In this episode, Sezin Cagil, Head of Unified Commerce Technology at Dr. Martens and MACH Alliance ambassador, shares hard-won insights on implementing and scaling MACH architecture in real-world environments. She explores how to approach modular migrations, manage complex vendor ecosystems, and prepare systems for high-traffic events. Beyond the tech, Sezin highlights the importance of team readiness, operational maturity, and aligning architecture with business needs. A must-listen for anyone navigating composable commerce or modern retail infrastructure.
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Sezin Cagil is Head of Unified Commerce Technology at Dr. Martens, leading the teams through digital transformation and supporting omnichannel strategy. With expertise in agile delivery, composable architecture, and MACH principles, she drives seamless customer experiences across digital and retail channels. Previously, she led digital delivery at Selfridges and Costa Coffee, scaling international eCommerce platforms. As a MACH Alliance Ambassador, Sezin advocates for modern, modular technologies and contributes to industry thought leadership.
This podcast is hosted by José Quaresma, researched by Joseph Thwaites and produced by Perseu Mandillo.
© Queue-it, 2025
In this episode of the Smooth Scaling Podcast, Ilia Bromberg (Akamai) and Martin Larsen (Queue-it) explore the evolution of bots, the growing complexity of detecting them, and the real-world impact on hype events like product drops and ticket sales. They introduce Hype Event Protection, a new joint solution from Queue-it and Akamai, designed to level the playing field for genuine users. The discussion covers technical approaches to bot mitigation, performance optimization, and the importance of layered defenses for high-demand online events.
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Ilia Bromberg is a Principal Solutions Engineer at Akamai Technologies with nearly 30 years experience helping organizations secure and scale their digital environments. A seasoned leader in web and application security, he has been named Akamai’s Solutions Engineer of the Year and has earned multiple hackathon and innovation awards. He holds CISSP, CCSP, and GWAPT certifications and specializes in WAFs, bot management, API security, DNS, and zero trust technologies.
Martin Larsen is a Distinguished Product Architect at Queue-it. Starting as a software developer, Martin was one of the company’s first employees. He played an instrumental role in building the foundations of Queue-it and is heavily involved in activities including the design, architecture, testing, and deployment of the virtual waiting room, as well as defining and executing on product vision. This podcast is hosted by José Quaresma, researched by Joseph Thwaites and produced by Perseu Mandillo.
© Queue-it, 2025
In this episode, Johannes Boumans, Engineering Manager in Zalando’s SRE team, shares how Lounge by Zalando handles daily surges of up to 200,000 requests per second. He discusses the shift from monoliths to microservices, the “you build it, you run it” model, SRE champions, and the trade-offs behind reliability, fairness, and cost. From bot defense to chaos engineering, it’s a deep dive into scaling one of Europe’s largest e-commerce platforms.
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Johannes Boumans is an Engineering Manager in the SRE organization at Zalando, where he leads reliability efforts for Zalando Lounge, the company’s off-price shopping destination. Over nearly 10 years at Zalando, Johannes has grown from product support into SRE leadership, where he now supports 25 engineering teams in building resilient, fair, and scalable systems. Johannes is passionate about the “you build it, you run it” philosophy and champions practices like chaos engineering, predictive scaling, and bot defense to keep systems reliable.
This podcast is hosted by José Quaresma, researched by Joseph Thwaites and produced by Perseu Mandillo.
Chapters
00:00 – Intro
01:28 – Zalando: Europe's leading fashion destination
02:42 – The company’s rapid tech evolution since 2008
03:41 – From one team to 25: Johannes’ journey
05:48 – How the SRE champions model works
08:00 – What reliability really means at Zalando
09:27 – From monolith to full DevOps accountability
11:32 – What makes Lounge by Zalando unique
12:50 – Dealing with massive daily traffic spikes
14:05 – Predictive scaling and real-time cost control
17:15 – First-come, first-served: fairness at scale
22:11 – Solving the challenges of limited inventory
25:09 – Combating bots with layered protections
27:12 – Trade-offs: performance vs. experience
29:38 – Why Lounge doesn’t have a search function
31:17 – Advice for engineering managers facing traffic surges
34:25 – Chaos testing in production—including turning off zones
35:53 – Scaling advice for daily vs. seasonal peaks
37:55 – Evaluating virtual waiting rooms for fairness
39:30 – Book & mindset recommendations for engineers
41:43 – Scalability is… balance, cost, and confidence
© Queue-it, 2025
In this episode of Smooth Scaling, Jillian Als, CMO at Queue-it, unpacks The Age of Online Trust report. She explores why reliability is the license to operate, how trust is earned in drops but lost in buckets, and what 1,000 consumers revealed about their expectations for fairness, transparency, and resilient digital experiences. For technical leaders, the findings confirm that every percentage point of uptime and performance directly impacts trust, loyalty, and long-term business growth.
