Complete Speaking Archive (2016-2025)
Evolution Overview
Speaking Journey Summary
Total Talks: 40+ presentations across 9 years
Evolution Path:
graph LR
A[Technical Deep-Dives<br/>2016-2019] --> B[Architectural Philosophy<br/>2020-2022]
B --> C[AI-Assisted Development<br/>2023-Present]
style A fill:#e1f5fe
style B fill:#fff3e0
style C fill:#f3e5f5Talk Distribution by Era:
| Era | Years | Topics | Focus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Early Days | 2016-2017 | Reactive, APIs | Technical foundations |
| Microservices | 2017-2019 | Distributed systems | Architectural patterns |
| Human-Centered | 2020-2023 | Team dynamics | People & process |
| AI Era | 2025-Present | Structured AI | AI-assisted development practices |
2024-Present: Agentic Engineering Era
From Search Results to Insights: Statista's GenerativeAI Journey
Year: 2024 Topic: AI & Systems Audience: Enterprise Teams
GenAI services have been adopted successfully in no time across various digital business models, but what if your data has the better answers? How could this innovative technology be combined with a companies knowledge and data?
In this talk, we delve into the intricacies of Large Language Models (LLMs) and their augmentation with custom data through the use of Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). Learn about Statista's pioneering journey in moving from extensive search results to concise and well-founded answers, using their LLM-based application, ResearchAI. We will tackle the challenges faced, including building a skilled team for such an emerging technology, the impact of exclusive data sources on answer quality, high product costs and latency per request, and the tendency of LLMs to produce hallucinations despite the availability of accurate data.
Why HTMX is Crushing React, Vue & Svelte
Year: 2024 Topic: Frontend Innovation Audience: Web Developers
Imagine a world where frontend frameworks would have no dependency conflicts, no outdated libraries and no security issues. A world where the gap between frontend and backend is finally closed. Only one deployment is needed and only one service must run.
A framework that lets you focus on HTML, with no boiler plate in between. No JSON & GraphQL, no serialization, no virtual DOM. Easy to understand and maintain - packed with much higher performance than any existing Javascript framework. And the best part? You have the freedom to choose your backend and preferred typed language.
Presenting: HTMX, the new practices in writing web applications. In this session, we'll show you how simple building an e-commerce shop can be. Using Kotlin, Spring Boot, and plain Tailwind, we'll demonstrate key features that make HTMX revolutionary practices in writing web applications.
2020-2023: Architecture & Human-Centered Development
The Big Five for Developing Software Fast for a Long Time
Year: 2023 Topic: Structured Development Audience: Engineering Leaders
Efficiency Misconceptions: How to Build an Antifragile IT Department
Year: 2023 Topic: Team Dynamics Audience: Enterprise Leaders
Being efficient is the most misused and misunderstood term in IT departments. Talking about efficiency immediately triggers certain reactions among management and employees. Usually, people think of resource efficiency and automation: reducing costs, minimizing overhead, etc.
But thinking about efficiency in this narrow context is no longer sufficient today. In an increasingly complex and rapidly changing world shaken by multiple crises and unforeseen events, companies and their IT departments must become antifragile versions of themselves.
Verticalization: Team Topologies building SCS along the Business Model Canvas
Year: 2023 Topic: Team Architecture Audience: Tech Leaders
The TalentFormation Network rebuilds companies based on the three horizon model. The concept of Verticalization is the work horse for the first horizon to get the company on a solid base for improvement and extension of the business model. The course of verticalization is building products and technology organizations reflecting the ideas of Team Topologies.
Those organizations focus on development of Self-Contained Systems (SCS) which are aligned with the Business Model Canvas. All models are wrong but some are useful: In this talk, Christoph and Benedikt will explain the ideas we combined to make them even more useful.
