peer review practices, and better software design.
We also address pressure on engineers to get things right and the danger of striving for perfection, which can be the enemy of good. He stresses the importance of setting up a "problem space" to identify problems before you start “solutioning”.
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In today's episode, we're joined by Yolanda Davis, Principal Software Engineer at Cloudera, to talk about Apache NiFi and its role in streamlining data transfers.
Yolanda explains the architecture of Cloudera’s Apache NiFi and the UI developers use of the tool to design and manage dataflows. She also shares how Kubernetes has changed the game in terms of efficiency and scalability (while acknowledging the occasionally immense challenge of growing K8s).
We delve into the challenges of observability and monitoring in the cloud. And how Cloudera is using the insights gathered from monitoring. Yolanda also shares some unique observations about the way she sees the public cloud being leveraged for scaling efficiently for performance and cost savings.
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“I guarantee you no CIO will ever write a check to Cockroach Labs. You have to change the name.”
Peter Mattis, Co-founder and CTO at Cockroach Labs, was given that unsolicited advice from an audience member at a conference in 2018. Five years later Cockroach Labs has cashed plenty of checks signed by CIOs from some of the biggest companies on the planet. In this conversation, Peter goes way under the hood to talk about how CockroachDB is architected, how that architecture has evolved, and how the architecture will continue to evolve to make developers’ lives easier.
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This week, we’re with one of those masters of database building, Andy Pavlo, an Associate Professor with indefinite tenure of databaseology in the computer science department at Carnegie Mellon University and the Co-Founder of OtterTune.
Andy discusses how his introduction to “databaseology” changed the way databases are not only built but also studied for more efficiency at companies. From optimizing databases for efficient testing and usage to building effective databases using the right knobs and building blocks, Andy shares his insights and expertise on how to improve the performance and reliability of your applications.
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Database architecture can be a vital part of enhancing and maintaining customer success!
In this episode of "Big Ideas in App Architecture," we explore several crucial aspects of backend engineering including stateless systems architected for resilience and how to do observability well. Our guest, Dan Goldin, Chief Architect at TripleLift, shares his expertise, drawing from his years of experience at startups and in the ad-technology industry. For those interested in customer experience, Dan discusses the power of data and how to leverage it to optimize app interactions. For those interested in application architecture, he talks about building resilience into different systems at TripleLift.
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AI is expanding in our lives like never before. How is it changing the way we approach software development for the future?
In short, a ton!
This week, Stephen Blum, CTO and Founder of PubNub, joins to discuss how specific tech roles will likely change as AI becomes more ingrained in the work of tech companies. Moreover, he theorizes that innovative companies won’t view AI as merely a means of shaving headcount, but will instead turn AI into a competitive edge — using real-time testing to develop applications quickly and efficiently.
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You are effectively scaling your software teams to their maximum efficiency. When is the right time to automate specific features to accommodate your growing team?
This week we’re joined by Matt Ranney, Principal Engineer at DoorDash who emphasizes the importance of finding productivity angels in smaller teams with more automation, and how understanding that unit testing isn't the only valuable metric can lead to building more efficient infrastructure systems.
Matt also discusses the pros and cons of Kubernetes and microsystems, and provides call-to-actions when Doordash experiences failures or downtimes on microservices. He stresses the importance of acknowledging that partial failure is still complete failure, and how taking steps to prevent and mitigate these failures can greatly improve overall system reliability.Join as we discuss:
Get fit in real time with tech’s advancements in the fitness industry!
This week, we’re joined by Paul Lawler, Head of Software at Wahoo Fitness as he discusses how athletes everywhere are using technology to understand and grow their physical health in real-time. In this conversation Paul explains his experiences building highly available apps and services for a decade in Ed-Tech before moving into the fitness industry. While he shares a ton of interesting technical choices, his thoughts on the importance of hiring collaborative personalities might be the most compelling takeaway.
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Step into the future of app architecture with Gregg Mojica, Co-Founder and CTO of Alloy Automation, as we uncover the magic of multi-region architecture, serverless tools, scaling up and down with Kubernetes, and solving problems for merchants all over the world.
Gregg will share his insights on how to build an efficient tech stack that solves problems for ecommerce companies by helping them integrate apps and platforms. We'll dive into technical decisions that Gregg and his team have made related to AWS, DynamoDB, Kubernetes, EKS, and more. Serverless architecture comes up often in the context of serving a global audience, dealing with bursts of traffic and trying to be cost efficient (and operationally efficient) at all times.
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Get ready to dive into the big ideas shaping the future of hiring software for SaaS companies! This week, Mike Boufford, CTO at Greenhouse Software shares his insights on the creation of Greenhouse's hiring software. Mike was the first engineering hire at Greenhouse and has watched the department grow to over 120 engineers. In this conversation he highlights the challenges they faced when building the product, such as: how to add customers indefinitely, and how to survive failures without impacting end user experiences. Join as we discuss:
Unlock the secrets of the data warehousing industry and stay ahead of the curve of data storage! This week, Ken Pickering, SVP of Engineering at Starburst Data, delves into the intricacies of separating compute from storage, transferring to cloud-based solutions, and keeping up with evolving data storage ecosystems. We also discuss the benefits of incorporating community connectors and designing a multi-cloud system.
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