“Spend some time looking at the system in which you work. Understand how the work is working. Understand how flow is for your organization. And then you can work to optimize that." James Lewis is a Director at ThoughtWorks and a pioneer of microservice architecture. In this episode, we went back memory lane to the time when James first coined and popularized the microservice architecture. James described his definition of a microservice and its important characteristics. He also shared the recent microservice evolution, including the swing between microservice and monolith. In the second half, James shared his insights from complexity science related to different scaling patterns. Particularly, he explained how different hierarchy types can affect an organization’s growth rate. Towards the end, James gave some tips on how organization can detect signs of suboptimal growth and what we can do to maintain organizational agility.   Listen out for: Career Journey - [00:03:48] Coining Microservices - [00:07:25] Definition of Microservices - [00:14:13] Microservices Swing - [00:18:42] Scaling Law and Complexity Science - [00:24:05] Complex and Adaptive System - [00:40:01] Examining Sublinear Growth - [00:43:47] 3 Tech Lead Wisdom - [00:51:19] _____ James Lewis’s BioJames is a Software Architect and Director at Thoughtworks based in the UK. He’s proud to have been a part of Thoughtworks’ journey for fourteen years and it’s ongoing mission of delivering technical excellence for its clients and in amplifying positive social change for an equitable future. As a member of the Thoughtworks Technical Advisory Board, the group that creates the Technology Radar, he contributes to industry adoption of open source and other tools, techniques, platforms and languages. He is an internationally recognised expert on software architecture and design and on its intersection with organisational design and lean product development. After defining what was the newly emerging Microservices architectural style back in 2014, James’ primary consulting focus these days is helping organisations with technology strategy, distributed systems design and adoption of SOA. Follow James Lewis: Twitter – @boicy LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/james-lewis-microservices/ Email – james.lewis@thoughtworks.com _____ Our Sponsors Are you looking for a new cool swag? Tech Lead Journal now offers you some swags that you can purchase online. These swags are printed on-demand based on your preference, and will be delivered safely to you all over the world where shipping is available. Check out all the cool swags available by visiting techleadjournal.dev/shop. And don't forget to brag yourself once you receive any of those swags. Like this episode? Show notes & transcript: techleadjournal.dev/episodes/135 Follow @techleadjournal on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Buy me a coffee or become a patron.

Yehonathan Sharvit, author of Data-Oriented programming, discusses with James Lewis the revolutionary concept of data-oriented programming, its benefits in reducing software complexity, and its flexibility across multiple programming languages. They explore topics such as handling large amounts of data, evolving interfaces, the advantages of immutability in managing changes, and breaking big problems into smaller ones for enhanced code readability and maintainability.

Ian Cooper, a software architect at Just Eat, and James Lewis, a Thoughtworks expert and microservices pioneer, dive into the complexities of microservices architecture. They reflect on over a decade of experiences, questioning the initial hype and the enduring challenges of defining microservice boundaries. Key discussions include adapting to rapid growth, the Goldilocks point concept, and the philosophical implications of resilience. They also explore how financial incentives impact recruitment and branding in the software engineering field.

James Lewis, an expert in engineering careers, shares his insights into diverse pathways in the engineering field. He discusses personal anecdotes about navigating early careers in semiconductor manufacturing and transitions from oil and gas to audio electronics. The importance of mentorship, continuous learning, and aligning career choices with personal passions is emphasized. Humor also flows as they explore nostalgic engineering stories and the unexpected challenges of early jobs, including amusing language hurdles and the rising value of social media skills.

Unmesh Joshi and James Lewis discuss patterns of distributed systems, focusing on cloud services, Kafka, Kubernetes, and databases. They describe common problems and solutions in mainstream open-source distributed systems, emphasizing the importance of being prepared for system failures. The podcast explores practical experiences, consistency with Paxos and Raft, system implementations, failure outages, patterns in distributed systems, and industry awareness of distributed systems algorithms.