In this podcast Michael Stiefel spoke with Lizzie Matusov about the dependency of effective, productive, and satisfied teams on good software architecture. Understanding this relationship requires understanding exactly what software productivity really is, how modern software engineering research has become more rigorous and practical, and how to apply that research to software development. Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/41trQt4 Subscribe to the Software Architects’ Newslett...
Mar 05, 2025•1 hr 11 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, Thomas Betts speaks with Andrew Harmel-Law about his new book, Facilitating Software Architecture: Empowering Teams to Make Architectural Decisions. The conversation includes a discussion of what constitutes an architecturally significant decision, how the practice of architecture is evolving, and how architects have a role to facilitate software architecture, rather than being the only ones making architectural decisions. Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/3D6i...
Feb 17, 2025•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this podcast Michael Stiefel spoke with Randy Shoup about how to build resilient systems. We discuss why it is a serious mistake to fail to acknowledge that software’s interaction with itself and the real world produces fragility. Therefore, software systems must be built to be resilient to that fragility. We also discuss where to use workflows, orchestration or choreography, the role of architecture in building good teams, and the wisdom of letting each team use their own set of tools. Read ...
Feb 14, 2025•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, Thomas Betts speaks with Avraham Poupko. Avraham believes software architects will not be replaced by Generative AI or LLMs. They will be replaced by software architects that know how to leverage Generative AI and LLMs. Their discussion compares LLM training with how humans learn, leading to better understanding of how architects can use GenAI effectively. Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/3CzH1Zm Subscribe to the Software Architects’ Newsletter for your monthl...
Feb 10, 2025•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this podcast, Apoorva Joshi, Senior AI Developer Advocate at MongoDB, discusses how to evaluate software applications that use the Large Language Models or LLMs and how to improve the performance of LLM based applications. Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/3WEppT6 Subscribe to the Software Architects’ Newsletter for your monthly guide to the essential news and experience from industry peers on emerging patterns and technologies: https://www.infoq.com/software-architects-news...
Jan 30, 2025•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast What Does It Mean to Be Green in IT? That's the question that begins chapter one in Building Green Software. In this episode, Thomas Betts is joined by two of the book's authors, Anne Currie and Sara Bergman. The discussion covers general themes and digs into some practical advice for all software practitioners. Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/4abd12h Subscribe to the Software Architects’ Newsletter for your monthly guide to the essential news and experience from industry pee...
Jan 13, 2025•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast Live from the QCon San Francisco Conference, we are talking with Susan Shu Chang, Principal Data Scientist at Elastic. Chang shares insights on bridging foundational machine learning with generative AI, emphasizing the importance of deploying ML models effectively, leveraging collaborative tools for prototyping, and aligning team roles with the ML life cycle to create scalable AI solutions. Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/4gzllet Subscribe to the Software Architects’ Newslett...
Jan 06, 2025•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this year-in-review episode, Daniel Bryant, along with InfoQ podcast hosts Thomas Betts, Shane Hastie, Srini Penchikala, and Renato Losio, reflect on the trends and developments of 2024 across key domains: architecture, culture and methods, AI and data engineering, and cloud and DevOps. The conversation covers the rise of AI as a ubiquitous enabler, the growing focus on green software, platform engineering’s mainstream emergence, and the ongoing challenges of balancing human and technical evo...
Dec 30, 2024•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this special episode, Roland and Anthony meet at QCon San Francisco to discuss Time and Travel. Roland presents three case studies where temporal misunderstandings in data science led to poor predictive performance. Anthony tells the story of how the first Transcontinental Railroad shortened travel times between the East and West Coasts of the United States, and how some practices in the construction of that railroad were similar to practices in today’s software industry. Read a transcript of...
Dec 23, 2024•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, Ixchel Ruiz, Senior Software Developer at Karakun, and Gunnar Morling, Software Engineer at Decodable, sat down with podcast host Michael Redlich, Lead Editor of the Java topic at InfoQ, and discussed the recent publication of the InfoQ Java Trends Report. Topics covered included: the advantages of the Java six-month release cadence; Project Lilliput and compact object headers; nullability in Java; the impact of Python; and the One Billion Row Challenge. Read a transcript of thi...
