Serverless State of the Union: 2018

On the 2017 tour, I introduced the notion of “serverless” and Functions as a Service (FaaS) platforms. We understood the motivation for serverless computing, compared serverless to other cloud-native infrastructure approaches, navigated some architectural tradeoffs, and took a whirlwind tour of the Big 3 FaaS providers.

In this 2018 edition of the talk, we’ll still cover a few of the same themes to bring new folks up to speed, but we’ll also look at what’s changed in this ecosystem over the past year, take a look at new or enhanced features, offerings, runtimes, and programming models, and examine what use cases are becoming popular for serverless computing. We’ll also look at how tradeoffs have evolved, and definitely throw in a few demos.


Matt Stine

About Matt Stine

My passion is taking a metaphysical approach to software engineering: what is the nature of the collaborative game that we continuously play, and are there better, more contextually-aware ways to play that game?

By day I lead a team tasked with taking a first-principles-centric approach to intentionally enabling programming language usage at the largest bank in the United States.

By night I write and teach my way through a masterclass in software engineering and architecture targeting early-career software engineers working in large-scale enterprise technology organizations.

What is the primary goal?

To win the game. More seriously: to get 1% better every day at providing business value through software.

Who am I?

I'm a 22-year veteran of the enterprise software industry. I've played almost every role I can imagine:

  • Software Engineer
  • Software Architect
  • Technical Lead
  • Engineering Manager
  • Consultant
  • Product Manager
  • Field CTO
  • Developer Advocate
  • Conference Speaker
  • Author
  • Technical Trainer
  • Technical Marketer
  • Site Reliability Engineer
  • Desktop Support Specialist

I've worked at Fortune 500 companies, a tenacious teal cloud startup, and a not-for-profit children's hospital. I've written a book, and I've hosted a podcast. I've learned a lot along the way, including many things I wish I'd known when I first got started. And so now I want to pass those learnings on to you, especially if you've only just begun your career.

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