Confluent Developer ft. Tim Berglund, Adi Polak & Viktor Gamov
Episodes
From Early Startups to Product Leadership with Mike Agnich | Ep. 12
15 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tim Berglund talks to Mike Agnich (Confluent) about his career in product leadership and startups. Mike’s first job: refereeing youth basketball. Hi...
Adventures in Data Infrastructure with Gwen Shapira | Ep. 11
08 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Adi Polak talks to Gwen Shapira (Nile) about her career in databases and data infrastructure. Gwen’s first job: a side hustle fixing computers. Her ...
Decreasing Java Build Times with Pratik Patel | Ep. 10
01 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tim Berglund talks to Pratik Patel (Azul Systems) about his career in developer relations and Java. Pratik’s first job: computer lab assistant at UN...
Reimagining Stream Processing with Matthias J. Sax | Ep. 9
17 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Viktor Gamov talks to Matthias J. Sax (Confluent) about his career in stream processing and, specifically, Kafka Streams. Matthias’ first job: an el...
How Time Kills All Deals in Pre-Sales with Rachel Pedreschi | Ep. 8
10 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Listen: https://confluent.buzzsprout.com | In this episode, Tim Berglund talks to his guest, Rachel Pedreschi (DeltaStream), about her career in pre-s...
Scaling AI in Engineering with Peter Bell | Ep. 7
03 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Listen: https://confluent.buzzsprout.com | Today, Adi Polak talks to her guest, Peter Bell (gather.dev), about his career in software engineering lead...
How Kafka Expert Robin Moffat Tackles Open Source Problems | Ep. 6
27 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today, Viktor Gamov talks to his colleague Robin Moffat (Confluent) about his career in data engineering. His first job: paperboy. His challenge: work...
Building Parquet into Apache Pinot ft. Neha Pawar | Ep. 5
20 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today, Tim Berglund talks to Neha Pawar (StarTree) about her career in real-time analytics and open source database engineering. Her first job: a year...
The Fix That Secured 1000s of Credit Cards ft. Brian Sletten | Ep. 4
13 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Tim talks to Brian Sletten (Bosatsu Consulting) about his career in software development. His first job: working at a small communica...
How Viktor Gamov Stays Curious as Tech Rapidly Evolves | Ep. 3
06 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Adi Polak interviews her co-host, Viktor Gamov, about his career’s evolution from distributed systems to streaming technology. Viktor’s first job:...
How Tim Berglund Found His Calling | Ep. 2
29 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Viktor Gamov interviews his co-host, Tim Berglund, about his career in the world of streaming data. Tim’s first job: Burger King broiler steamer. Hi...
Building Real-time Systems for Apple, Nike & more ft. Adi Polak | Ep. 1
22 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The Confluent Developer Podcast is here! For this first episode, Tim Berglund talks to his co-host, Adi Polak (Confluent), about her career in distrib...
We're back! Welcome to the Confluent Developer Podcast.
02 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Weekly episodes launching Sept. 22! | Hi, I'm Tim Berglund. It's been about four years since I've been podcasting at Confluent, and &qu...
Apache Kafka 3.5 - Kafka Core, Connect, Streams, & Client Updates
15 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Apache Kafka® 3.5 is here with the capability of previewing migrations between ZooKeeper clusters to KRaft mode. Follow along as Danica Fine highligh...
A Special Announcement from Streaming Audio
13 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
After recording 64 episodes and featuring 58 amazing guests, the Streaming Audio podcast series has amassed over 130,000 plays on YouTube in the last ...
How to use Data Contracts for Long-Term Schema Management
21 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Have you ever struggled with managing data long term, especially as the schema changes over time? In order to manage and leverage data across an organ...
How to use Python with Apache Kafka
14 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Can you use Apache Kafka® and Python together? What’s the current state of Python support? And what are the best options to get started? In this ep...
Next-Gen Data Modeling, Integrity, and Governance with YODA
07 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Kris interviews Doron Porat, Director of Infrastructure at Yotpo, and Liran Yogev, Director of Engineering at ZipRecruiter (formerly ...
Migrate Your Kafka Cluster with Minimal Downtime
01 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Migrating Apache Kafka® clusters can be challenging, especially when moving large amounts of data while minimizing downtime. Michael Dunn (Solutions ...
