Join us for the return of the DDD eXchange, a 2‑day online conference exploring the world of Domain‑Driven Design.
Over 2 days, you'll learn from thought leaders, architects and developers as you connect with likeminded people to share the skills, insights, lessons developed from your modelling, design and development projects.
Learn from experts and peers alike as you discover the best tools and strategies to tackle your next big challenge. We'll be looking at topics like the newest best practices for Strategic DDD in a remote-work world, the relationship between business models and software architecture, and how to make the most out of modelling and patterns.
Book today for only £99

The 2021 DDD eXchange will be an online conference hosted on the Hopin platform.
At Skills Matter, we’ve chosen to see the events of the past year as a challenge to make our content and community more inclusive and accessible to all. Beyond the COVID‑19 pandemic, we have a vision of a community where knowledge sharing and skills transfer are not limited by physical barriers.
We are excited about the opportunity to truly welcome the global DDD community to this year’s Domain-Driven Design eXchange.
We hope to see you there!
Who's going to be there?
This year's speakers include:
Explore DDD eXchange 2021
Get involved, plan your conference, or start your learning today

View the programme
Our 2-day online conference will feature DDD experts from a variety of disciplines, backgrounds and industries.
view schedule
Become a sponsor
Sponsoring a conference is a terrific way to support and connect with our global community of DDD enthusiasts.
engage our community
Revisit previous conferences
View (or review) hundreds of talks and sessions from conferences like µCon and DDDx in our library of SkillsCast videos.
visit the libraryExcited? Share it!
Day 1: Domain-Driven Design eXchange
DDDx is an online conference hosted on the Hopin platform.
Track | Main Stage | |||
12:00
Invalid Time
Invalid Time
|
Opening Remarks: Welcome to the 2021 Domain-Driven Design eXchange |
|||
12:05
Invalid Time
Invalid Time
|
As a business, we want to make sure our software can handle changes when the business changes. We want to define boundaries that support the flow of the business value. Within DDD we have the perspective of strategic design where we can split a large-system into multiple sub-domains, each having its purpose and responsibilities, where teams can work in autonomous, clean bounded contexts. One of the most effective ways to define these boundaries is by collaborative modelling with all the stakeholders involved in these domains. But that poses real challenges; What exactly is the definition of a (sub)domain? How can we form a common language of these boundaries? How does a customer journey fit in? And how do you decide and come to a single model in a large group, where everyone shares that same model on a high level? Join Paul as he shares war stories about his experience doing collaborative modelling in several companies with 30+ people. He'll share our successes, but more importantly failures — and what he learned from them and share some distilled heuristics!
architecture
subdomains
collaborative-modelling
domaindrivendesign
domain-modeling
About the speaker... |
|||
12:45
Invalid Time
Invalid Time
|
Break |
|||
12:55
Invalid Time
Invalid Time
|
Writing CQRS/ES applications can be difficult, but maintaining them can be even more of a challenge. The monitoring of the systems and the analysis of incidents are more complex operations in these contexts. During a debugging session, while trying to understand the flow of the process across multiple microservices, we may wonder: is it really worth it? This talk aims to explore that question.
domain-driven-design
cqrs
agile
event-sourcing
About the speaker...Sara PellegriniExperienced in agile software development methods, she loves to see things from different perspectives, with an all-around approach to software development, from coding skills to high-level architectural view. Since she joined AxonIQ, she focuses on the development of Axon Framework and Axon Server. |
|||
13:35
Invalid Time
Invalid Time
|
BREAK |
|||
13:45
Invalid Time
Invalid Time
|
Whether starting a greenfield project or refactoring a Big Ball of Mud Monolith into Microservices, identifying domain boundaries early on in the design process will have a determinant impact on the shape of the resulting system and architecture, and is crucial to establishing the system's usefulness to different business stakeholders. The problem is that there are many aspects to consider when it comes to design domain boundaries. They may be seen as multi-dimensional is some way. Consider for example some aspects such as knowledge scope, business capabilities, business processes, teams organization, different non-functional requirements. The right balance and tradeoffs have to be found in order to address them in a meaningful way for the business. In this talk Tomasz explores different boundaries dimensions and their impact on the design of the software — whether it comes to greenfield or brownfield. Understanding different forces behind them will help you choose appropriate tactical tools and patterns when it comes to implementation. |
|||
14:25
Invalid Time
Invalid Time
|
Break |
|||
14:45
Invalid Time
Invalid Time
|
KEYNOTE
Over her career, Jessica Kerr has taken part in many software communities: functional and object-oriented, agile and devops. Yet for her, the Domain Driven Design community is more important than any of these. It's because DDD (and its people) have long espoused the crucial aspects of all these paradigms. In this keynote, Jessica will point out the essences of other paradigms inside DDD, and the crucial part that the rest all miss.
