CaSE: Conversations about Software Engineering

Conversations about Software Engineering (CaSE) is a podcast for software engineers about technology, software engineering, software architecture, reliability engineering, and data engineering. The three of us regularly come together to discuss recent events or articles, exchange on our learnings, and reflect on our professional and personal experiences. Additionally our guest episodes feature engaging conversations with interesting people from the world of software engineering.

63 episodes

2mo ago latest

monthly cadence

English language

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Episodes 63

Technology Governance with Sarah Wells
2mo ago · 45:48
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.
Agent Harness, State of Play, Risk and AI Company Culture
5mo ago · 1:25:13
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
Guiding, not ruling: Architecture Governance Approaches
6mo ago · 1:11:44
We want engineering teams to be as autonomous as possible, but also want that every team runs in the same direction. In this episode, Heinrich Hartmann and Sven Johann explore four approaches of guiding, not ruling, governance: golden paths, architecture advice processes, architecture principles and technology radars as practical tools for aligning autonomy with long-term organisational health.
Andrew Harmel-Law on Better Architecture Decision Making for Everyone
7mo ago · 1:21:08
### Description How do teams actually make better architectural decisions—without gatekeepers, power imbalances, or meetings full of opinions instead of insights? In this episode, Andrew, Heinrich, Sven and Alex discuss how the advice process, architecture decision records, and practiced sociotechnics help to make software architecture collaborative and transparent.
Data Marketplace, Data Products and Data Contracts
11mo ago · 1:19:37
Alex, Heinrich and Sven talk with Simon Harrer about his journey to data contracts and marketplaces from being PhD in Software Engineering and Software Engineering consultant. They discuss what a data contract is and how it is build up, can be discovered in a data marketplace and how it relates to a data product. They close with the unavoidable MCP topic in the context of a data marketplace.
Data Architecture with Christoph Windheuser
1y ago · 1:49:08
The three of us talk with Christoph Windheuser about the styles in data architecture: data mesh, data lake (house) and data warehouse and how to make a decision. In between Christoph explains data quality, data lineage, and data catalog - cornerstones of any modern approach. We end with emerging trends, DuckDB and data governance.
Mirko Novakovic on Waves of Innovation and Observability Product Management
1y ago · 1:46:27
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.
Architecture Sensitivity Points; Interactions with AI Assistance
1y ago · 1:29:53
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.
Ole Lensmar - From Swagger to TestCube: Evolving Testing Practices in the Kubernetes Era
1y ago · 1:34:35
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.
Theo Schlossnagle on Meat, Machines, and Mastery in Software Engineering
1y ago · 1:50:42
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, optimi
New Hosts and Formats, Observability Costs and Training
1y ago · 1:21:42
The CaSE Podcast returns with new hosts and a renewed focus on software architecture, reliability engineering, and data engineering. In this episode we start with discussing the cost of observability, sparked by Coinbase’s leaked $65 million Datadog bill, raising questions about how much organizations should spend on monitoring. We also discuss the most important content of observability training for software architects. We close with Alex’ current thoughts on home automation while renovating his house.
Aino Corry on Better Tech Meetings
2y ago · 1:09:14
Aino explains to Sven what skills are required to make meetings more successful. They talk about the different roles of meeting attendees. They continue with the thinking process to organize a meeting: do we need it at all? What is the expected outcome? Who should be invited? How long it should take? Do we need preparation for the attendees? Icebreakers? How do we craft an agenda? Then they discuss how to steer a meeting as a meeting facilitator, how to engage (quite) attendees and how to deal with negative people. Finally, they close with methods on how to improve your moderator skills.
Angelo Veltens on Solid
4y ago · 44:25
Solid is a specification that lets people store their data securely in decentralized data stores called Pods. But why do we want to keep our data decentralized? What problems does Solid solve? In this episode, Angelo Veltens explains to Lucas Dohmen the advantages (but also potential disadvantages) of this project.
Mark Seemann on heuristics for software engineering
4y ago · 1:00:43
Stefan Tilkov talks to Mark Seemann about his book “Code that fits in your head”, heuristics about software engineering, and the role of craftspeople and engineers. They dive into three selected topics: Vertical slices, triangulation, and rhythm.
Chris Richardson on Service Templates and Service Chassis
4y ago · 1:00:23
How do you enable a developer to quickly start the development of business logic of a new microservice without losing too much time on setting up everything else like monitoring, tracing, dependency management, security, configuration and much more. After the motivation, they move from service templates to service chassis, continue with governance as code and close with the possible need of product management skills to keep the chassis and the derived services current.
Adam Tornhill on Software Design X-Rays
4y ago · 54:32
Sven Johann talks to Adam Tornhill about the link between how organizations write code and how teams work together. Adam Tornhill can make this link visible to help improve your team’s code and your organization's work. The interview is based on Adam's book "Software Design X-Rays".
Manuel Pais on Team Topologies
4y ago · 1:02:38
Sven Johann talks with Manuel Pais about the challenges of development teams being asked to be responsible for many topics like their problem domain, technology/programming languages, security, infrastructure and operations, UX, etc. Manuel explains what cognitive load is, which types of cognitive load exist and where it can be reduced and where not. They then discuss the four fundamental team topologies stream-aligned, enabling, platform and complicated subsystem: their benefit, how you should run those teams and which obstacles you need to overcome to be successful.
Michele Hansen on Customer Interviews and Deploying Empathy
4y ago · 49:20
Michele shares her journey in the software industry and how she got involved in product development. Customer interviews are not just something for product people -- Michele shares concrete ways that developers can get value from talking to their customers. She also shares a few tips for how to get involved with the customer research process and how to convince stakeholders of the value of the process (if necessary). They also discuss what the different between empathy, sympathy, and compassion. Empathy is understanding someone else's context and perspective. Since empathy is not something tha
Eric Normand on Functional Thinking
5y ago · 1:36:50
In this conversation about software engineering, Lucas Dohmen talks with Eric Normand. Eric first explains the origins of his book, Grokking Simplicity. He explains how to think in calculations, actions, and data. Lucas asks him about real-life situations dealing with concurrency and how he would solve them thinking functionally. Then they dive deep into their conversation about immutability, type systems, and learning from other communities.
Nicolas Steenhout on Accessibility
5y ago · 54:38
In this episode, web accessibility expert Nicolas Steenhout talks to Stefan Tilkov about ways to improve web sites to make them usable by everyone. They cover the basics of web accessibility, the role of frameworks, common pitfalls and how to overcome them, blueberry muffins, and the perils of snake oil vendor tools.
Joy Heron on Responsible Web Applications
5y ago · 1:14:46
In this episode of the CaSE Podcast, Lucas Dohmen talks to Joy Heron about Responsible Web Applications. They start talking about responsive web design and how it works nowadays with features like CSS Grid and Flexbox. Then Joy explains how to make a website usable with assistive technologies. Responsive and Accessible — That’s how we can create a responsible web application.
Alex Bramley on The Art of SLO, Part 3
5y ago · 1:17:26
Alex Bramley continuous his conversation with Sven Johann. They begin with how granular you should monitor your user journeys and then discuss error budget policies in depth. They continue on how to iterate on SLIs, SLOs and error budget policies. They close the conversation with SLO alerting.
Alex Bramley on The Art of SLO, Part 2
5y ago · 55:35
Alex Bramley continuous his conversation with Sven Johann. They start with what external and internal dependencies do with your availability requirements and how you calculate availability if you have a microservices dependency tree. They look into how you can introduce SLOs to your organisation. After that, they switch to measure user happiness with your monitoring system, measurement windows and how to report those results.
Alex Bramley on The Art of SLO, Part 1
5y ago · 1:10:57
Alex Bramley talks to Sven Johann about the basics of service level objectives. They begin with terminologies (SLI, SLO, SLA, Error Budget), look at costs of outages and discuss what reliability has to do with customer happiness. They continue with having 100% reliability is the wrong target and what’s possibly the right target. Alex then explains how to get started with collecting data about your system’s behaviour. They close the first part of this series by looking into latency SLIs.
Simon Brown on Software Architecture
5y ago · 47:35
Simon Brown talks to Stefan Tilkov about software architecture – the importance for developers, its role in agile software development, documentation and tooling, and the importance (or lack of importance) of UML.

