Breaking Down the Monolith

The Athens Megaron International Conference Center is an imposing place. Walking into it that morning felt like stepping into a different league. It was my first time presenting to a large audience, and we had no idea what to expect. Five minutes before the session started, the room was already packed. People were standing along the walls and at the back, trying to find a spot. It was equal parts exhilarating and nerve-racking.

I was co-presenting with Vassilis Poursalidis, and together we talked about our shared experience modernizing TalentLMS. We wanted to show what it looks like to evolve a successful product without losing the qualities that made it thrive. The session focused on how we approached change in a live, widely used system, where stability and innovation must coexist.

We spoke about architecture, but also about people. Refactoring code is never just technical. It affects how teams collaborate, make decisions, and grow. Training, reskilling, and new team structures were part of the same story.

Looking out at that full room, it was hard not to feel that we were experiencing our own version of what we were describing. Transformation is always a mix of excitement and uncertainty. What mattered most that day was sharing how we learned to navigate both.