Scaling out architectural decision making

Patrick Kua (N26)

15:00–15:45 Thursday, 7 November 2019

Location: Hall A5

Application architecture

Secondary topics: Case Study

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Who is this presentation for?

Software engineers, tech leads, architects, VPs of engineering, and CTOs

Level

Intermediate

Description

In the fast-moving startup world, there’s often not a lot of time to think about architecture. N26 has a mission of building a bank the world loves to use and wants to ensure that it not only delivers fast, it also delivers a quality product.

Patrick Kua explores how the company scaled out architectural decision making as it grew very rapidly (in both customers and engineers). Patrick outlines how decisions were made in the early phase of the company, the upsides and downsides to the early decision-making processes, and how the engineering organization changed in a period of 18 months and the impact that had on decision making. He also highlights a number of practices (request for comments (RFCs), architecture guild and working groups, and engineering principles) that have helped the company scale. You’ll learn what worked well and what didn’t work well for N26.

Join in, especially if you’re part of an agile company trying to bring a more explicit focus to architectural thinking and trade-offs, particularly if your company is growing or is already larger than a couple of teams.

Prerequisite knowledge

General knowledge of basic software architecture
Experience working in a larger environment and trying to balance decisions at a team versus company level

What you'll learn

Learn why architecture matters
Discover different approaches to decision making, trade-offs with various processes, and how to ensure decision-making processes scale

Patrick Kua

N26

Patrick Kua is the chief scientist at the mobile bank N26, where he’s building the engineering group that will change how retail banking works. Previously, Patrick was the CTO of N26 and a principal technical consultant at ThoughtWorks in London. He’s the author of three books: The Retrospective Handbook, Talking with Tech Leads, and most recently, Building Evolutionary Architectures. Patrick is a frequent conference speaker and blogger. He’s passionate about bringing a balanced focus between people, organizations, and technology.