#220 - From Hibernate to Quarkus: Modernizing Java for Cloud-Native - Sanne Grinovero

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Jun 16, 2025

Sanne Grinovero, Sr. Principal Software Engineer at Red Hat and a key figure behind Hibernate and Quarkus, shares his fascinating journey in open-source development. He discusses the challenges of making Hibernate compatible with GraalVM, which sparked the creation of Quarkus. Sanne highlights how Java has evolved for cloud-native applications, maintaining its status against new programming languages. He also reflects on mentorship and community engagement in the tech landscape, showcasing the importance of adaptation in software development.

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ANECDOTE

From Java Frustration to Success

Sanne initially hated large, slow Java Enterprise projects but improved deployment efficiency with scripts.
His library management system project used Hibernate Search, which was critical for its success.

ANECDOTE

Winning Innovation Award

Sanne won an innovation award for his library system project which involved 1,200 database tables and 2,000 web pages.
Meeting Java heroes gave him mentorship and inspiration to fix challenges.

ANECDOTE

Consulting to Red Hat Transition

Sanne worked as a consultant for banks with restrictive firewall policies, limiting internet access and open source involvement.
This led to his full-time role at Red Hat with a significant pay cut, driven by passion to contribute more actively.

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In this special in-person episode, Sanne Grinovero shares the story of Java’s evolution from his unique perspective as a long-time open-source contributor. He shares his 16-year career journey at Red Hat, highlighting his amazing work on key projects like Hibernate, Infinispan, and especially the creation of Quarkus. His career trajectory, from a student who initially disliked Java’s complexity to a leading figure in its modernization, shows the transformative power of open source.

A key part of the conversation focuses on how technical challenges spark innovation. Sanne explains how the task of making the popular Hibernate framework compatible with GraalVM’s limitations led directly to the birth of Quarkus. This journey tells the bigger story of how Java adapted for cloud-native development, ensuring it continues to be a top choice for developers seeking high performance and a great developer experience.

Timestamps:

(00:00:00) Trailer & Intro
(00:02:16) Career Turning Points
(00:04:52) Winning an Innovation Award
(00:06:35) Java Heroes
(00:08:04) Working as a Consultant
(00:09:56) Taking a Massive Pay Cut to Work on Open Source
(00:10:59) Contributing to Big Open Source as a Youngster
(00:12:53) State of Hibernate Project
(00:15:15) Spring Boot
(00:16:54) Making Hibernate Work on GraalVM
(00:21:05) GraalVM Limitations for Running Hibernate
(00:26:09) Java for Cloud Native Application
(00:28:04) Quarkus vs Spring Boot
(00:33:21) JRebel & Quarkus
(00:34:35) Java vs New Programming Languages
(00:39:22) The ORM Dilemma
(00:42:38) Some Hibernate Design Pattern Tips
(00:46:40) Getting Paid Working on Open Source
(00:48:41) Hibernate License Change
(00:51:05) Intellectual Property & Meaningful Contributions
(00:52:52) AI Usage & Copyright in Open Source
(00:55:21) Biggest Challenge Working in a Big Open Source
(00:56:08) Politics in Open Source
(00:58:32) Security Risks in Open Source
(01:02:25) Donating Hibernate to Commonhaus Foundation
(01:04:49) The Future of Red Hat
(01:06:39) 3 Tech Lead Wisdom

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Sanne Grinovero’s Bio
Sanne Grinovero has been a member of the Hibernate team for 10 years; today he leads this project in his role of Sr. Principal Software Engineer at Red Hat, while also working on Quarkus as a founding R&D engineer.

Deeply interested in solving performance and concurrency challenges around data access, scalability, and exploring integration with new storage technologies, distributed systems and search engines.

Working on Hibernate features led him to contribute to related open source technologies; most notably to Apache Lucene and Elasticsearch, Infinispan and JGroups, ANTLR, WildFly, various JDBC drivers, the OpenJDK and more recently getting interested in GraalVM.

After being challenged to reduce memory consumption and improve bootstrap times of Hibernate, Sanne worked as part of a small R&D team at Red Hat on some ideas which have evolved into what is known today as Quarkus.

Follow Sanne:

LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/sannegrinovero
Twitter – twitter.com/SanneGrinovero
GitHub – github.com/sanne

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