Real-Time Data Transformation and Analytics with dbt Labs
22 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
dbt is known as being part of the Modern Data Stack for ELT processes. Being in the MDS, dbt Labs believes in having the best of breed for every part ...
What is the Future of Streaming Data?
15 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What’s the next big thing in the future of streaming data? In this episode, Greg DeMichillie (VP of Product and Solutions Marketing, Confluent) talk...
What can Apache Kafka Developers learn from Online Gaming?
08 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What can online gaming teach us about making large-scale event management more collaborative in real-time? Ben Gamble (Developer Relations Manager, Ai...
Apache Kafka 3.4 - New Features & Improvements
07 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Apache Kafka® 3.4 is released! In this special episode, Danica Fine (Senior Developer Advocate, Confluent), shares highlights of the Apache Kafka 3.4...
How to use OpenTelemetry to Trace and Monitor Apache Kafka Systems
01 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How can you use OpenTelemetry to gain insight into your Apache Kafka® event systems? Roman Kolesnev, Staff Customer Innovation Engineer at Confluent,...
What is Data Democratization and Why is it Important?
26 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Data democratization allows everyone in an organization to have access to the data they need, and the necessary tools needed to use this data effectiv...
Git for Data: Managing Data like Code with lakeFS
19 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Is it possible to manage and test data like code? lakeFS is an open-source data version control tool that transforms object storage into Git-like repo...
Using Kafka-Leader-Election to Improve Scalability and Performance
12 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
How does leader election work in Apache Kafka®? For the past 2 ½ years, Adithya Chandra, Staff Software Engineer at Confluent, has been working on K...
Real-Time Machine Learning and Smarter AI with Data Streaming
05 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Are bad customer experiences really just data integration problems? Can real-time data streaming and machine learning be democratized in order to deli...
The Present and Future of Stream Processing
28 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The past year saw new trends emerge in the world of data streaming technologies, as well as some unexpected and novel use cases for Apache Kafka®. Ne...
Top 6 Worst Apache Kafka JIRA Bugs
21 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Entomophiliac, Anna McDonald (Principal Customer Success Technical Architect, Confluent) has seen her fair share of Apache Kafka® bugs. For her annua...
Learn How Stream-Processing Works The Simplest Way Possible
20 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Could you explain Apache Kafka® in ways that a small child could understand? When Mitch Seymour, author of Mastering Kafka Streams and ksqlDB, wanted...
Building and Designing Events and Event Streams with Apache Kafka
15 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What are the key factors to consider when developing event-driven architecture? When properly designed, events can connect existing systems with a com...
Rethinking Apache Kafka Security and Account Management
08 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Is there a better way to manage access to resources without compromising security? New employees need access to a variety of resources within a compan...
Real-time Threat Detection Using Machine Learning and Apache Kafka
29 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Can we use machine learning to detect security threats in real-time? As organizations increasingly rely on distributed systems, it is becoming more im...
Improving Apache Kafka Scalability and Elasticity with Tiered Storage
22 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What happens when you need to store more than a few petabytes of data? Rittika Adhikari (Software Engineer, Confluent) discusses how her team implemen...
Decoupling with Event-Driven Architecture
15 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In principle, data mesh architecture should liberate teams to build their systems and gather data in a distributed way, without having to explicitly c...
If Streaming Is the Answer, Why Are We Still Doing Batch?
09 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Is real-time data streaming the future, or will batch processing always be with us? Interest in streaming data architecture is booming, but just as ma...
Security for Real-Time Data Stream Processing with Confluent Cloud
03 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Streaming real-time data at scale and processing it efficiently is critical to cybersecurity organizations like SecurityScorecard. Jared Smith, Senior...
Running Apache Kafka in Production
27 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What are some recommendations to consider when running Apache Kafka® in production? Jun Rao, one of the original Kafka creators, as well as an ongoin...
Build a Real Time AI Data Platform with Apache Kafka
20 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Is it possible to build a real-time data platform without using stateful stream processing? Forecasty.ai is an artificial intelligence platform for fo...
Optimizing Apache JVMs for Apache Kafka
13 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Java Virtual Machines (JVMs) impact Apache Kafka® performance in production. How can you optimize your event-streaming architectures so they process ...