Loose Coupling in Frontend with 'Hotwire: HTML over the wire' or Down with SPAs
Year: 2023 Topic: Frontend Architecture Audience: Frontend Developers
Nowadays, there's no way around Single-Page Applications. Whether React, Angular, VueJS or one of the other frameworks. The standard answer to the question about frontend architecture is SPA. But what hardly anyone notices: The SPA idea is legacy! This idea was already implemented broadly 10 years ago with AngularJS.
This is where Hotwire comes into play, which creates completely new possibilities for clean architectures with a very clever solution based on low-level standards, without losing the UX advantages of an SPA! Completely different from SPAs, Hotwire allows maintaining loose coupling and low dependencies between different teams, thus preserving scalability.
DDD Projects Benefit from Functional Architecture
Year: 2023 Topic: Functional Programming Audience: DDD Practitioners
Functional programmers usually recommend "FP-first". Unfortunately, this purist practice doesn't fit the realities of existing projects that are object-oriented and built on DDD. This is a shame because these projects can benefit from functional techniques.
The talk describes a cooperation between BLUME 2000 (firmly in OO hands) and Active Group (all FP purists) to solve problems in a hexagonal DDD architecture (implemented in Kotlin) with functional techniques. These include: validation with applicative functors, free monads to separate the domain from the ports, functional dependency injection, also with monads.
What It Takes to Be Fast: A Tale About Responsibility
Year: 2022 Topic: Team Independence Audience: CTOs & Managers
Nowadays being fast is one of the most important goals of every company. Being fast at entering a new market, being fast at developing new features, being fast at innovating new products. Time To Market is the fuel for every company's Build, Measure, Learn cycle. If you run through it faster you learn much more in a shorter time, giving you a huge advantage over competitors.
This is pretty obvious, but how do you make this happen? Benedikt would like to tell you a story about the power of independence.
Loose Coupling in Frontend with 'Hotwire: HTML over the wire' or Death to SPAs
Year: 2022 Topic: HTML-First Development Audience: Frontend Developers
Nowadays, there's no way around Single Page Applications. Whether React, Angular, VueJS or one of the other frameworks. The standard answer to the question about frontend architecture is SPA. But what hardly anyone notices: The SPA idea is legacy! This idea was already implemented broadly 10 years ago with AngularJS.
This is where Hotwire comes into play, which creates completely new possibilities for clean architectures with a very clever solution based on low-level standards, without losing the UX advantages of an SPA! Completely different from SPAs, Hotwire allows maintaining loose coupling and low dependencies between different teams, thus preserving scalability.
Functional Architecture with Kotlin
Year: 2022 Topic: Functional Kotlin Audience: Kotlin Developers
While Kotlin advertises support for functional programming concepts, in practice you have to make an effort to actually use them. (At least it's easier in Kotlin than in Java.) Some of them are quite useful when developing a clean architecture: for reliable organization and validation of data and flexible dependency injection with monads, for example.
These techniques are an ideal complement to a DDD project and can also be built in retrospectively. The talk shows where functional programming brings the most benefits in Kotlin, and how it can be used to improve the architecture.
Different Podcast Interview
Year: 2022 Topic: Tech Leadership Audience: Leaders
How do you create ideal working conditions in tech organizations that also provide the organization with an immense competitive advantage?
Agile through "Accelerate"
Year: 2022 Topic: Agile Advancement Audience: CIOs
"Accelerate" is a book that provides CIOs with a framework for implementing agile practices in a way that delivers measurable business success. Benedikt Stemmildt, CIO of BLUME 2000, has implemented exactly that and talks about his experiences from the change process, highlights dos and don'ts, and provides practical tips for implementation.
Responsible Architecture
Year: 2021 Topic: Responsible Design Audience: Architects
Speed, effectiveness, and joy through entrepreneurial responsibility
How Benedikt Stemmildt, CIO at BLUME 2000, Organizes Web Architecture Beyond Microservices
Year: 2021 Topic: Interview Audience: Tech Leaders
Microservices are a big trend. But they prevent speed, Benedikt Stemmildt, CIO at BLUME 2000, is convinced. That's why something completely opposite is done there: They rely on the complete separation of business logic, organization, and finally also technology. How can this work? He describes this in his talk "Speed without Microservices: How to Progress with Good Old HTML Pages and Macro Services".
