GOTO - The Brightest Minds in Tech

This interview was recorded for the GOTO Book Club.
http://gotopia.tech/bookclub

Check out more here:
https://gotopia.tech/episodes/424

Susanne Kaiser - Independent Tech Consultant & Author of "Architecture for Flow"
James Lewis - Software Architect & Director at Thoughtworks

RESOURCES
Susanne
https://bsky.app/profile/suksr.bsky.social
https://mastodon.social/@suksr
https://twitter.com/suksr
https://www.linkedin.com/in/susannekaiser1
https://susannekaiser.net

James
https://bsky.app/profile/boicy.bovon.org
https://twitter.com/boicy
https://linkedin.com/in/james-lewis-microservices
https://github.com/boicy
https://www.bovon.org

Links
https://susannekaiser.net/the-architecture-for-flow-canvas
https://susannekaiser.net/articles
https://www.christenseninstitute.org/theory/jobs-to-be-done

DESCRIPTION
James Lewis interviews Susanne Kaiser about her comprehensive new book "Architecture for Flow: Adaptive Systems with Domain-Driven Design, Wardley Mapping and Team Topologies".

Susanne shares how she brought together 3 powerful frameworks over several years of her consulting work, creating a holistic approach to designing socio-technical systems. The discussion covers her journey from startup CTO to independent consultant, the evolution of her thinking around value streams and team organization, and her practical "Architecture for Flow Canvas" that teams can use to assess their current state and envision their future.

With 126 hand-drawn illustrations and 599 sticky notes in the book, Kaiser emphasizes the importance of visual communication and starting with the problem space before jumping to solutions.

RECOMMENDED BOOKS
Susanne Kaiser • Adaptive Systems With Domain-Driven Design, Wardley Mapping & Team Topologies • https://amzn.to/3XTmNCc
Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais • Team Topologies • https://amzn.to/4a2gh0i
Woods, Erder & Pureur • Continuous Architecture in Practice • https://amzn.to/2QWAmkl
Steve Pereira & Andrew Davis • Flow Engineering • https://amzn.to/3GY3u44
Stefan Hofer & Henning Schwentner • Domain Storytelling • https://amzn.to/3EroBH7
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This interview was recorded at GOTO Copenhagen 2025.
https://gotocph.com

Abby Bangser - Platform Engineering Insights from Syntasso delivering Kratix
Adrian Mouat - Developer Relations at Chainguard & Author of 'Using Docker'
Holly Cummins - JavaOne Rock Star. Building Quarkus to Make the Cloud Cloudier

RESOURCES
Abby
https://bsky.app/profile/abangser.bsky.social
https://twitter.com/a_bangser
https://github.com/abangser
https://www.linkedin.com/in/abbybangser
https://www.syntasso.io/members-area/abby/profile

Adrian
https://bsky.app/profile/adrianmouat.com
https://twitter.com/adrianmouat
https://github.com/amouat
https://linkedin.com/in/adrianmouat
http://www.adrianmouat.com

Holly
https://hollycummins.com
https://hollycummins.com/type/blog
https://bsky.app/profile/hollycummins.com
https://hachyderm.io/@holly_cummins
https://twitter.com/holly_cummins
https://github.com/holly-cummins
https://linkedin.com/in/holly-k-cummins

RECOMMENDED BOOKS
Adrian Mouat • Using Docker • https://amzn.to/3PEYIJL
Liz Rice • Container Security • https://amzn.to/3oU4iJe
Liz Rice • Kubernetes Security • https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/kubernetes-security/9781492039075
Anne Currie, Sarah Hsu, & Sara Bergman • Building Green Software • https://amzn.to/3UjSClv
Kief Morris • Infrastructure as Code • https://amzn.to/4e6EBQc
Bluesky
Instagram
LinkedIn
Facebook

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This interview was recorded for the GOTO Book Club.
http://gotopia.tech/bookclub

Check out more here:
https://gotopia.tech/episodes/422

Fabrice Bernhard - Co-Author of “The Lean Tech Manifesto” & Co-Founder & CTO at Theodo
Steve Pereira - C o-Author of “Flow Engineering” & Principal Consultant at Visible Flow Consulting

RESOURCES
Fabrice
https://bsky.app/profile/fab-ber.bsky.social
https://x.com/fabriceb
https://github.com/fabriceb
https://www.linkedin.com/in/fabricebernhard

Steve
https://x.com/steveelsewhere
https://github.com/stevepereira
https://www.linkedin.com/in/devopsto
https://stevepereira.ca

Links
https://hbr.org/1986/01/the-new-new-product-development-game

DESCRIPTION
Fabrice Bernhard, co-founder of Theodo and co-author of "The Lean Tech Manifesto", shares his journey from agile practitioner to lean thinking advocate. The discussion explores how lean principles can scale agile practices beyond small teams, the misconceptions around both methodologies, and the emergence of tech-enabled networks of teams as a new organizational model.

Fabrice emphasizes that both lean and agile are fundamentally about people, not processes, and shares practical lessons from scaling his consultancy to 700 people while maintaining agility through lean principles.

