Kafka for Architects

Apache Kafka has evolved far beyond a simple message broker — it has become a foundational layer for modern enterprise software. In this GOTO Book Club episode, Ekaterina Gorshkova, author of "Kafka for Architects", shares how her decade-long journey with Kafka — starting in a Czech bank's integration team in 2015 — shaped her understanding of what it really takes to design Kafka-based systems at scale. The conversation covers core architectural decisions, real-world patterns for enterprise integration, the role of Kafka Streams, and how to avoid the classic pitfalls of building systems that "only three engineers understand".

The episode also looks forward: Ekaterina and host Viktor Gamov explore how Kafka is increasingly becoming the connective tissue for AI-driven systems, acting as an orchestration layer between intelligent agents, real-time data, and business workflows. Her book's central argument is that while AI and tooling change fast, the fundamental knowledge of how to design robust, event-driven systems is durable and career-proof. Kafka for Architects is framed not just as a technical manual, but as a roadmap for architects who want to get Kafka right from day one — requirements, design, testing, and all.