CaSE: Conversations about Software Engineering

By CaSE Podcast TeamTechnology

CaSE: Conversations about Software Engineering episodes

June 15Technology Governance with Sarah Wells
Sarah Wells spent years as Technical Director at the Financial Times, wrangling thousands of microservices and the technology decisions that come with them. In this conversation she shares how the FT kept things from spiralling out of control without turning into a bureaucracy. We talk AI tools and shadow IT, why "best tool for the job" can quietly become your worst nightmare, and how a simple two-page document can save you from months of regret.
Chapter Marks
-00:00:00 Introduction & The AI Tool Flood
-00:04:37 Shadow IT & AI Governance in Day-to-Day Development
-00:07:54 Technology Strategy – Build vs. Buy & Wardley Mapping
-00:11:53 Trying New Technologies – Structured, Not Chaotic
-00:16:04 "Best Tool for the Job" – A Dangerous Mantra
-00:21:57 The Tech Governance Group (TGG)
-00:30:33 The Technology Radar & The System Catalog
-00:36:33 Technology Migration & Managing Legacy
-00:43:04 The CTO's Role in Technology Decisions
Links
Enabling Microservice Success
46 min
March 17Agent Harness, State of Play, Risk and AI Company Culture
Insights from the ThoughtWorks Utah Retreat
Birgitta, Heinrich and Sven look back at the latest developments in AI-assisted development, tools and practices which emerged in 2025 and work for teams. Furthermore they discuss a few topics like "where does the rigor go in AI assistance" from the future of software development retreat in Utah
Chapter Marks
-00:00:00 Intro & Welcome
-00:03:35 The State of AI-Assisted Coding in 2026: Agents, Subagents, …
-00:09:00 Context Engineering: The Real Lever
-00:19:00 Swarms and Agent Teams
-00:28:04 Platform Teams & Organizational Enablement
-00:34:15 Harness Engineering, Rigor & Quality
-00:49:49 Risk Thinking, Small Batches & Feedback Loops
-00:59:58 Cognitive Load & The “AI Vampire”
-01:10:34 AI for Migration & Modernization
-01:17:13 Culture Wars: Enthusiasts vs. Skeptics
Links
Exploring GenAI by Birgitta and colleagues
Chad Fowler, Relocating Rigor
Future of Software Engineering Retreat in Utah
Harness Engineering
Vibe Coding Risk Radar
1 hr 26 min
February 02Guiding, not ruling: Architecture Governance Approaches
Overview on Paved Road, Advice Process, Architecture Principles and Technology Radar
Chapter Marks
-000:00:00 Introduction: Governance and Autonomy
-000:01:56 Golden Path / Paved Road Explained
-000:30:49 Architecture Advice Process
-000:46:53 Architecture Principles & Macro Architecture
-000:57:18 Technology Radar
-001:05:27 AI and the Future of Governance
Links
Zalando Tech Radar
ThoughtWorks Technology Radar
Facilitating Software Architecture
Service Template/Paved Road
Cultivating Architecture - Martin Fowler & Birgitta Böckeler | Craft 2019
CaSE Principles with B. Boeckeler
CaSE C. Richardson on Service Templates
CaSE A. Harmel-Law on the architecture advice process
1 hr 12 min
January 13Andrew Harmel-Law on Better Architecture Decision Making for Everyone
Chapter Marks
-00:00:02 Intro & Welcome
-00:03:04 What is software architecture?
-00:07:27 Architecture advice process
-00:10:41 Learning & unlearning in architecture
-00:14:36 Advice process in detail
-00:24:00 Architecture Decision Records (ADRs)
-00:35:25 Scaling architecture & organization
-00:56:49 Architecture Advice Forums
-01:06:26 AI & Architecture Work
-01:11:58 Naming, Power & Psychological Safety
-01:17:54 Writing, Editing & Book Creation
-01:20:07 Conclusion & Farewell
Show Notes
Books
Facilitating Software Architecture
Architecture Metrics
Team Topologies
Unlearn
Domain-Driven Design (Eric Evans, Blue Book)
Principles of Product Development Flow
Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture Volume 5 - On Patterns and Pattern Languages