Dec 18, 2024•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast Live from the QCon San Francisco Conference, we are talking with Denys Linkov, Head of Machine Learning at Voiceflow. Linkov shares insights on using micro metrics to refine large language models (LLMs), highlighting the importance of granular evaluation, continuous iteration, and rigorous prompt engineering to create reliable and user-focused AI systems. Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/49tOvt8 Subscribe to the Software Architects’ Newsletter for your monthly guide to the ess...
Dec 16, 2024•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast Michael Stiefel spoke with Ken Finnigan about how the lack of feedback impedes the development of software professionals. Without feedback, the right candidates are not hired, software professionals cannot improve or grow into new roles, or individuals stagnate or regress in their current positions. Feedback must also be delivered at the right time - when it can be effectively used. Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/4fjmLto Subscribe to the Software Architects’ Newsletter for y...
Nov 11, 2024•47 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this podcast episode, Roland and Anthony discuss the Godfather of AI, Geoffrey Hinton, who developed pivotal algorithms like backpropagation, contributed to neural visualization with t-SNE, and inspired a resurgence in neural networks with AlexNet's success. Hinton now voices concerns about AI's future, addressing both its potential benefits and its risks. They then turn to John von Neumann, the Godfather of Programming, whose vast impact spanned mathematics, the Manhattan Project, and game t...
Nov 06, 2024•41 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this podcast, Namee Oberst, co-founder of AI Bloks, the company behind AI framework LLMWare, discusses the recent trend in Generative AI and Language Model technologies, the Small Language Models (SLMs) and how these smaller models are empowering the edge computing on devices and enabling AI-powered PC's. Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/3O9LZOZ Subscribe to the Software Architects’ Newsletter for your monthly guide to the essential news and experience from industry peers o...
Nov 04, 2024•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this podcast, Roland and Anthony discuss the use of simulation of both musical instruments and robots. They explore how software and sampling techniques allow musicians to replicate the sounds of real instruments and to design better pianos before manufacturing. They discuss how robot simulations allow testing code safely in virtual environments, avoiding costly or dangerous real-world consequences. The conversation extends to frameworks like Gazebo, Unity, and reinforcement learning platform...
Oct 30, 2024•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this podcast, Roland Meertens and Anthony Alford discuss coordinate systems, both in AI and the physical world. They explore how a library's classification systems mirror the concept of embeddings in AI, where documents are organized based on similarity and how AI tools like RAG use vector spaces to efficiently retrieve the right content. They then discuss physical coordinate systems and how different countries have developed various schemes to represent the Earth’s surface, such as the UK's ...
Oct 23, 2024•43 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of Generally AI, Roland Meertens and Anthony Alford discuss the historical cycles of AI "summers" and "winters": periods of optimism and decline in AI research. The conversation follows the story of neural networks, from Rosenblatt’s perceptron, to the resurgence of AI with backpropagation and deep learning in the 2010s. They also explore the potential for a future "AI Winter", as technological advances face both hype and skepticism. They then discuss the A* search algorithm, whi...
Oct 16, 2024•46 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this podcast Michael Stiefel spoke with Bernd Ruecker about how important process orchestration is for solving business problems, and how it is often misunderstood by architects and developers. They also spoke about the importance of visual tools, training new developers, and the dangers of being trapped by the joy of technology. Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/3YfOPaP Subscribe to the Software Architects’ Newsletter for your monthly guide to the essential news and experie...
Oct 14, 2024•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this podcast, Roland Meertens and Anthony Alford discuss their favorite algorithms, starting with the etymology of the word "algorithm." They explore the Fibonacci sequence and the many algorithms for computing it. Roland introduces the concept of probabilistic counting, focusing on the HyperLogLog algorithm, which can be used to estimate the count of unique items. Meertens also shares his own personal algorithm for estimating how many people he talks to at conferences. Read a transcript of t...
Oct 09, 2024•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast QCon conferences cover emerging trends in software, and this episode features members of the QCon San Francisco 2024 programming committee discussing those trends selected to be the focus of this year’s QCon San Francisco. This discussion is similar to InfoQ trends reports, with expert practitioners highlighting the technologies and practices that they feel deserve attention. Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/3Bk912b Subscribe to the Software Architects’ Newsletter for your mon...
