Notes on building systems that can’t be wrong.

Four subjects, mostly: event-driven architecture, data platforms at scale, the design consequences of regulation, and where agentic AI genuinely belongs in a platform.

Data platforms at scaleConfluent Cloud vs self-hosted Kafka: the real TCOConfluent Cloud vs self-hosted Apache Kafka: real pricing, engineering cost, and a decision framework for choosing managed vs DIY Kafka in 2026.May 10, 2026 · 14 min read

Data platforms at scaleKafka to Snowflake: real-time ingestion patterns at scaleSnowpipe, Snowpipe Streaming or the native connector: getting Kafka data into Snowflake at the latency and cost you actually need.May 8, 2026 · 13 min read

Event-driven architectureFive Kafka patterns for event-driven microservicesFive event-driven patterns with Kafka: when each one fits, how to implement it, and the failure modes that cost teams months in production.May 5, 2026 · 16 min read

Data platforms at scaleA customer data platform for a regulated servicerHow I unified 500+ tables from 50+ systems into one real-time customer view serving 1M+ API calls at peak hour, under mortgage servicing constraints.March 10, 2026 · 14 min read

Regulated systemsBuilding zero-downtime Kafka migrations at scaleHow I migrated Kafka to Confluent Private Service Connect with no service interruption, and finished two months ahead of schedule.January 20, 2026 · 12 min read

Event-driven architectureKafka vs Databricks: when to use each (decision framework)A decision framework for choosing between Kafka, Databricks, Kafka Connect and JDBC for streaming, batch and CDC ingestion.November 15, 2025 · 15 min read