Dear Architects podcast

Dear Architects is where software architecture meets the real world.Hosted by Luca Mezzalira, the voice behind Dear Architects, this podcast cuts through the theory to explore how architects actually work.Each episode features conversations with practitioners who are shaping how we think about distributed systems, team topologies, and the evolving role of the architect. Whether you're designing microservices, leading technical strategy, or figuring out how to align engineering with business goals, you'll find practical insights you can apply immediately.

Dear Architects podcast is a technology podcast hosted by Luca Mezzalira, with 7 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Luca Mezzalira hosts Dear Architects podcast, a technology show with 7 episodes published.

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  Episode #7

  David Boyne on Event-Driven Architecture, Event Catalog, and Why Context Is King for AI

  Aug 11, 20261 hourS1

  Try out IcePanel, your C4 model tool: https://icepanel.io/lucaIn this episode of Dear Architects I sit down with David Boyne, creator of Event Catalog and EDA Visuals, who has spent almost a decade working in the event-driven architecture world. We get into the practical realities of building async systems at scale, the mindset shift that trips up so many teams, and why treating your events with the same care you give your APIs changes everything.David shares hard-won lessons from production, including the trap of turning every single thing into an event, and we dig into how domain-driven design and EDA fit hand in hand. In the second half we move into AI, where David makes the case that documentation and context are becoming the real differentiator, how MCP changes the way we query our architecture, and why human interaction still sits at the centre of it all.If you are starting your event-driven journey, or you are already feeling the governance pain that comes with scale, there is a lot here to take away.Event Catalog: https://www.eventcatalog.devEDA Visuals: https://eda-visuals.boyney.ioChapters below.Subscribe for more conversations with the people shaping modern software architecture.#EventDrivenArchitecture #SoftwareArchitecture #EventCatalog #DomainDrivenDesign #AICHAPTERS00:00 Intro and David's background02:32 The one thing I wish I knew earlier: treat events like APIs03:59 Why teams find async architecture so intimidating07:59 Eventual consistency and the fear of debugging EDA09:59 Latency, business context, and asking the right questions16:59 The trap of turning everything into an event17:32 EDA Visuals: most popular pattern and anti-pattern19:57 How domain-driven design makes EDA click26:32 The origin story of Event Catalog40:49 Where Event Catalog is heading and the role of AI43:30 Where AI helps on the documentation side45:45 Why context will be king49:25 Living systems, mob programming, and shared understanding52:12 Can AI sit in on the mob and learn our decisions?55:44 First steps if you want to start with EDA

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  Episode #6

  Microservices, AI and.... Chris Richardson

  Jul 8, 20261h 8mS1

  This episode is brought to you by IcePanel, a collaborative diagramming and modeling tool for architects. Model your system from business context down to components, keep diagrams in sync automatically, and connect your architecture to your favorite LLM via their MCP server. Try it free: icepanel.io/luca In this episode of Dear Architects, Luca sits down with Chris Richardson, author of Microservices Patterns and the creator of microservices.io, for a wide-ranging, no-hype conversation about where microservices actually stand in 2026, and what Gen AI does (and doesn't) change about how we design systems. Chris and Luca dig into why so many organizations still end up with a "distributed monolith," the real warning signs of bad service boundaries (hint: watch your services-to-developer ratio), and Chris's own framework for deciding what belongs together and what should be pulled apart — the Dark Energy and Dark Matter forces. They also get into the social-technical side of architecture: why team topologies, DevOps, and org structure matter as much as the diagrams, and why "the architecture is bad" is often just a symptom of deeper organizational issues.The second half turns to AI: the guardrails that actually make coding agents useful (tests, pre-commit hooks, code scanning), why brownfield modernization is nowhere near as simple as greenfield demos suggest, why Chris still prefers the Strangler Fig pattern over "big bang" AI rewrites, and a healthy dose of skepticism about the claims flooding your LinkedIn feed.If you're an architect, tech lead, or engineer trying to figure out what's signal and what's noise in the current AI moment — this one's for you. Chapters 00:00 Intro 01:36 Welcome, Chris Richardson 03:15 Chris's career: testing, Spring/Hibernate, the cloud, Cloud Foundry 06:01 State of microservices in 2026 07:30 "Living systems" — why boundaries need constant reassessment 09:47 Software serves two constituencies: users and the organization 10:19 Team topologies, DevOps, and the success triangle 12:53 Holistic engineering 13:36 The "red flag law" anti-pattern 14:51 Warning signs: the services-to-developer ratio 16:41 System releases and the distributed monolith trap 17:41 Service boundaries in practice 18:18 Default to monolith unless there's a clear problem to solve 19:03 Dark Energy & Dark Matter: the forces behind service boundaries 23:00 Dark Matter forces: runtime coupling, ACID vs. BASE 24:44 Collocating code isn't a weakness signalr 26:25 Ten forces, weighted by your own context 28:16 Architecture serves the organization, not just the customer 29:20 Latency-sensitive endpoints and selective distribution 31:31 AI hype: "we rebuilt it in 48 hours" 33:43 Best practices matter more, not less, in the Gen AI era 36:05 Multi-agent architectures and inter-service communication 37:33 The "agents for everything" trap 39:29 "SaaS is dead"? Big tech hype and bubble skepticism 40:26 Brownfield vs. greenfield: the AI modernization gap 42:02 Guardrails that work: tests, pre-commit hooks, code scanning 43:14 Legacy code without tests meets a probabilistic system 44:24 Human accountability for AI-generated code 45:22 Where architecture fits in the AI era 47:21 What AI-driven modernization gains — and loses 50:04 Strangler Fig over the "big bang" rewrite 53:36 Spec-driven development: waterfall in disguise? 54:16 Why well-documented systems are easier to AI-rewrite 56:02 "We are all juniors again" 57:55 Fundamentals over hype: modularity and loose coupling 59:47 AI burnout and the "slot machine" effect 1:01:26 Juniors, hiring, and whether Gen AI is even a profitable business 1:05:04 Final advice: the architectural mindset 1:07:21 Wrap-up and thanks