devops
agile
architecture
community
domain-driven-design
About the speaker...Jessica KerrWhat we develop matters. And more: the way we develop it matters. It matters for how it changes us. Software lets us form complex systems faster, and adapt them faster, than any human-made material of the past. This means we can learn how to make better systems.
|
|||
15:25
Invalid Time
Invalid Time
|
Break |
|||
15:35
Invalid Time
Invalid Time
|
Domain Driven Design and Messaging go hand in hand, like a warm chocolate brownie paired with vanilla ice-cream! DDD is a software discipline that allows you to move faster and write high-quality code. The whole point is to align the software you write to be flexible with the business changes. When you start to use the technology of messaging to communicate between clean and well-defined bounded contexts you get to remove temporal coupling. And voila, you now have microservices that are built for autonomy from the ground up. Sounds perfect? In this talk, discover this intersection of DDD as a software discipline with messaging as a technology counterpart. Build reliable systems that can scale with the business changes.
architecture
reliability
messaging
ddd
About the speaker...Indu AlagarsamyShe is currently a Global Lead Applications Architect at Unisys. Indu works with clients to help them in their application modernization journey of their legacy systems and remove business friction. Indu is also passionate about diversity and inclusiveness in the tech industry. When not programming, she is either rock climbing in sunny Southern California or spending time with her kids including her giant puppy! |
|||
16:15
Invalid Time
Invalid Time
|
Break |
|||
16:25
Invalid Time
Invalid Time
|
Earlier this year Stefan Tilkov published a blog post entitled "Is Domain-driven Design overrated?" Understandably it generated a lot of passionate responses online from some of the biggest names in the DDD community (a good many of whom are on the DDDx programme.) Join us as we revisit this controversial-sounding question in this panel featuring Stefan, Susanne Kaiser and Marco Heimeshoff. This is one session you do not want to miss!
architecture
discovery
panel-discussion
domain-driven-design
About the speakers...Susanne KaiserSusanne is an independent tech consultant from Hamburg, Germany, supporting organizations to build and run software products from idea to production with a focus on socio-technical systems. She likes connecting the dots between Wardley Mapping, Domain-Driven Design, and Team Topologies as a holistic approach to design and build adaptive systems for a fast flow of change. Susanne was previously working as a startup CTO. She has a background in computer sciences and experience in software development and software architecture for more than 18 years. Susanne presents regularly at international tech conferences as a speaker. Marco HeimeshoffMarco Heimeshoff won't leave any stone unturned once you lend him an ear and sticky notes. He believes that life long learning, focus on language and empathy are the three pillars of quality development. With over a decade of experience, he is helping teams to change and learn in all things from code to culture and to master Domain-Driven Design, agile software development, functional programming and CQRS with event sourcing. You can follow him at @Heimeshoff |
|||
17:05
Invalid Time
Invalid Time
|
End of Day 1 — See You Tomorrow! |
Day 2: Domain-Driven Design eXchange
DDDx is an online conference hosted on the Hopin platform.
Track | Main Stage | |||
12:00
Invalid Time
Invalid Time
|
Opening Remarks: Welcome to Day 2 of the DDDx: Domain-Driven Design eXchange |
|||
12:05
Invalid Time
Invalid Time
|
Over the last 20 years, I've looked at a lot of legacy software to help development teams come to grips with the interwoven complexities. DDD has proven to be a very helpful method in this improvement work, although DDD was actually intended for the development of new software. With negative and positive examples, I will show the audience the simple steps they can take to transform their big ball of mud into a system that makes maintenance fun again. My greatest pleasure is to inspire the audience for DDD and good architecture.