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Jillian Als is Chief Marketing Officer at Queue-it, where she leads global marketing efforts to help businesses earn and protect online trust for billions of digital visitors each year. With 15+ years in B2B SaaS marketing, she’s known for her expertise in go-to-market strategy, demand generation, and brand development, as well as her passion for building happy, high-performing teams. A frequent speaker at industry podcasts and events like SaaSiest2025 and Funnel Vision, Jillian brings a deep understanding of consumer behavior and the link between digital performance, transparency, and loyalty.
This podcast is hosted by José Quaresma, researched by Joseph Thwaites and produced by Perseu Mandillo.
In this episode of Smooth Scaling, Jose is joined by Praveen Thakur, Queue-it’s Head of Technical Engagement, APAC who shares what it takes to prepare for and succeed during high-traffic online events. From coordinating mission control rooms to navigating bot threats and post-event analysis, Praveen shares lessons learned from years of hands-on experience with retailers, ticketing providers, and government organizations. The discussion offers a behind-the-scenes look at the technical and organizational decisions that shape successful peak traffic events.
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Praveen Thakur is Head of Technical Engagement, APAC at Queue-it, where he works closely with teams across the region on technical integration, performance readiness, and post-event analysis. With over 13 years of experience spanning product engineering, consulting, and in-house IT roles, he brings deep expertise in cloud, DevOps, and distributed systems. He’s particularly focused on aligning technology decisions with business goals and building resilient, outcome-oriented teams.
This podcast is hosted by José Quaresma, researched by Joseph Thwaites and produced by Perseu Mandillo.
In this episode, Barnaby Clark, CEO of Line-Up, reveals the engineering practices behind resilient ticketing systems that handle real-world demand. Barnaby explains how Line-Up rebuilt their platform from the ground up to meet the complex needs of live events, from unique inventory structures and API scaling to predictive load handling and third-party integrations. Barnaby dives into the evolving threat of bots, the nuances of asynchronous payments, and how to design for bursts in traffic without breaking the customer experience. It’s a practical look at infrastructure, performance, and the unpredictable nature of ticketing at scale.
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Barnaby Clark is CEO and Co-Founder at Line-Up. He has 12 years of experience designing innovative software products across diverse stacks, scaling and guiding cross-functional teams, building high-growth e-commerce platforms, and overcoming complex software challenges. Line-Up was shortlisted for Best Technology Provider at the British Media Awards, won Seedcamp London and has secured multiple funding rounds from angel investors, institutional backers, and corporate entities. Prior to Line-Up, Barnaby spent 5 years working on Mergers & Acquisitions and private capital fundraising efforts within the technology sector.
This podcast is hosted by José Quaresma, researched by Joseph Thwaites and produced by Perseu Mandillo.
In this episode, Usman Mir, Senior Engineering Manager at Queue-it, shares insights into how to evaluate and implement hybrid and multi-cloud strategies. Usman draws on his 10+ years experience in automation and cloud infrastructure, diving into real-world definitions, legal and cost considerations, vendor lock-in risks, and the growing need for cloud-native, containerized setups. From hot-hot setups to data sovereignty, Usman breaks down the trade-offs and the practical steps for moving toward a modern cloud setup.
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Usman Mir is an experienced IT leader with 15+ years across software development, DevOps, and cloud architecture. Now Senior Engineering Manager at Queue-it, he’s led teams and delivered solutions in industries from retail to telecom. Usman has built ecommerce platforms, managed hybrid and multi-cloud environments, and advised on automation and governance—always bridging the gap between business and tech. Host Jose Quaresma is the VP of Technical Engagement at Queue-it, working on the frontlines with some of the world’s biggest businesses on their busiest days, from Ticketmaster to Zalando to Home Office U.K. Each week, he’ll be joined by experts across industries, uncovering how major organizations design, build, and deploy systems that perform at scale.