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CaSE: Conversations about Software Engineering

Episodes 63

Technology Governance with Sarah Wells

Agent Harness, State of Play, Risk and AI Company Culture

Guiding, not ruling: Architecture Governance Approaches

Andrew Harmel-Law on Better Architecture Decision Making for Everyone

Data Marketplace, Data Products and Data Contracts

Data Architecture with Christoph Windheuser

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Architecture Sensitivity Points; Interactions with AI Assistance

Ole Lensmar - From Swagger to TestCube: Evolving Testing Practices in the Kubernetes Era

Theo Schlossnagle on Meat, Machines, and Mastery in Software Engineering

New Hosts and Formats, Observability Costs and Training

Aino Corry on Better Tech Meetings

Angelo Veltens on Solid

Mark Seemann on heuristics for software engineering

Chris Richardson on Service Templates and Service Chassis

Adam Tornhill on Software Design X-Rays

Manuel Pais on Team Topologies

Michele Hansen on Customer Interviews and Deploying Empathy

Eric Normand on Functional Thinking

Nicolas Steenhout on Accessibility

Joy Heron on Responsible Web Applications

Alex Bramley on The Art of SLO, Part 3

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Episodes 63

Technology Governance with Sarah Wells

Agent Harness, State of Play, Risk and AI Company Culture

Guiding, not ruling: Architecture Governance Approaches

Andrew Harmel-Law on Better Architecture Decision Making for Everyone

Data Marketplace, Data Products and Data Contracts

Data Architecture with Christoph Windheuser

Mirko Novakovic on Waves of Innovation and Observability Product Management

Architecture Sensitivity Points; Interactions with AI Assistance

Ole Lensmar - From Swagger to TestCube: Evolving Testing Practices in the Kubernetes Era

Theo Schlossnagle on Meat, Machines, and Mastery in Software Engineering

New Hosts and Formats, Observability Costs and Training

Aino Corry on Better Tech Meetings

Angelo Veltens on Solid

Mark Seemann on heuristics for software engineering

Chris Richardson on Service Templates and Service Chassis

Adam Tornhill on Software Design X-Rays

Manuel Pais on Team Topologies

Michele Hansen on Customer Interviews and Deploying Empathy

Eric Normand on Functional Thinking

Nicolas Steenhout on Accessibility

Joy Heron on Responsible Web Applications

Alex Bramley on The Art of SLO, Part 3

Alex Bramley on The Art of SLO, Part 2

Alex Bramley on The Art of SLO, Part 1

Simon Brown on Software Architecture