Apache Kafka 3.3 - KRaft, Kafka Core, Streams, & Connect Updates
03 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Apache Kafka® 3.3 is released! With over two years of development, KIP-833 marks KRaft as production ready for new AK 3.3 clusters only. On behalf of...
Application Data Streaming with Apache Kafka and Swim
03 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How do you set data applications in motion by running stateful business logic on streaming data? Capturing key stream processing events and cumulative...
International Podcast Day - Apache Kafka Edition | Streaming Audio Special
30 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What’s your favorite podcast? Would you like to find some new ones? In celebration of International Podcast Day, Kris Jenkins invites 12 experts fro...
How to Build a Reactive Event Streaming App - Coding in Motion
20 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How do you build an event-driven application that can react to real-time data streams as they happen? Kris Jenkins (Senior Developer Advocate, Conflue...
Real-Time Stream Processing, Monitoring, and Analytics With Apache Kafka
15 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Processing real-time event streams enables countless use cases big and small. With a day job designing and building highly available distributed data ...
Reddit Sentiment Analysis with Apache Kafka-Based Microservices
08 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How do you analyze Reddit sentiment with Apache Kafka® and microservices? Bringing the fresh perspective of someone who is both new to Kafka and the ...
Capacity Planning Your Apache Kafka Cluster
30 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How do you plan Apache Kafka® capacity and Kafka Streams sizing for optimal performance? When Jason Bell (Principal Engineer, Dataworks and founder ...
Streaming Real-Time Sporting Analytics for World Table Tennis
25 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Reimagining a data architecture to provide real-time data flow for sporting events can be complicated, especially for organizations with as much data ...
Real-Time Event Distribution with Data Mesh
18 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Inheriting software in the banking sector can be challenging. Perhaps the only thing harder is inheriting software built by a committee of banks. How ...
Apache Kafka Security Best Practices
11 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Security is a primary consideration for any system design, and Apache Kafka® is no exception. Out of the box, Kafka has relatively little security en...
What Could Go Wrong with a Kafka JDBC Connector?
04 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) is the Java API used to connect to a database. As one of the most popular Kafka connectors, it's important to p...
Apache Kafka Networking with Confluent Cloud
28 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Setting up a reliable cloud networking for your Apache Kafka® infrastructure can be complex. There are many factors to consider—cost, security, sca...
Event-Driven Systems and Agile Operations
21 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How do the principles of chaotic, agile operations in the military apply to software development and event-driven systems? As a former Royal Marine, B...
Streaming Analytics and Real-Time Signal Processing with Apache Kafka
14 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Imagine you can process and analyze real-time event streams for intelligence to mitigate cyber threats or keep soldiers constantly alerted to risks an...
Blockchain Data Integration with Apache Kafka
07 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How is Apache Kafka® relevant to blockchain technology and cryptocurrency? Fotios Filacouris (Staff Solutions Engineer, Confluent) has been working w...
Automating Multi-Cloud Apache Kafka Cluster Rollouts
30 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
To ensure safe and efficient deployment of Apache Kafka® clusters across multiple cloud providers, Confluent rolled out a large scale cluster managem...
Common Apache Kafka Mistakes to Avoid
23 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What are some of the common mistakes that you have seen with Apache Kafka® record production and consumption? Nikoleta Verbeck (Principal Solutions A...
Tips For Writing Abstracts and Speaking at Conferences
16 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A well-written abstract is your ticket to conferences, but how do you write an excellent synopsis that will get accepted? As an experienced conference...
How I Became a Developer Advocate
09 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What is a developer advocate and how do you become one? In this episode, we have seasoned developer advocates, Kris Jenkins (Senior Developer Advocate...
Data Mesh Architecture: A Modern Distributed Data Model
02 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Data mesh isn’t software you can download and install, so how do you build a data mesh? In this episode, Adam Bellemare (Staff Technologist, Office ...
Flink vs Kafka Streams/ksqlDB: Comparing Stream Processing Tools
26 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Stream processing can be hard or easy depending on the approach you take, and the tools you choose. This sentiment is at the heart of the discussion w...
Practical Data Pipeline: Build a Plant Monitoring System with ksqlDB
19 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Apache Kafka® isn’t just for day jobs according to Danica Fine (Senior Developer Advocate, Confluent). It can be used to make life easier at home, ...