Articles / Blogposts / Talks / Papers:
Architecture Decision Records (Michael Nygard)
Who Needs an Architect? (Martin Fowler)
Decentralizing the Practice of Architecture at Xapo Bank
Fred George, Programmer Anarchy
(Probabably) the earliest ADR paper
Conway’s Law (Melvin Conway), Original Paper
Conways’s Law explained by Martin Fowler
1 hr 22 min
September 22, 2025Data Marketplace, Data Products and Data Contracts
API Specification for Data
Chapter Marks, AI-assisted
-00:00:00 Introduction and Simon’s Background
-00:02:00 From Software Engineering to Data Thinking
-00:06:45 Discovering Data Mesh and Decentralization
-00:12:30 What Are Data Contracts?
-00:22:00 Anatomy of a Data Contract
-00:36:00 Governance Meets Domain-Driven Design
-00:42:00 Versioning and Lifecycle Management
-00:45:00 Contract Validation and Consumer Expectations
-00:57:00 What Is a Data Product?
-01:04:00 Building a Marketplace – Data Contracts Manager
-01:08:30 Looking Forward – Standards and Intelligent Discovery
Show Notes
Data Contracts Website
Data Contracts CLI
Contract CLI
ThoughtWorks Tech Radar on Data Mesh Manager
Data Contract Manager
Data Contract Manager, CE
-Breuninger Case Study
1 hr 20 min
July 02, 2025Data Architecture with Christoph Windheuser
Chapter Marks
-00:00:00 Intro
-00:05:45 Data Warehouse
-00:16:45 Data Lake
-00:21:23 Data Lake House
-00:29:45 Data Quality
-00:37:15 Data Catalog
-00:39:35 Data Lineage
-00:54:00 Data Mesh
-01:06:00 Providing data for AI use cases
-01:13:36 Choose the right data architecture
-01:19:55 Streaming
-01:24:26 Learning
-01:26:30 Reversible decisions
-01:29:20 Emerging trends to look at
-01:31:30 Data governance
-01:40:50 DuckDB
-01:46:52 Closing words
Show Notes
Deciphering Big Data Architectures book, O’Reilly
Data Mesh book, O’Reilly
Apache Parquet
Apache Airflow
Databricks
Data Contracts
DuckDB
1 hr 50 min
June 05, 2025Mirko Novakovic on Waves of Innovation and Observability Product Management
In this episode of the CaSE Podcast, Mirko Novakovic, a seasoned entrepreneur and investor, shares his journey through the waves of technological innovation—from the early days of online banking to the rise of AI and open telemetry. We explore with him how the lessons learned in diverse industries, including the food business, can reshape our approach to software development and architecture, emphasizing the importance of curiosity, adaptability, and a solid grasp of the fundamentals.
Chapter Marks
-00:00:11 Introduction
-00:01:35 Learning from Olive Oil farming and restaurant businesses
-00:09:20 Waves of technological innovations?
-00:16:19* Fundamentals vs. Trends in Software Engineering
-00:21:08 Minimum knowledge of performance analysis today
-00:26:49 Honouring the works of Brendan Gregg
-00:30:17 Importance of features like profiling
-00:39:45 You only change if you feel the pain
-00:47:58 Overestimating the need for speed of change
-00:51:25 Explaining benefits of Open Telemetry to customers
-01:00:09 The Rift Framework and Data Usability
-01:21:37 Product Management and User-Centric Design
-01:38:11 Entrepreneurship
-01:44:39 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Show Notes
Dash0
Instana
eBPF
Brendon Gregg
OpenTelemetry
1 hr 47 min
April 08, 2025Architecture Sensitivity Points; Interactions with AI Assistance
In this episode of the CaSE Podcast, Sven Johann, Alex Heusingfeld, and Heinrich Hartmann dive into the concept of sensitivity points in software architecture, using the recent Volkswagen data leak as a striking example. They explore how seemingly minor architectural decisions and code changes can carry massive implications when balancing trade-offs like data privacy versus functionality.
The trio also discusses the growing impact of AI-assisted development, reflecting on practical experiences with tools like ChatGPT, Cursor, and GitHub Copilot.
