Migrating to microservices at MACH-speed

Bill Doerrfeld | December 2, 2024

The latest issue of DirectorPlus looks at a successful microservices migration story.


"There was no way to maintain that without a sledgehammer," says Gus Fune, Chief Technology Officer at DivBrands. Microservices can decouple software, easing maintenance and preventing outages, yet migrating to a microservices architecture from a legacy stack is challenging.


In this issue of DirectorPlus, Gus Fune shares the story behind reverse engineering a monolithic e-commerce platform following MACH principles, which stands for microservices, APIs, cloud-native, and headless. In the end, the transition actually saved them from losing revenue.


From sledgehammers to emojis, we see how they got there and what the benefits have been, and look at some tips other engineering leaders should consider when embarking on a microservices migration.


Read the article on LeadDev here.


Read: Migrating to microservices at MACH-speed

Sign up to the DirectorPlus newsletter for a new story in your inbox each month featuring on-the-ground insights from some of the industry's top engineering leaders. Or, if you would like to be featured in the series, please read this.

5 official MCP servers from major clouds

By Bill Doerrfeld • February 18, 2026
My latest on InfoWorld reviews MCP servers from 5 major cloud providers

6 agentic knowledge base styles in practice

By Bill Doerrfeld • February 18, 2026
How are organizations actually using agentic knowledge bases in practice? My article for The New Stack looks at six emerging patterns.
eBPF in Production Report

Report: eBPF In Production

By Bill Doerrfeld • February 12, 2026
My report for the eBPF Foundation explores enterprise eBPF case studies, production deployments, and real business outcomes across cloud-native environments.
Close-up of whole bean coffee Bottomless

I’m a fan of Bottomless coffee

By Bill Doerrfeld • February 10, 2026
Longtime Bottomless user sharing why I love automated coffee delivery triggered by a smart scale, plus a referral link for a free first bag.

Tips and tricks to reduce MCP token bloat

By Bill Doerrfeld • February 5, 2026
MCP servers can quickly drain context windows without guardrails. Thankfully, there are ways around this, say the experts.

The state of AI agents in finance

By Bill Doerrfeld • February 4, 2026
It may seem like AI agents are suddenly doing everything across industries. But in reality, the pace of agentic AI is moving carefully, and very deliberately, in highly regulated environments like finance and banking.

Should AI agents scrape or integrate external data?

By Bill Doerrfeld • February 3, 2026
My latest feature for InfoWorld explores when it makes sense to scrape public web sources, and when official API integrations are the better choice for external data.

Going nano with software updates

By Bill Doerrfeld • January 30, 2026
What does it mean to go nano with your software updates — to "carve with a scalpel" instead of swinging a hammer? For my latest DirectorPlus piece, I caught up with Chainguard VP Dustin Kirkland to dig into that idea.

API standards: foundational for agentic AI

By Bill Doerrfeld • January 27, 2026
I recently moderated a webinar that brought together three luminaries in the API community to discuss the importance of API standards in agentic AI development.

Reviewing Port of Context (pctx)

By Bill Doerrfeld • January 26, 2026
The more folks use MCP servers in development, the more they’re realizing it can lead to runaway token usage, unpredictable response sizes, and flooded context windows.