software-modernisation
legacy-systems
legacy-monolith
discovery
monolith
domain-driven-design
About the speaker...Carola LilienthalDr. Carola Lilienthal is software architect and managing director at WPS — Workplace Solutions GmbH, and has been developing software architectures according to the principles of Domain-Driven Design with her teams for more than 10 years. She is author of the book "Sustainable Software Architecture" and in 2017 she translated the book "Domain-Driven Design Distilled" by Vaughn Vernon into German. |
|||
12:45
Invalid Time
Invalid Time
|
Break |
|||
12:55
Invalid Time
Invalid Time
|
DDD is about understanding and communicating complexity. We have long recognized that the most effective way to communicate complexity is via human language. But language poses a challenge when working in a team comprised of members of different (sub)cultures and nationalities, each with a native language that might not be the same as the language we are communicating in. Each of these cultures has a different perception about how to communicate effectively. By way of example, in some cultures, it is considered appropriate and respectable to use the tentative voice “perhaps we should consider trying X”. Whereas in other cultures it is the assertive voice that is valued “This is how we should do it”. Assuming that everybody in the room wants to communicate effectively, what aspects can we define that impact our design? What organizational culture fits better with what type of architecture (microservices, monolith)? And what cultural needs must these architectures and boundaries address to succeed? Join us in this interactive talk where we together explore these challenges!
architecture
language
collaboration
culture
discovery
domain-driven-design
About the speakers...Kenny Baas-SchweglerOne of Kenny's core principles is sharing knowledge. He does that by writing a blog on his website baasie.com and helping curate the Leanpub book visual collaboration tool. Besides writing, he also shares experience in the Domain-Driven Design community as an organiser of Virtual Domain-Driven Design and Domain Driven Design Nederland. He enjoys being a public speaker by giving talks and hands-on workshops at conferences and meetups. Avraham PoupkoAvraham Poupko's two passions are complex software systems and working with people. As an experienced architect of complex enterprise systems, Avraham is always looking for ways to increase understanding and reduce complexity. The primary way in which understanding can be increased is by enhancing the way we communicate. That is why Avraham is passionate about teaching anyone in the software field how to be a better communicator. Avraham is Senior Architect at Forescout technologies development site in Tel-Aviv. When he is not designing software, he learns and teaches about how people join to create software. |
|||
13:35
Invalid Time
Invalid Time
|
Break |
|||
14:45
Invalid Time
Invalid Time
|
The hexagonal architecture, or ports and adapters architecture, is an architectural pattern used for creating loosely coupled application components that can be easily connected to their software environment. This makes components exchangeable at any level, and facilitates test automation. AWS Lambda provided the perfect environment to work with this architecture, moreover using hexagonal architecture, allows great flexibility to change the computational layer in case of porting across cloud services.
aws-lambda
serverless
hexagonal-architecture
architecture
About the speaker...Luca MezzaliraBeing associated with the industry since 2004, I have lent my expertise predominantly in the solution architecture field. I have gained accolades for revolutionising the scalability of frontend architectures with micro-frontends, from increasing the efficiency of workflows, to delivering quality in products. I helped DAZN becoming a global streaming platform in just 5 years, now as Principal Architect at AWS, I'm helping our customers in the media and entertainment space to deliver cost-effective and scalable cloud solutions. Moreover, I'm sharing with the community the best practices to develop cloud-native architectures solving technical and organizational challenges. |
|||
15:25
Invalid Time
Invalid Time
|
Break |
|||
15:35
Invalid Time
Invalid Time
|
Today the software landscape of enterprise is not built ground up by scores of software developers. Software engineering skills are valuable and focus on the core domain of the business. For the rest, software is often purchased. Much of this software is commercial off the shelf (COTS) platforms that support many areas of the business. While these platforms perform critical functions such as managing our customer data, they are often treated as second-class citizens. Architects work around them. It is becoming increasingly important for an architect to understand what are commercial platforms, best practices for managing them, and know techniques (such as DDD) that will help obtain most value. Join Sonya as she shares her extensive experience as a solutions architect in the world of commercial platforms and learn from a case study of how commercial platforms helped mass testing during Covid-19 pandemic.
enterprise-architecture
enterprise-architect
enterprise-software
commercial-software
domain-driven-design
software-architect
architecture
About the speaker...Sonya NatanzonSonya is an engineering leader and solution architect with many years of experience. Software engineer by training, she’s worked in a number of different industries. Healthcare engagements were most rewarding in her career and frequently appear in her portfolio. She started focusing her career path on software engineering and architecture in healthcare, and championing Domain-Driven Design. She now leads enterprise software development at Guardant Health. |
|||
16:15
Invalid Time
Invalid Time
|
Break |
|||
16:25
Invalid Time
Invalid Time
|
KEYNOTE
No matter where you currently live, it is your home. Often people want more home than they currently have. More is for those with youthful vigor, the endlessly driven, the deserving, the best. As people grow older, is more what they want, or does wisdom suggest that less is better? Curious, these dynamics. When it comes to software development, what was your first "home"? Naturally when home hemmed you in, you wanted more. At what point did you want to "buy up" to more spacious compositions? What made you think that objects weren't doing enough and that you should start looking for a more functional home? At what point did you consider DDD and related tools to be the luxury you deserve? Are you there yet? If so, are you happy, or are you still moving up? Ah, moving up of course. But to what? What stands in your way of obtaining the very best of new digs, something more, you know, artificial? Here's the rub. No matter what, there will always be more, but at some point the previous might seem better. Where is this all leading, and will we ever be content with our spread? It depends. Let's examine trends, likes, dislikes, motives, and what might have real, lasting value.
