In this episode, I spoke with Brian LeRoux, co-founder of begin.com and creator of the Architect framework. Brian is also an AWS Serverless Hero and is currently working on enhance.dev, an HTML-first full-stack web framework. In a wide-ranging conversation, we discussed: the Architect frameworkLambdalith vs. Single-purpose functionsBuilding a faster AWS SDK (aws-lite)Web componentsFunctionlessWASMInfra from code frameworks such as Ampt Links from the episode: AWS Lite SDKArchitect...

In this episode, I spoke with Waldemar Hummer, founder and CTO of LocalStack. We discussed what's new in the latest version of LocalStack and highlighted some of the most interesting additions. One particular highlight for me is the ability to identify IAM permission errors between direct service integrations. For example, when an EventBridge pipe cannot deliver a message to a SQS target. And the ability to use test runs to generate the necessary IAM permissions so they can be added to your...

In this episode, I spoke with Ian Griffiths, a Technical Fellow at Endjin, a Microsoft MVP, and the author of O'Reilly's Programming C# 10.0. In this episode, we took a deep dive into Azure Functions, how it works and how it differs (significantly) from AWS Lambda. Links from the episode: Bye bye Azure Functions, hello Azure Container AppsWASI (WebAssembly system interface)EndjinIntroductions to Reactive Extensions for .Net Opening theme song: Cheery Monday by Kevin MacLeod Link:...

In this episode, I spoke with Bob Hannent, the principal architect of DAZN's video playback and delivery system. This system is responsible for streaming live sporting events to millions of concurrent viewers. We discussed the many challenges that come with streaming live videos at scale. How to ensure uptime even when your CDN partners suffer an outage. And how best to ensure the best playback experience for your customers across dozens of different platforms. There's a lot to learn from...

In this episode, I spoke with Richard Davison, the creator of the new LLRT (Low Latency Runtime) for Lambda. We talked about the motivation for a specialised JavaScript runtime for Lambda, how it achieves the insane cold start time and the trade-offs they had to make. Links from the episode: GitHub repo for LLRTAPI compatibility listQuickJs engine Opening theme song: Cheery Monday by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3495-cheery-monday License:...

In this episode, I spoke with Jack Ellis, who is a co-founder of Fathom. We into the cost optimizations that he used to save Fathom $100k/year on their AWS bill. Links from the episode: Fathom's technical blogJack's personal pageJack's newsletter Opening theme song: Cheery Monday by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3495-cheery-monday License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

In this episode, I spoke with Mark White, who is a principal engineer at Dunelm, a leading home furnishing retailer in the UK. We talked about Dunelm's journey from on-premise infrastructure to serverless and how they stayed agile while migrating their systems to this new paradigm safely. We discussed the challenges of shifting the engineering culture and habits to fit the constraints and opportunities that serverless technologies offer. And we recounted Dunelm's success and failure stories...

In this episode, I spoke with Austen Collins, founder and CEO of Serverless Inc. about the upcoming release of Serverless Framework v4. We talked about the origin of the Serverless Framework and the challenges it faces. We discussed the rationale behind the upcoming changes in v4. Including the ability to easily switch between containers and Lambda functions as the deployment target, and the revenue share model for Extensions. Links from the episode: * Serverless v4 announcement post *...

In this episode, I spoke with Sam Williams about his drive for work-life balance and discussed his experience of building AI-powered apps using serverless technologies. Links from the episode: Sam's YouTube channelOpenAI's Vision APIsmol-developerEpisode 92 with Shawn WangProduction-Ready Serverless workshopSam's courseLuc van Donkersgoed's article on standing on the shoulder of giants Opening theme song: Cheery Monday by Kevin MacLeod Link:...

In this episode, I spoke with Shawn Wang, who coined the term "AI Engineer" as a new title for engineers who are building the chains and agents that powers AI applications. This is likely to be the highest-demand engineering job of the decade. We talked about the evolution of software development and how AI is changing everything. And why ambitious developers should attach themselves to AI and build thought leadership in this space. We also touched on topics such as AGI (artificial general...

In this episode, I spoke with Patrick deBois, who is known as the "father of DevOps" as he coined the term "DevOps" in 2009. In a wide-ranging conversation, we talked about the evolution of DevOps, what it means in 2023 and how it related to "Platform Engineering". We also talked about AI, how AI technologies are impacting software development, and what developers can do to prepare themselves for what is to come. Links from the episode: Patrick’s YouTube channelPatrick's Twitter...

In this episode, I spoke with Hieu Do, who is a Solution Architect at FPT Software in Vietnam. As a side project, he built a hotel booking system for a friend using entirely serverless technologies. He shared his experience and learnings from building this system and how he was able to keep the cost down. After running the system for a year, the system only costs an average of $0.82 per month and serves over 3000 users per day. There are some useful tips that everyone can apply. Such as...