Apache Kafka 3.2 - New Features & Improvements
17 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Apache Kafka® 3.2 delivers new KIPs in three different areas of the Kafka ecosystem: Kafka Core, Kafka Streams, and Kafka Connect. On behalf of the...
Scaling Apache Kafka Clusters on Confluent Cloud ft. Ajit Yagaty and Aashish Kohli
11 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How much can Apache Kafka® scale horizontally, and how can you automatically balance, or rebalance data to ensure optimal performance?You may require...
Streaming Analytics on 50M Events Per Day with Confluent Cloud at Picnic
05 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What are useful practices for migrating a system to Apache Kafka® and Confluent Cloud, and why use Confluent to modernize your architecture?Dima Kala...
Build a Data Streaming App with Apache Kafka and JS - Coding in Motion
03 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Coding is inherently enjoyable and experimental. With the goal of bringing fun into programming, Kris Jenkins (Senior Developer Advocate, Confluent) h...
Optimizing Apache Kafka's Internals with Its Co-Creator Jun Rao
28 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
You already know Apache Kafka® is a distributed event streaming system for setting your data in motion, but how does its internal architecture work? ...
Using Event-Driven Design with Apache Kafka Streaming Applications ft. Bobby Calderwood
21 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What is event modeling and how does it differ from standard data modeling?In this episode of Streaming Audio, Bobby Calderwood, founder of Evident Sys...
Monitoring Extreme-Scale Apache Kafka Using eBPF at New Relic
13 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
New Relic runs one of the larger Apache Kafka® installations in the world, ingesting circa 125 petabytes a month, or approximately three billion data...
Confluent Platform 7.1: New Features + Updates
12 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Confluent Platform 7.1 expands upon its already innovative features, adding improvements in key areas that benefit data consistency, allow for increas...
Scaling an Apache Kafka Based Architecture at Therapie Clinic
07 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Scaling Apache Kafka® can be tricky, let alone scaling a team. When he was first hired, Domenico Fioravanti of Therapie Clinic was given the challeng...
Bridging Frontend and Backend with GraphQL and Apache Kafka ft. Gerard Klijs
29 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What is GraphQL? And how can you combine GraphQL with Apache Kafka® to query data in real time?With over 10 years of experience as a backend engineer...
Building Real-Time Data Governance at Scale with Apache Kafka ft. Tushar Thole
22 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Data availability, usability, integrity, and security are words that we sometimes hear a lot. But what do they actually look like when put into practi...
Handling 2 Million Apache Kafka Messages Per Second at Honeycomb
15 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How many messages can Apache Kafka® process per second? At Honeycomb, it's easily over one million messages. In this episode, get a taste o...
Why Data Mesh? ft. Ben Stopford
10 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
With experience in data infrastructure and distributed data technologies, author of the book “Designing Event-Driven Systems” Ben Stopford (Lead T...
Serverless Stream Processing with Apache Kafka ft. Bill Bejeck
03 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What is serverless?Having worked as a software engineer for over 15 years and as a regular contributor to Kafka Streams, Bill Bejeck (Integration Arch...
The Evolution of Apache Kafka: From In-House Infrastructure to Managed Cloud Service ft. Jay Kreps
24 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When it comes to Apache Kafka®, there’s no one better to tell the story than Jay Kreps (Co-Founder and CEO, Confluent), one of the original creator...
What’s Next for the Streaming Audio Podcast ft. Kris Jenkins
16 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Meet your new host of the Streaming Audio podcast: Kris Jenkins (Senior Developer Advocate, Confluent)! In this preview, Kris shares a few highlights ...
On to the Next Chapter ft. Tim Berglund
03 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
After nearly 200 podcast episodes of Streaming Audio, Tim Berglund bids farewell in his last episode as host of the show. Tim reflects on the many gr...
Intro to Event Sourcing with Apache Kafka ft. Anna McDonald
01 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What is event sourcing and how does it work?Event sourcing is often used interchangeably with event-driven architecture and event stream processing. H...
Expanding Apache Kafka Multi-Tenancy for Cloud-Native Systems ft. Anna Povzner and Anastasia Vela
27 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In an effort to make Apache Kafka® cloud native, Anna Povzener (Principal Engineer, Confluent) and Anastasia Vela (Software Engineer I, Confluent) ha...
