Technical Debt: Design, risk and beyond

We talk to experienced architects and technology leaders about the architectural choices they’ve made — the good, the bad, and the costly. From scaling systems to integrating legacy platforms, from misaligned domains to governance gaps, we discuss how architecture impacts technical debt. You’ll hear honest stories of architectural missteps, what teams learned from them, and how they built systems designed not just to work, but to last.

Technical Debt: Design, risk and beyond is a technology podcast hosted by Maxim Silaev & Nikita Golovko, with 15 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.

Maxim Silaev & Nikita Golovko hosts Technical Debt: Design, risk and beyond, a technology show with 15 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

• 

  Episode #15

  From decision debt to system fragility: a CEO’s view on technical debt with David Cruz

  Feb 16, 202638 minS1

  <p>In this episode of Technical Debt: Design, Risk, and Beyond, we look at technical debt from a place it’s rarely discussed - the CEO’s desk.</p><p>My guest is <b>David Cruz</b>, Founder & CEO of <b>Elmaextro</b>, certified business coach, and thought leader in governance, resilience, and information risk. David’s journey spans operational leadership during major crises, advisory work with CEOs and leadership teams, and years spent translating information risk into strategic and architectural consequences.</p><p>We explore a core idea that challenges common assumptions: technical debt often doesn’t start with bad code...

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Episode #14

  Technical debt under real constraints: fintech leadership in emerging markets with Erioluwa Asiru

  Feb 2, 202638 minS1

  <p>In this episode of T<b>echnical Debt: Design, Risk and Beyond</b><b>, Maxim Silaev</b> speaks with <b>Erioluwa Asiru</b>, CTO at <b>CircleFunds</b>, about what technical debt really looks like inside a fast-growing fintech operating in an emerging market.</p><p>CircleFunds is digitising traditional thrift savings in Nigeria: a problem that turns out to be far more complex than “building an app.” Erioluwa shares how early architectural decisions were shaped by human behavior, cultural practices, and the reality that some processes are initially "technically impossible" to digitise without breaking trust.</p><p>The conv...

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Episode #13

  How Technical Debt creeps in: leadership, AI, and long-term cost with Rob Broadhead

  Jan 26, 202643 minS1

  <p>In this episode of <b>Technical Debt: Design, Risk and Beyond</b><b>, Maxim Silaev</b> is joined by <b>Rob Broadhead</b>, a technology leader with more than 30 years of experience across enterprise systems, startups, and consulting.</p><p>Together, they explore how technical debt actually creeps into systems: not through bad engineering, but through reasonable decisions made under pressure. Rob shares early-career scars, leadership failures without happy endings, and hard-earned lessons about how debt becomes normalised inside teams.</p><p>A large part of the conversation focuses on modern tooling and AI. While AI promises speed, Rob...

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Episode #12

  How to assess technical debt: strategic, product, and architectural: TSB Bank case study

  Dec 5, 202513 minS1

  <p>In this episode of Technical Debt: Design, Risk and Beyond, hosts <b>Maxim Silaev</b> and <b>Nikita Golovko</b> break down one of the most widely documented technical-debt disasters in modern enterprise IT: the failed 2018 TSB Bank migration. More than two million customers lost access to their accounts, systems malfunctioned for weeks, and leadership was forced to answer to regulators.</p><p>But behind the headlines lies a deeper lesson: <b>technical debt exists at multiple layers:</b> strategic, product, and architectural, and TSB’s collapse showed how these debts compound when communication fails.</p><p>Maxim and Ni...

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  Episode #11

  Interserve case: when communication debt becomes a security breach

  Nov 10, 202517 minS1

  <p>What happens when a company’s biggest vulnerability isn’t its software, but its communication?</p><p>In this episode of Technical Debt: Design, Risk and Beyond, hosts <b>Maxim Silaev</b> and <b>Nikita Golovko</b> explore the collapse of <b>Interserve</b>, a UK-based outsourcing and construction giant that suffered a major data breach in 2020, exposing the personal data of over 100,000 employees and resulting in a £4.4 million fine from the Information Commissioner’s Office.</p><p>The breach was more than a phishing email gone wrong. It was the inevitable outcome of years of <b>architectural neglect, fragmen...

  ListenShow Notes

Recent guests on Technical Debt: Design, risk and beyond. Study who booked and why before you pitch.

Based on semantic analysis of episode topics and host coverage, this show is a strong guest fit for executives in:

Industry fit is computed by PitchCentric using vector embeddings of the show's episode catalog.