Birgitta Böckerler, AI Assistance beyond coding
Cursor IDE
Loveable
Massive data breach at VW
Sensitivity and Trade-Off Points in Software Architecture, chapter 7.2.
Peter Naur, Programming as Theory Building
Chapter Marks:
00:00:00 Intro
00:01:57 VW data breach example
00:05:45 What is a sensitivity point (SP)?
00:13:10 SP: How serious are we with security requirements
00:17:05 SP: Different stakeholder needs
00:20:33 SP: The problem of getting stakeholders together
00:25:46 SP: Applying this concept to data lineage?
00:32:30 SP: Protecting critical lines of code
00:36:38 SP: Engineering critical code protection
00:41:57 AI assistance: it helps, if your are an expert
00:45:32 AI: Being successful with a clear mental model and iterations
00:54:33 AI: Larger code bases
01:01:10 AI: Devil’s advocate and inspiration on design
01:09:30 AI: Talking to the LLM for coding and writing
01:15:35 AI: Non technical people creating code
01:27:50 AI: Wrapping up
1 hr 30 min
March 17, 2025Ole Lensmar - From Swagger to TestCube: Evolving Testing Practices in the Kubernetes Era
How do you ensure the reliability of your cloud-native applications in an ever-evolving landscape? In this episode of CaSE, we dive deep into the intricate world of cloud-native testing with Ole Lensmar, the mind behind SoapUI, serial entrepreneur and Founder of TestKube. Join us as we explore the challenges of testing in Kubernetes environments, the balance between automation and manual testing, and the evolving role of AI in shaping our testing strategies.
TestKube – Test execution at scale for CI/CD
KubeShop -- An Accelerator for Open Source Startups
Swagger – API design, documentation, and testing
SoapUI – Testing tool for SOAP and REST APIs
Postman – API development and testing platform
JUnit – Unit testing framework for Java
k6 – Load testing for developers
Chapter Marks:
00:00:00 The Intersection of Software Engineering and Butchery
00:09:03 Introduction to Cloud-Native Testing
00:09:03 The Role of AI in Testing
00:15:44 API Testing Tools: SoapUI and Swagger
00:28:47 Cloud-Native Testing Strategies
00:45:37 Continuous Testing and Monitoring
00:54:43 The Future of Testing Tools and Practices
01:26:17 Building and Sustaining Open-Source Communities
1 hr 35 min
February 25, 2025Theo Schlossnagle on Meat, Machines, and Mastery in Software Engineering
Theo Schlossnagle is a world-class software engineer, serial entrepreneur and owner of a butcher shop. In the podcast he unpacks the mindset, practices, and strategies that have shaped his approach to software development. From the power of curiosity to the challenges of debugging distributed systems, we explore what it takes to build resilient, maintainable software in an ever-evolving landscape.
Along the way, we dive into automation of butchery equipment, the pitfalls of legacy systems, and the delicate balance between abstraction and simplicity. Whether you're scaling architectures, optimizing code, or integrating outdated APIs, this conversation is packed with insights to sharpen your engineering craft.
Tune in to explore what makes great software—and great engineers—stand out.
Theo Schlossnagle on Bluesky
Butchers Club of Maple Lawn
DTrace
OpenZiti
Chapter Marks:
00:00:00 The Intersection of Software Engineering and Butchery
00:07:42 Automation and Consistency in Butchery Operations
00:26:36 The Role of Curiosity in Software Development
00:47:40 Debugging and Troubleshooting Techniques
01:16:13 The Challenges of Distributed Systems
01:39:27 Future Directions in Software and IoT
1 hr 51 min

About CaSE: Conversations about Software Engineering

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Conversations about Software Engineering (CaSE) is a podcast for software engineers about technology, software engineering, software architecture, reliability engineering, and data engineering. The…