leadership
ddd
About the speaker...Vaughn VernonVaughn Vernon is an entrepreneur and prolific software developer. He is the founder and chief architect of the VLINGO XOOM open source platform, and the founder of Kalele, where he trains and consults around Domain-Driven Design (DDD), project acceleration, Reactive, and software architecture modernization. With more than 35 years of experience in a broad range of business domains, Vaughn is a leading expert in DDD and champion of simplicity and Reactive systems. Vaughn is the author of four books: Strategic Monoliths and Microservices; Implementing Domain-Driven Design; Domain-Driven Design Distilled; and Reactive Messaging Patterns with the Actor Model, all published by Addison-Wesley. He is the editor of his own Vaughn Vernon Signature Series for Pearson Addison-Wesley. |
|||
17:05
Invalid Time
Invalid Time
|
Closing Remarks |
-
Collaborative Modelling Domain Boundaries
Featuring Paul de Raaij
How can we collaboratively split a large-system into multiple sub-domains, each with its own purpose/responsibilities? What even is the definition of a (sub)domain? In this talk, Paul shares the stories of many failures (and successes), distilled to heuristics that you can use yourself.
architecture subdomains collaborative-modelling domaindrivendesign domain-modeling -
Why (the Hell) Am I Doing Event Sourcing?
Featuring Sara Pellegrini
Writing CQRS and Event Sourcing applications can be difficult, but maintaining them can be even more of a challenge. At a certain point we start to wonder: is it really worth it?
domain-driven-design cqrs agile event-sourcing -
From Domain Boundaries to Purposeful Architecture
Featuring Tomasz Jaskula
Identifying domain boundaries early on in the design process is key to establishing your system's usefulness. In this talk Tomasz, explores different boundaries dimensions, their impact on the design of the software, and how to choose appropriate tools and patterns when it comes to...
architecture architecture-design domain-boundaries -
Keynote: The Best of Everything in DDD
Featuring Jessica Kerr
The Domain Driven Design community (and its people) have long espoused the key aspects of other paradigms like functional and object-oriented, agile and devops. In this keynote, Jessica will point out the essences of other paradigms inside DDD, and the crucial part that the rest all miss.
devops agile architecture community domain-driven-design -
Practical DDD: Bounded Contexts + Events => Microservices
Featuring Indu Alagarsamy
Domain Driven Design and Messaging go hand in hand, like a warm chocolate brownie paired with vanilla ice-cream. In this talk, discover this intersection of DDD as a software discipline with messaging as a technology counterpart. Build reliable systems that can scale with the business changes!
architecture reliability messaging ddd -
3
Is DDD Overrated?
Featuring Susanne Kaiser, Marco Heimeshoff and Stefan Tilkov
This provocatively titled panel will feature Stefan Tilkov, Marco Heimeshoff and Susanne Kaiser as they revisit a controversial-sounding blog post published by Stefan earlier this year. This is one session you do not want to miss!
architecture discovery panel-discussion domain-driven-design -
DDD for Monoliths
Featuring Carola Lilienthal
DDD is a great way to design and develop new software systems. But can DDD also help us with old large software systems? This talk shows how DDD gets a monolithic big ball of mud back on track.
software-modernisation legacy-systems legacy-monolith discovery monolith domain-driven-design -
2
Does Culture Impact Software Design?