In this episode, I spoke with Sandro Volpicella, who is a platform lead at Hashnode, a fully serverless blogging platform. He is also the co-author of AWS Fundamentals (https://awsfundamentals.com). We explored Hashnode's architecture and went deep into its caching strategy, which is a crucial ingredient of a scalable and performant blogging platform. Links from the episode: Hashnode's overall architectureAWS FundamentalsCloudWatch BookStellateUpstashHow Hashnode implements the user...

In this episode, I spoke with AJ Stuyvenberg, who is an AWS Hero and staff engineer at Datadog. We discussed the findings from the latest state of serverless report and spoke about Lambda cold starts at length. AJ has done some incredible research into Lambda cold starts and shared the 4 biggest mistakes people make regarding Lambda cold starts. If you care about getting the best performance for your Lambda functions and minimizing cold starts, then this is the episode for you! Links from...

In this episode, I spoke with Anton Babenko, who is an AWS Community Hero and creator of the Serverless.TF framework. We spoke at length about serverless development with Terraform and the problems that Serverless.TF aims to solve. We also discussed the recent seismic split in the Terraform community, with HashiCorp's license change and the initiation of the OpenTofu movement. Anton didn't hold back on his feelings about the oversized reaction to HashiCorp's announcement, and I agree with...

In this episode, I spoke with Ran Isenberg, who is an AWS Serverless Hero and Principal Software Architect at CyberArk. Amongst other things, we talked about platform engineering at CyberArk, how they adopted CDK and how they approach testing and tenant isolations. Links from the episode: * Ran's blog * Open positions at CyberArk * cdk-nag * Ran's AWS Lambda cookbook * See Ran speak at re:Invent, session OPN305 * My approach towards serverless testing * My course on serverless testing *...

In this episode, I spoke with Matthew Bonig, who is an AWS DevTools Hero and co-author of The CDK Book. We talked about the Dos and Don'ts of CDK, and Matthew shared some tips on testing and how to organize your CDK project. Links from the episode: The CDK BookAdvanced CDK CourseConstruct HubCDK PatternsCDK Community Survey 2023cdk.devWing LangAmptCDK Days track 1CDK Days track 2 You can find Matthew on X as @mattbonig. ----- For more stories about real-world use of serverless...

In this episode, I spoke with Charity Majors, who is the co-founder and CTO of Honeycomb, a popular observability platform. We had a wide-ranging conversation about Parse (and its acquisition by Facebook), observability, devops and why you should deploy on Fridays (but you still need to apply good engineering sense!). Links from the episode: Honeycomb Honeycomb blogHoneycomb's AI-powered query assistantOpenTelemetry You can find Charity on X as @mipsytipsy. ----- For more stories about...

In this episode, I spoke with Gerard Sans, who is a Google Developer Expert and my co-author for the AppSync Masterclass. We talked about Google's new AI platform, what it entails and how Google's AI offerings compare to OpenAI. For example, what can you do with Bard and Duet AI and why one might consider using them instead of ChatGPT or CoPilot. We discussed Midjourney vs. Stable Diffusion, and how platforms need to be more responsible with their AI offerings. And we also touched on the...

In this episode, I spoke with Heitor Lessa, who is a principal solution architect at AWS that specializes in serverless. He's also the man behind the popular AWS Lambda Powertools project which is available in a number of languages. We talked about the history of the Lambda Powertools project, and the challenges and learnings from building in public. And Heitor shared the public roadmap for the Lambda Powertools and announced some exciting features that are going to be available...

In this episode, I spoke with Matt Carey, who's a senior engineer at Aleios, a premium AWS consultant that focuses on serverless technologies. The focus of our conversation was LangChain, Matt explained what it is and demoed some AI applications that he has developed with LangChain. Such as the popular Quivr app and Code Review GPT. If you want to see the demos in their full glory, then please go to YouTube and watch the episode here. We talked about some common challenges with AI...

In this episode, I spoke with Randall Hunt, who's the VP of Cloud Strategy and Innovation at Caylent and had previously worked at Vendia, Facebook AI, AWS and SpaceX. We talked about AWS Bedrock, what is it and how it works and saw a demo of a simple AI application built with Bedrock and LangChain. Randall explained the advantages of using Bedrock and why tales of AWS's supposedly weakness in AI are far-fetched. I had a lot of fun talking to Randall and learnt a lot from the conversation...

In this episode, I caught up with Ben Kehoe, who is an AWS Serverless Hero and one of the earliest adopters of serverless technologies. In a wide-ranging conversation, we discussed many topics around serverless and AI, including: The natural evolution of marketing terms and the need to focus on specific functional characteristics rather than defending the term. For example, including of arguing about what "serverless" means, we should instead talk about "pay-per-use".AWS should focus DX...

In this episode, I spoke with Eduard Bargues, who is a Principal Engineer at Ohpen, a cloud-native open banking platform. We talked about Ohpen's migration from EC2 to a mix of Fargate and Lambda, and along the way, we touched on many topics: migration patternsthe "serverless-first" mindsethow to choose when to use Lambda vs Fargatewhy monolith functions are painful and should be avoidedrecommendations and pitfallswhy you should build a DX teamWe also talked about how being cloud-agnostic...