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  Episode #5

  You don't need the Architect title to do architecture

  May 29, 20261h 3mS1

  <p>subscribe to Dear Architects: https://deararchitects.xyzWhen companies grow through acquisition, architects inherit a mess: multiple teams, different engineering cultures, conflicting tools, and no shared map of the system. In this episode of Dear Architects, Luca sits down with Mahdi, tech leader at Fashion Cloud, a B2B wholesale platform connecting brands and retailers. Mahdi shares the in-the-trench story of how Fashion Cloud is rationalizing a federated socio-technical system after multiple acquisitions, starting bottom-up rather than top-down. They cover where to begin when you have fragmented teams under one CTO, how strategic Domain-Driven Design helps separate common platform capabilities...

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  Episode #5

  You don't need the Architect title to do architecture

  May 29, 20261h 3mS1

  subscribe to Dear Architects: https://deararchitects.xyzWhen companies grow through acquisition, architects inherit a mess: multiple teams, different engineering cultures, conflicting tools, and no shared map of the system. In this episode of Dear Architects, Luca sits down with Mahdi, tech leader at Fashion Cloud, a B2B wholesale platform connecting brands and retailers. Mahdi shares the in-the-trench story of how Fashion Cloud is rationalizing a federated socio-technical system after multiple acquisitions, starting bottom-up rather than top-down. They cover where to begin when you have fragmented teams under one CTO, how strategic Domain-Driven Design helps separate common platform capabilities from product-specific verticals, why the C4 model became their visualization backbone, how IcePanel replaced Miro for living architecture documentation, the role of ADRs and RFCs in capturing decisions, and how they handle cross-cutting concerns without killing team autonomy. Mahdi also shares how Fashion Cloud is experimenting with AI in their architecture practice, and the one piece of advice he wishes he'd given himself at the start of the transformation. If you're navigating a post-merger integration, modernizing a hybrid system, or just trying to build an ownership culture in your engineering org, this conversation gives you a practitioner's playbook.Chapters00:00 Intro and meet Mahdi from Fashion Cloud00:51 What is Fashion Cloud and the post-acquisition challenge06:40 Where do you start with multiple teams under one CTO13:39 The bottom-up approach: ownership without the architect title17:19 Strategic DDD: common platform vs product verticals21:43 Was it worth it? Reflecting on the transformation26:31 Visualizing systems: why the C4 model30:53 From Miro to IcePanel: choosing the right tool35:39 Architecture Decision Records and capturing the why44:19 Driving adoption: getting buy-in across the org45:19 Handling cross-cutting concerns in a federated model50:35 Building an ownership culture, not enforcing it51:39 AI in architecture practice: what actually works57:59 Advice to your past self58:55 Key takeaways and wrap-up

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  Episode #4

  How to become an architect with James Eastham

  Apr 21, 20261h 6mS1

  <p>What does it take to go from answering support calls in a small town in northern England to advising some of the largest companies on the planet at AWS and then becoming a developer advocate at Datadog? In this episode, I sit down with James Eastham to unpack a career built entirely in the trenches, without a traditional computer science background and without a straight path.We go deep on the real turning points: the crushing imposter syndrome of joining AWS ProServe, the "Magpie syndrome" trap of chasing shiny technology over context, and the moment every architect hits when...

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