Building Modern Software at Scale: Architectural Principles • Randy Shoup & Ch. Humble • GOTO 2025

This interview was recorded for GOTO Unscripted. #GOTOcon #GOTOunscripted https://gotopia.tech Read the full transcription of this interview here: https://gotopia.tech/articles/362 Randy Shoup - SVP Engineering at Thrive Market Charles Humble - Freelance Techie, Podcaster, Editor, Author & Consultant RESOURCES Randy https://bsky.app/profile/randyshoup.bsky.social https://medium.com/@randyshoup https://x.com/randyshoup https://github.com/randyshoup-thrive https://www.linkedin.com/in/randyshoup Charles https://bsky.app/profile/charleshumble.bsky.social https://linkedin.com/in/charleshumble https://mastodon.social/@charleshumble https://conissaunce.com Links https://se-radio.net/2008/09/episode-109-ebays-architecture-principles-with-randy-shoup https://youtu.be/9Q7GANXn02k https://youtu.be/suOjtOFfyZg https://youtu.be/m2ZlX1je3as https://youtu.be/GBTdnfD6s5Q https://youtu.be/5OjqD-ow8GE https://youtu.be/whi0T1a4cWU https://youtu.be/P_6eDL1aqtA https://youtu.be/9vS7TbgirgY https://youtu.be/JP3tWboFozY https://youtu.be/OzCE4m9ERvU https://youtu.be/8oqT5tjqf-0 https://youtu.be/TMQCiX5wUVU https://youtu.be/FPfjHon2tFY https://youtu.be/AYUNI2Pm6_w https://youtu.be/-5kK50d-duc https://youtu.be/xTUePYLtsyE https://youtu.be/y1SpwCiRoPY https://youtu.be/sjc8UZvlWYQ https://youtu.be/xDuwrtwYHu8 https://youtu.be/es3DNd5Qipg https://youtu.be/BIuBnLTMkfQ https://youtu.be/w008iz_UwDk https://youtu.be/DeoGKK7cG5Y DESCRIPTION Charles Humble sits down with veteran tech leader Randy Shoup, now SVP of Engineering at Thrive Market. Randy discusses Thrive Market’s evolution from a 10-year-old monolith to a microservices architecture, emphasizing domain-driven design and agile scaling. Drawing on his experiences at eBay and other tech giants, he explains when to adopt microservices and the importance of continuous delivery and platform engineering for boosting productivity. TIMECODES 00:00 Intro 01:00 Thrive Market & Randy's career journey 04:32 Evolving architecture: From monolith to microservices 10:53 Microservices: When (and why) to break apart your monolith 15:08 The relationship between organizational scaling & microservices 19:17 How eBay doubled engineering productivity 29:01 Balancing platform engineering effort 38:11 Building eBay today: Modern architecture & cloud tools 45:21 Evolution of architectural principles over 20 years 52:47 Outro RECOMMENDED BOOKS Sam Newman • Monolith to Microservices • https://amzn.to/2Nml96E Sam Newman • Building Resilient Distributed Systems • https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/building-resilient-distributed/9781098163532 Dave Farley & Jez Humble • Continuous Delivery • https://amzn.to/3ocIHwd Forsgren, Humble & Kim • Accelerate • https://amzn.to/367RI5o Gene Kim, Jez Humble, Nicole Forsgren, Patrick Debois & John Willis • The DevOps Handbook • https://amzn.to/3C0Rj0C Gregor Hohpe • Platform Strategy • https://amzn.to/4cxfYdb Ford, Parsons, Kua & Sadalage • Building Evolutionary Architectures 2nd Edition • https://amzn.to/3lqr5Q8 Simon Brown • Software Architecture for Developers Vol. 2 • https://leanpub.com/visualising-software-architecture Michael Feathers • Working Effectively with Legacy Code • https://amzn.to/3ZFQoMU Michael Nygard • Release It! 2nd Edition • https://amzn.to/3WJeKV8 https://bsky.app/profile/gotocon.com https://twitter.com/GOTOcon https://www.linkedin.com/company/goto- https://www.instagram.com/goto_con https://www.facebook.com/GOTOConferences #SoftwareArchitecture #Microservices #Monolith #MonolithToMicroservices #eBayArchitecture #ContinuousDelivery #DevOps #DORAMetrics #PlatformEngineering #PlatformTeams #EngineeringProductivity #Change #RandyShoup #CharlesHumble CHANNEL MEMBERSHIP BONUS Join this channel to get early access to videos & other perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs_tLP3AiwYKwdUHpltJPuA/join Looking for a unique learning experience? Attend the next GOTO conference near you! Get your ticket at https://gotopia.tech Sign up for updates and specials at https://gotopia.tech/newsletter SUBSCRIBE TO OUR CHANNEL - new videos posted almost daily. https://www.youtube.com/user/GotoConferences/?sub_confirmation=1