Featuring Kenny Baas-Schwegler and Avraham Poupko
DDD is about communicating complexity via human language. This poses a challenge when working in a culturally diverse team. In this talk, Kenny and Avram and you will explore how culture can serve both as a challenge and opportunity.
architecture language collaboration culture discovery domain-driven-design -
Embracing Hexagonal Architecture with Serverless
Featuring Luca Mezzalira
Luca Mezzalira discusses how AWS Lambda provided the perfect environment to work with hexagonal architecture —an architectural pattern used for creating loosely coupled application components that can be easily connected to their software environment.
aws-lambda serverless hexagonal-architecture architecture -
Managing Commercial Platforms: The Architect’s Emerging Skill
Featuring Sonya Natanzon
Many enterprises use off-the-shelf platforms to support many areas of a business. While these perform critical functions, architects often have to work around them. Join Sonya as she shares best practices from her extensive experience as a solutions architect in the world of commercial platforms....
enterprise-architecture enterprise-architect enterprise-software commercial-software domain-driven-design software-architect architecture -
Keynote: Moving House
Featuring Vaughn Vernon
We are excited to welcome Vaughn Vernon back to DDDx: Domain-Driven Design eXchange for this very special keynote. Vaughn will explore software development and architecture through the metaphor of 'home'.
leadership ddd
-
DDD eXchange 2018
Two days in London
Want to hear the latest innovations in the DDD space from the world's DDD experts, and be able to share your own ideas and thoughts across great open sessions? Join us for DDD eXchange in April 2018! Skills Matter presents the 9th DDD eXchange London, the place to go if you're interested...
ddd dddesign eventstorming architecture tdd dddd -
DDD eXchange 2017
Two days in London
Want to hear the latest innovations in the DDD space from the world's DDD experts, and be able to share your own ideas and thoughts across great open sessions? Join us for DDD eXchange in April 2017! Skills Matter presents the 9th edition of the DDD eXchange London, the place to go if...
ddd domain-driven-design software-architecture event-storming modelling example dddesign -
DDD eXchange 2016
Two days in London
In June 2016 Skills Matter presents the 7th edition of the DDD eXchange London, the place to go if you're interested in Domain Driven Design and associated tools and processes. If you want to hear the latest innovations in this space from the world's DDD experts, and share your own ideas...
dddx ddd domain-driven-design software-architect -
DDD eXchange 2015
One day in London
We return this June for another edition of the DDD eXchange. The place to go if you're interested in Domain Driven Design and associated tools and processes.
ddd dddx domain-driven-design -
DDD eXchange NYC 2014
One day in New York City
Want to find out about the latest and greatest in DDD? Interested in meeting the rest of the community and big names like Eric Evans, Vaughn Vernon, and Paul Rayner?
domain-driven-design architecture ddd dddx -
DDD eXchange 2014
One day in London
Want to find out about the latest and greatest ideas & practices in DDD? Interested in meeting the rest of the community and big names like Eric Evans, Martin Thompson and Greg Young ? Then don't miss out on DDD eXchange 2014, where you'll discover all the latest ideas & practices...
domain-driven-design architecture ddd domain-modeling reactive-applications event-driven resilient scalable responsive eventstorming -
DDD eXchange NYC
One day in New York City
Want to keep up to date with the latest developments, in Domain Driven Design? Are you keen to learn and share skills with 200+ developers passionate about domain driven design?
domain-driven-design design-patterns architecture nhibernate repository-pattern cqrs dddxnyc -
DDD eXchange 2013
One day in London
Skills Matter hosted the fifth annual DDD eXchange led by the father of DDD, Eric Evans. Experts and thought leaders joined together with 125 practitioners and enthusiasts for one of the stand out Software Architecture events in the 2K13 calendar.
domain-driven-design design-patterns architecture nhibernate repository-pattern cqrs ruby-on-rails mongodb clojure dddx -
DDD eXchange 2012
One day in London
Now in its 4th year, the DDD Exchange has become one of the focal points of the DDD community. Each year, DDD thought leaders come together with 100+ enthusiasts for a truly interactive session where we delve into the tricky questions that leaders in DDD are struggling with.
domain-driven-design design-patterns architecture nhibernate repository-pattern cqrs actor-model ruby-on-rails mongodb clojure -
DDD eXchange 2010
One day in London
The theme of this year's DDD eXchange will be architectural innovation, and particularly CQRS. We will feature leading thinkers and architects who will share their experience and Eric Evans is the programme lead.
domain-driven-design design-patterns architecture nhibernate repository-pattern cqrs actor-model ruby-on-rails mongodb clojure -
DDD eXchange
One day in London
Intensive, intimate one day event on Domain Driven Design, bringing together both international and UK experts on Domain Driven Design, Architecture and other interesting ideas and aproaches, including Behaviour Driven Design and Example Driven Design.
domain-driven-design design-patterns architecture nhibernate repository-pattern cqrs actor-model ruby-on-rails mongodb clojure