IT Speed Takes Priority Over Efficiency
Year: 2021 Topic: CIO Magazine Audience: CIOs
The IT department of online retailer Blume 2000 is supposed to deliver new features faster in the future. To achieve this, CIO Benedikt Stemmildt reorganized the traditional technical departments into domain-specific teams and split up the IT landscape of his area.
Single-Page Applications are Legacy, We Need Innovation!
Year: 2021 Topic: SPA Critique Audience: Frontend Architects
Nowadays, there's no way around Single Page Applications. Whether React, Angular, VueJS, or one of the other frameworks. The standard answer to the question about frontend architecture is SPA. But what hardly anyone notices: the SPA idea is legacy! This idea was implemented 10 years ago with AngularJS.
In the presentation, I want to show which frontend problems originally led to the development of SPAs and whether there are more innovative solutions for these problems today.
Documentation is Dead, Long Live Documentation!
Year: 2021 Topic: Documentation Audience: Developers
Documentation is important in companies of all sizes, but developer want to write code, and we don't want to log into a second, bloated system to document our work. Why couldn't docs be more like writing code and more fun?
It is possible! These are several markdown or ascii-based frameworks that are accessible to developers and non-technical users alike, and they can greatly simplify the documentation process. We'll tell the story of our docs journey, integrating a framework that and hosting with GitLab Pages.
Close Development Despite Home Office: How BLUME 2000 Renewed its Web Shop with Mob Programming
Year: 2021 Topic: Remote Development Audience: Teams
In the middle of the pandemic, BLUME 2000 begins rebuilding its successful e-commerce platform. With remote mob programming and new practices to knowledge transfer, multiple teams deliver the MVP in just a few months. Learn more about the project setup, how iteratec supports the teams, the technologies used, and the lessons learned from one of Hamburg's most exciting e-commerce projects of 2021.
Speed Without the Microservice Hype: How BLUME 2000 Performs with Good Old HTML and Macro Services
Year: 2021 Topic: Macro Services Audience: Architects
Many companies have thrown themselves too carelessly into these supposedly all-solving practices like the microservice and single page application hype and are now being slowed down by even more complex infrastructure. In his talk Benedikt shows us how to become incredibly fast with good old HTML techniques and expertly cut macro services paired with DevOps practices.
He explains how to become truly successful when leadership, knowledge, organization, and technology interact mutually.
Through the Flower: From Bouquet to Roller Coaster
Year: 2020 Topic: Digital Advancement Audience: SME Leaders
Omnichannel, Digital Business, Verticalization, agile programming, apps. As a small or medium-sized company, this can sometimes be overwhelming. How to keep up with the big ones and even overtake them will be explained by Benedikt Stemmildt, Lead Software Architect, in this session.
2017-2019: Microservices & API Era
Why Quarkus.io is Better Than Spring
Year: 2019 Topic: Framework Comparison Audience: Java Developers
Microservices without Spring Boot are unthinkable. But is Spring really as great as everyone always says? Spring comes from a time when people built monoliths that the ops team then hosted on-premise on huge servers. Many core features and internals are shaped by that era.
New operations models like Serverless and DevOps force a rethinking. Quarkus.io demonstrates how lean and fast a web framework can be. Created in our time, it offers exactly what you mean when you talk about microservices. In this talk, I want to set up several Quarkus services together with you and deploy them in Kubernetes.
ETL 2.0: Product Data Processing from Batch to Event Driven
Year: 2019 Topic: Event-Driven Architecture Audience: Data Engineers
For many years, Breuninger has processed its product data with classic batch jobs. Due to increasingly high business requirements, this type of processing is no longer possible. We have therefore rebuilt our processing pipeline to an event-driven framework.
