Microservices

Leading software companies have discovered that developing capable technology is not enough to guarantee long-term success. To stay relevant, software leaders need to develop and support the repeatable systems necessary to develop and sustain knowledge and expertise. Many organizations have taken inspiration from Spotify’s culture and adopted the concept of a guild or community of practice to connect engineers throughout the organization and steer them towards common goals. As organizations adopt this model, what is often missing is a clear understanding of the purpose of communities of practice and a repeatable process for developing the communities to their fullest potential. This post provides some guidance based on our experience developing a community of practice at Workiva, it also includes some best practices from the book Cultivating Communities of Practice. ...

Workiva’s original product — supporting the mundane task of filing documents with the SEC — was so innovative that within its first 5 years it was being used by more than 65 percent of the Fortune 500 and generating more than $100 million in annual revenue. During that explosion in growth, the software development team focused solely on supporting and expanding the existing software stack. However, after several years of growth and expansion maintaining and extending that single code base became unsustainable. ...

The decision to build products using a service-oriented (or microservice) architecture has enormous technical and organizational impact that is reflected in everything from how teams write code, to how they communicate, to how the organization itself is structured. Given the breadth and depth of impact this decision has, it pays to reflect on why an organization chooses a service oriented architecture, how an organization can support such an architecture, and how teams and individuals can support the organization in successfully adopting a service oriented platform. ...