This podcast is hosted by José Quaresma, researched by Joseph Thwaites and produced by Perseu Mandillo.
In this episode, Kolton Andrus, Founder and CEO of Gremlin deep dives into all things chaos engineering and reliability testing. Kolton shares his journey from leading reliability efforts at Amazon and Netflix to founding Gremlin, an enterprise reliability platform. They discuss what it really takes to build resilient systems, the cultural shift required to prioritize reliability, and how Gremlin is working to reshape accountability in engineering teams. From testing dependencies to aligning incentives, this conversation is packed with real-world insights into scaling systems (and teams) that don't break under pressure.
Episode page
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Kolton Andrus is the CEO and founder of Gremlin. Prior, he focused on building and operating reliable systems at Netflix and Amazon. At both companies he operated systems at scale, managed company wide incidents and helped build out their respective reliability programs and toolsets.
Host Jose Quaresma is the VP of Technical Engagement at Queue-it, working on the frontlines with some of the world’s biggest businesses on their busiest days, from Ticketmaster to Zalando to Home Office U.K. Each week, he’ll be joined by experts across industries, uncovering how major organizations design, build, and deploy systems that perform at scale.
This podcast is hosted by José Quaresma, researched by Joseph Thwaites and produced by Perseu Mandillo.
In this episode, Martin Jensen, Head of Engineering, breaks down the true cost of scaling for peak demand. He explains the limits of autoscaling, when pre-scaling makes sense, and how tools like virtual waiting rooms are used to handle sudden spikes in traffic. Martin also discusses system bottlenecks, performance trade-offs, and practical strategies for staying in control during high-demand moments like ticket sales, product drops, and popular registrations.
Episode page
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This episode´s guest is Martin Jensen. Martin Nørskov Jensen is an experienced engineering leader and Head of Engineering at Queue-it. With 15+ years in software development and 5+ years in leadership, he builds agile, high-performing teams focused on collaboration, trust, and engineering excellence.
Host Jose Quaresma is the VP of Technical Engagement at Queue-it, working on the frontlines with some of the world’s biggest businesses on their busiest days, from Ticketmaster to Zalando to Home Office U.K. Each week, he’ll be joined by experts across industries, uncovering how major organizations design, build, and deploy systems that perform at scale.
This podcast is hosted by José Quaresma, researched by Joseph Thwaites and produced by Perseu Mandillo.
In this episode, seasoned platform engineer Tristan Watson shares his learnings from handling peak traffic at Rapha and Booking.com. Tristan reveals the key challenges, trade-offs, and best practices involved in preparing infrastructure for high-traffic product drops and collaborations. Whether you're navigating traffic surges or optimizing for resilience, Tristan’s advice will help you prepare your systems to handle the pressure.
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This episode´s guest is Tristan Watson. Tristan Watson has spent over a decade mastering the art of keeping websites fast, stable, and scalable. With experience leading teams and steering key projects across tech, retail, and finance he consistently balances technical excellence with business goals. His pragmatic approach and passion for emerging tech like AI make him a sought-after consultant. Off the clock, you’ll find him exploring new tech trends or out on a bike ride. You can find Tristan on LinkedIn here.
Host Jose Quaresma is the VP of Technical Engagement at Queue-it, working on the frontlines with some of the world’s biggest businesses on their busiest days, from Ticketmaster to Zalando to Home Office U.K. Each week, he’ll be joined by experts across industries, uncovering how major organizations design, build, and deploy systems that perform at scale.
This podcast is hosted by José Quaresma, researched by Joseph Thwaites and produced by Perseu Mandillo.
What does it take to build product features that hold up under massive traffic while still delivering a great user experience? Karen Risvig, Head of Product & UX at Queue-it, joins Smooth Scaling to share how her team designs for scalability, resilience, and security from day one. From invite-only waiting rooms to real-time visitor analytics, Karen breaks down the product decisions behind some of Queue-it’s most exciting features—and the trade-offs that come with building for scale.
