Neal Ford is a director, software architect, and meme wrangler at ThoughtWorks, a software company and a community of passionate, purpose-led individuals who think disruptively to deliver technology to address the toughest challenges, all while seeking to revolutionize the IT industry and create positive social change. He's an internationally recognized expert on software development and delivery, especially in the intersection of Agile engineering techniques and software architecture. Neal has authored seven books (and counting), a number of magazine articles, and dozens of video presentations and spoken at hundreds of developers conferences worldwide. His topics include software architecture, continuous delivery, functional programming, cutting-edge software innovations, and a business-focused book and video on improving technical presentations. Check out his website, Nealford.com. Mark Richards is an experienced, hands-on software architect involved in the architecture, design, and implementation of microservices architectures, service-oriented architectures, and distributed systems in a variety of technologies. He has been in the software industry since 1983 and has significant experience and expertise in application, integration, and enterprise architecture.

Mark served as the president of the New England Java Users Group from 1999 through 2003. He is the author of numerous technical books and videos, including the Fundamentals of Software Architecture, Software Architecture Fundamentals Video Series, and several books and videos on microservices as well as enterprise messaging. Mark is also a conference speaker and trainer and has spoken at hundreds of conferences and user groups around the world on a variety of enterprise-related technical topics.