Oct 07, 2024•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast Hosts Roland and Anthony discuss how AI is being used to make creativity more accessible. While some Generative AI content lacks variety and artistic depth, there is potential for AI to assist human creators rather than replace them. They also explore the challenge of evaluating generative AI models. Unlike with non-generative AI models, Gen AI evaluation lacks clear ground truth, especially for creative tasks such as image generation or music creation. The conversation covers different evaluati...
Oct 02, 2024•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast This episode provides an overview of the real-world technologies involved in the umbrella phrase Artificial Intelligence. Anthony Alford explains just enough about machine learning, large language models, retrieval-augmented generation, and other AI terms which today’s software architects need to be able to discuss. Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/3TnfbVI Subscribe to the Software Architects’ Newsletter for your monthly guide to the essential news and experience from industry...
Sep 16, 2024•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this podcast episode, speakers from the InfoQ Dev Summit Munich 2024 discuss the recent CrowdStrike incident, which triggered widespread outages and highlighted vulnerabilities in cloud infrastructure. The panel shares personal experiences and emphasizes the importance of resilience in IT systems, the implications of cloud dependency, and the lessons learned about risk management and automation in organizations. Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/4gbCew8 Subscribe to the Soft...
Sep 03, 2024•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of the podcast, members of the InfoQ editorial staff and friends of InfoQ will be discussing the current trends in the domain of AI, ML and Data Engineering. One of the regular features of InfoQ are the trends reports, which each focus on a different aspect of software development. These reports provide the InfoQ readers and listeners with a high-level overview of the topics to pay attention to this year. InfoQ AI, ML and Data Engineering editorial team met with external guests t...
Aug 14, 2024•54 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, Thomas Betts talks with Jacqui Read about communication patterns. Similar to software and architecture patterns, these provide guidance for how to improve communication by knowing your audience and what you need to explain to them. Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/4cRJ6gc Subscribe to the Software Architects’ Newsletter for your monthly guide to the essential news and experience from industry peers on emerging patterns and technologies: www.infoq.com/software-...
Jul 29, 2024•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast At the recent InfoQ Dev Summit Boston, Justin Sheehy of Akamai delivered an insightful opening keynote on being a responsible developer in the age of artificial intelligence hype. The talk was aimed at software practitioners who might be feeling overwhelmed by the rapid developments and inflated expectations surrounding AI. We’re sharing Justin’s full talk in this special episode of the InfoQ Podcast. We hope you enjoy it. Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/3VZiHpo Subscribe to ...
Jul 09, 2024•46 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, Thomas Betts talks with Shawna Martell and Dan Fike, about the Navigators program at Carta and how they are finding ways to decentralize decisions and empower individual contributors. The quality of technical decisions is improved, and decisions are reached more quickly because the people involved are close to the relevant context. Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/45jfXHZ Subscribe to the Software Architects’ Newsletter for your monthly guide to the essential ...
Jun 17, 2024•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this podcast, Meryem Arik, Co-founder/CEO at TitanML, discusses the innovations in Generative AI and Large Language Model (LLM) technologies including current state of large language models, LLM Deployment, state-of-the-art Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) apps, and inference architecture stack for LLM applications. Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/3X5ZVPu Subscribe to the Software Architects’ Newsletter for your monthly guide to the essential news and experience from i...
Jun 10, 2024•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this podcast, Edo Liberty, Founder and CEO at Pinecone, discusses the importance of vector databases in the successful adoption of Generative AI and LLM based applications and how vector databases are different from traditional data stores. Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/4aHaVGi Subscribe to the Software Architects’ Newsletter for your monthly guide to the essential news and experience from industry peers on emerging patterns and technologies: www.infoq.com/software-archi...
Jun 03, 2024•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, Thomas Betts talks with Nick Tune, co-author of the book Architecture Modernization - Socio-technical Alignment of Software, Strategy, and Structure. The discussion includes how to know if it makes sense to invest in an architecture modernization journey, how to get started, what benefits you can expect to achieve and how to measure the improvements. Read a transcript of this interview: https://bit.ly/4ayqBeR Subscribe to the Software Architects’ Newsletter for your monthly guid...
May 27, 2024•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