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This episode's guest is Karen Risvig. Karen Risvig is a dynamic product leader with extensive experience in the SaaS industry. As Head of Product & UX at Queue-it, she leads product strategy, roadmap execution, and a team of product managers and UX specialists. She brings a data-driven approach to decision-making and excels at turning complex challenges into clear, high-impact solutions. Karen is known for fostering cross-functional collaboration and delivering products that align with both user needs and business goals.
Host Jose Quaresma is the VP of Technical Engagement at Queue-it, working on the frontlines with some of the world’s biggest businesses on their busiest days, from Ticketmaster to Zalando to Home Office U.K. Each week, he’ll be joined by experts across industries, uncovering how major organizations design, build, and deploy systems that perform at scale.
This podcast is hosted by José Quaresma, researched by Joseph Thwaites and produced by Perseu Mandillo.
In this episode, Yam Shal-Bar, CTO at Radview, discusses the the evolving world of load testing and how it's used to prepare for peak traffic. He covers the most common system bottlenecks, the importance of iterative testing, and strategies for accurately simulating user journeys. Yam shares insights into common misconceptions around testing, best practices, and trends like AI for test analysis and API-level testing. Whether you're launching a new web app or tuning an existing one, this episode is packed with practical advice for testing systems for resilience and scalability.
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This episode's guest is Yam Shal-Bar. Yam Shal-Bar is an experienced development leader and software architect with over two decades of expertise in managing distributed teams and delivering enterprise-scale software solutions. As CTO at RadView Software, he drives the company’s technical roadmap and leads the development of core products, including RadView’s performance testing platform and web dashboard. Throughout his career—including leadership roles at British Telecom, Reliance Infocomm, and Vodafone—he has championed Agile methodologies, DevOps practices, and CI/CD pipelines to deliver robust, scalable systems.
Host Jose Quaresma is the VP of Technical Engagement at Queue-it, working on the frontlines with some of the world’s biggest businesses on their busiest days, from Ticketmaster to Zalando to Home Office U.K. Each week, he’ll be joined by experts across industries, uncovering how major organizations design, build, and deploy systems that perform at scale.
This podcast is hosted by José Quaresma, researched by Joseph Thwaites and produced by Perseu Mandillo.
No system has 100% reliability. Failures and faults are inevitable. At scale, everything breaks. In this episode, Martin Larsen explains the design for failure approach behind Queue-it’s architecture and how it increases the platform’s availability and resilience. Larsen explores the principles behind designing for failure, the tradeoffs involved, the mechanisms implemented at Queue-it, and the tangible ways companies can bring this development approach into their processes.
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Host Jose Quaresma is the VP of Technical Engagement at Queue-it, working on the frontlines with some of the world’s biggest businesses on their busiest days, from Ticketmaster to Zalando to Home Office U.K. Each week, he’ll be joined by experts across industries, uncovering how major organizations design, build, and deploy systems that perform at scale.
This episode's guest is Martin Larsen, a Distinguished Product Architect at Queue-it. Starting as a software developer, Martin was one of the company’s first employees. He played an instrumental role in building the foundations of Queue-it and is heavily involved in activities including the design, architecture, testing, and deployment of the virtual waiting room, as well as defining and executing on product vision.
This podcast is hosted by José Quaresma, researched by Joseph Thwaites and produced by Perseu Mandillo.
© Queue-it, 2025
What makes a system scalable? In this episode, Mojtaba Saroonghi explains why simplicity is the secret to scalability. Saroonghi explains why avoiding complexity helps minimize the risk of failure while improving troubleshooting, deployment, and the overall scalability of a system. He walks though how Queue-it has maintained simplicity as it has grown, the allure of complexity, and how architects can incorporate simplicity into their system design and development.
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This episode's guest is Mojtaba Saroonghi, a Distinguished Product Architect at Queue-it. Moji was one of the company’s first employees, starting his journey as a software developer over 10 years ago. He is highly experienced with AWS services, product and architectural design, managing developer teams, and defining and executing on product vision.
Host Jose Quaresma is the VP of Technical Engagement at Queue-it, working on the frontlines with some of the world’s biggest businesses on their busiest days, from Ticketmaster to Zalando to Home Office U.K. Each week, he’ll be joined by experts across industries, uncovering how major organizations design, build, and deploy systems that perform at scale.
This podcast is hosted by José Quaresma, researched by Joseph Thwaites and produced by Perseu Mandillo.