Apache Kafka 3.1 - Overview of Latest Features, Updates, and KIPs
24 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Apache Kafka® 3.1 is here with exciting new features and improvements! On behalf of the Kafka community, Danica Fine (Senior Developer Advocate, Conf...
Optimizing Cloud-Native Apache Kafka Performance ft. Alok Nikhil and Adithya Chandra
20 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Maximizing cloud Apache Kafka® performance isn’t just about running data processes on cloud instances. There is a lot of engineering work required ...
From Batch to Real-Time: Tips for Streaming Data Pipelines with Apache Kafka ft. Danica Fine
13 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Implementing an event-driven data pipeline can be challenging, but doing so within the context of a legacy architecture is even more complex. Having s...
Real-Time Change Data Capture and Data Integration with Apache Kafka and Qlik
06 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Getting data from a database management system (DBMS) into Apache Kafka® in real time is a subject of ongoing innovation. John Neal (Principal Soluti...
Modernizing Banking Architectures with Apache Kafka ft. Fotios Filacouris
28 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It’s been said that financial services organizations have been early Apache Kafka® adopters due to the strong delivery guarantees and scalability t...
Running Hundreds of Stream Processing Applications with Apache Kafka at Wise
21 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What’s it like building a stream processing platform with around 300 stateful stream processing applications based on Kafka Streams? Levani Kokhreid...
Lessons Learned From Designing Serverless Apache Kafka ft. Prachetaa Raghavan
14 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
You might call building and operating Apache Kafka® as a cloud-native data service synonymous with a serverless experience. Prachetaa Raghavan (Staff...
Using Apache Kafka as Cloud-Native Data System ft. Gwen Shapira
07 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What does cloud native mean, and what are some design considerations when implementing cloud-native data services? Gwen Shapira (Apache Kafka® Commit...
ksqlDB Fundamentals: How Apache Kafka, SQL, and ksqlDB Work Together ft. Simon Aubury
01 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What is ksqlDB and how does Simon Aubury (Principal Data Engineer, Thoughtworks) use it to track down the plane that wakes his cat Snowy in the mornin...
Explaining Stream Processing and Apache Kafka ft. Eugene Meidinger
23 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Many of us find ourselves in the position of equipping others to use Apache Kafka® after we’ve gained an understanding of what Kafka is used for. B...
Handling Message Errors and Dead Letter Queues in Apache Kafka ft. Jason Bell
16 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
If you ever wondered what exactly dead letter queues (DLQs) are and how to use them, Jason Bell (Senior DataOps Engineer, Digitalis) has an answer for...
Confluent Platform 7.0: New Features + Updates
09 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Confluent Platform 7.0 has launched and includes Apache Kafka® 3.0, plus new features introduced by KIP-630: Kafka Raft Snapshot, KIP-745: Connect AP...
Real-Time Stream Processing with Kafka Streams ft. Bill Bejeck
04 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Kafka Streams is a native streaming library for Apache Kafka® that consumes messages from Kafka to perform operations like filtering a topic’s mess...
Automating Infrastructure as Code with Apache Kafka and Confluent ft. Rosemary Wang
26 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Managing infrastructure as code (IaC) instead of using manual processes makes it easy to scale systems and minimize errors. Rosemary Wang (Developer A...
Getting Started with Spring for Apache Kafka ft. Viktor Gamov
19 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What’s the distinction between the Spring Framework and Spring Boot? If you are building a car, the Spring Framework is the engine while Spring Boot...
Powering Event-Driven Architectures on Microsoft Azure with Confluent
14 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When you order a pizza, what if you knew every step of the process from the moment it goes in the oven to being delivered to your doorstep? Event-Driv...
Automating DevOps for Apache Kafka and Confluent ft. Pere Urbón-Bayes
07 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Autonomy is key in building a sustainable and motivated team, and this core principle also applies to DevOps. Building self-serve Apache Kafka® and C...
Intro to Kafka Connect: Core Components and Architecture ft. Robin Moffatt
28 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Kafka Connect is a streaming integration framework between Apache Kafka® and external systems, such as databases and cloud services. With expertise i...