RECOMMENDED BOOKS
Fabrice Bernhard & Benoît Charles-Lavauzelle • The Lean Tech Manifesto • https://amzn.to/3Z4EbU6
Steve Pereira & Andrew Davis • Flow Engineering • https://amzn.to/3GY3u44
General Stanley McChrystal, Collins, Silverman & Fussell • Team of Teams • https://amzn.to/4bUzhQY
Matthew Skelton & Manuel Pais • Team Topologies • https://amzn.to/4a2gh0i
Bill Frasure, Bruce Eckel, James Ward • Effect Oriented Programming • https://amzn.to/4sO6wLV
Susanne Kaiser • Adaptive Systems With Domain-Driven Design, Wardley Mapping & Team Topologies • https://amzn.to/3XTmNCc
Bluesky
Instagram
LinkedIn
Facebook

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Join this channel to get early access to videos & other perks:
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Looking for a unique learning experience?
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This interview was recorded for GOTO Unscripted.
https://gotopia.tech

Check out more here:
https://gotopia.tech/articles/421

Félix GV - Current Interests: Multi-Planetary Databases, Data Sovereignty & Lifelogging
Olimpiu Pop - Technologist & Tech Journalist

RESOURCES
Félix
https://bsky.app/profile/felixgv.ninja
https://github.com/FelixGV
https://www.linkedin.com/in/felixgv

Olimpiu
https://x.com/olimpiupop
https://github.com/zroll
https://www.linkedin.com/in/olimpiupop

Links
https://venicedb.org
https://github.com/linkedin/venice
https://rocksdb.org
https://duckdb.org

DESCRIPTION
Félix GV, a former engineer at LinkedIn and architect of the Venice database system, discusses the complexity of building planetary-scale data systems. He explains Venice's unbundled architecture where each component—from Kafka-based pub/sub to RocksDB-powered servers—operates as an independent distributed system. Félix details their rigorous chaos engineering practices, including regular load tests that push data centers beyond normal capacity to ensure reliability.

The discussion covers fundamental distributed systems concepts like the CAP theorem and the trade-offs between consistency and availability in multi-region deployments. He also explains why Venice, as a derived data system, deliberately sacrifices strong consistency for high throughput and availability, and concludes by discussing their experimental integration of DuckDB for SQL-based analytics and data exploration capabilities.

RECOMMENDED BOOKS
Kasun Indrasiri & Danesh Kuruppu • gRPC: Up and Running • https://amzn.to/3sBGBJJ
Tomer Shiran, Jason Hughes & Alex Merced • Apache Iceberg: The Definitive Guide • https://amzn.to/488Z30k
William Smith • Arrow Flight Protocols and Practices • https://amzn.to/4o2Q2fd
Adi Polak • Scaling Machine Learning with Spark • https://amzn.to/3N9vx1H
Mark Needham, Michael Hunger & Michael Simons • DuckDB in Action • https://amzn.to/45QwSli
Simon Aubury & Ned Letcher • Getting Started with DuckDB • https://amzn.to/3VPk4q
Bluesky
Instagram
LinkedIn
Facebook

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Looking for a unique learning experience?
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This conversation was recorded at GOTO Copenhagen 2025.
https://gotocph.com

Sam Newman - Author of Building Microservices & Monolith to Microservices
Jacqui Read - Author of Communication Patterns: A Guide for Developers and Architects
Simon Rohrer - Global Head of Enterprise Tech Architecture and Ways of Thinking

ORIGINAL TALK TITLE
Software Design, Architecture & Giving Clarity at Scale

RESOURCES
Sam
https://twitter.com/samnewman
https://www.linkedin.com/in/samnewman
http://samnewman.io
http://samnewman.io/blog
https://github.com/snewman

Jacqui
https://bsky.app/profile/tekiegirl.bsky.social
https://jacquiread.com
https://fosstodon.org/@tekiegirl
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacquelineread
https://github.com/tekiegirl

Simon
https://bsky.app/profile/simon.bvssh.com
https://mastodon.social/@simonr
https://x.com/sirohrer
https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonrohrer
https://github.com/sirohrer
https://www.soonersaferhappier.com

Links
https://acedmodel.com

ABSTRACT
In this session, we will explore the nature of software design - what is it, and where is the intersection with architecture? We’ll also look at the importance of communicating context, design, and architecture across an organization.

If you’d like to do some advanced reading, head over to acedmodel.com for more.

Both Jacqui and Simon will be sharing their expertise and experiences, but this session is also all about your questions. Come along, and get involved! [...]

Read the full abstract here:
https://gotocph.com/2025/sessions/3932

RECOMMENDED BOOKS
Jacqui Read • Communication Patterns • https://amzn.to/3E37lvv
Sam Newman • Building Resilient Distributed Systems • https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/building-resilient-distributed/9781098163532
Sam Newman • Monolith to Microservices • https://amzn.to/2Nml96E
Sam Newman • Building Microservices • https://amzn.to/3dMPbOs
Jonathan Smart, Zsolt Berend, Myles Ogilvie & Simon Rohrer • Sooner Safer Happier • https://amzn.to/3Emm9p2
Bluesky
Instagram
LinkedIn
Facebook

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Join this channel to get early access to videos & other perks:
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Looking for a unique learning experience?
Attend the next GOTO conference near you! Get your ticket: gotopia.tech

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL - new videos posted daily!