We want to present this new pipeline, its advantages and disadvantages in this talk. Technologies used are Java11, Kafka, MongoDB and Atom feeds via HTTP & JSON.
Persistence with the Head in the Cloud
Year: 2018 Topic: Cloud Architecture Audience: Cloud Engineers
All About Fashion or What? Experience Report on the Challenge of Making a Bear Stand on its Legs!
Year: 2018 Topic: Digital Evolution Audience: Enterprise Leaders
Verticalization, Omnichannel, Digital Business, agile programming, apps, and right in the middle is a 136-year-old retail company you wouldn't expect. The traditional company Breuninger is not generally known for being a big player in the IT business, as one associates the company more with exquisite clothing and maybe even with the role of VFB's men's outfitter.
How all this fits together perfectly will be explained by Katja Burkert, Head of Software Engineering, and Benedikt Stemmildt, Lead Software Architect, in a keynote. Katja and Bene will talk about the challenges and opportunities of vertical architecture, "sexy" code, and why verticalization is crucial in software architecture.
Self-Contained Systems: More Than Just an Ordered Set of Microservices?
Year: 2018 Topic: SCS vs Microservices Audience: Architects
Microservices are on everyone's lips, and the concept of Self-Contained Systems has also gained popularity recently. But how do the two concepts differ? Can microservices be meaningfully combined with Self-Contained Systems, or are there contradictions and pitfalls to consider?
This talk will, among other things, provide answers to these questions and also offer insights into how these concepts are used in Breuninger's multi-channel platform.
2016-2017: Early Days - Reactive & API Foundations
Going Reactive: An Introduction to Reactive Programming
Year: 2017 Topic: Reactive Programming Audience: Developers
The current market development is driving online shops to convert from a monolithic system to a connected system of many microservices. These typically communicate with many interfaces among themselves. Both clients outside the shop system, such as apps, IoT devices, smartphones, and clients within the shop system rely on real-time data.
Iterative programming paradigms used so far are reaching their limits here. The talk will delve into these problems in detail and comprehensively discuss the paradigm of reactive programming. Finally, the code of an application that uses the Rx paradigm to stream data from database to website frontend will be shown.
Open Ecosystems and Distributed Architectures
Year: 2017 Topic: Distributed Systems Audience: System Architects
The current market development is driving e-commerce systems to convert from a closed shop to an open ecosystem. To do this, it is essential to publish functionalities via an external API. Various clients such as native apps, social-media sites, IoT devices, brick-and-mortar retail, and external websites should be able to connect flexibly.
The talk will present Breuninger's distributed microservice architecture. It will focus on motivation and practical learnings. Architectural solution practices for public and internal APIs within distributed architectures will then be presented and evaluated.
Zap the Duck and the API Client Speaks
Year: 2017 Topic: API Development Audience: API Developers
The current market trend is driving otto.de to convert from a closed shop to an open ecosystem. To do this, it is imperative to publish shop functionalities via an API. Various clients, such as native apps, social media sites, IoT devices, and external websites should be able to connect flexibly.
The talk will introduce otto.de's microservice architecture and the setup of our external API (Java/Spring-Security/OAuth2). Challenges and solutions in distributed architectures will be addressed. Finally, in a live demo, we will show how easily external clients and surprising use cases can be implemented via the API.
Microservices: Hype or Already Reality?
Year: 2016 Topic: Microservices Introduction Audience: Developers
In e-commerce, the motto is: more agile, faster, and more innovative. To be successful today, existing business models must be regularly questioned and continuously developed. Otto.de is one of Germany's largest e-commerce platforms, and we are meeting these challenges.
The development of otto.de follows a strict, vertically tailored shared nothing architecture. To avoid dealing with the multitude of problems of monolithic applications again, we are also developing otto.de in microservices and have accordingly changed our infrastructure. In addition to otto.de's architecture, the talk focuses on handling microservices.