Recent content on Hatem Zidi
AI doesn’t threaten intelligence; it exposes how little judgement most systems have. I came across a post from an old colleague, questioning whether intelligence and knowledge still define who we are, now that AI can produce answers faster than we can formulate questions. The idea itself isn’t new, but something about it stayed with me. Not because of the technology, but because of what it exposes…
Quality is subjective. Architecture is judgemental. So how on earth do we measure it? Every architecture review, every design workshop, every committee meeting eventually hits the same wall. Someone asks: “But is this actually good?” We pretend the answer lives in metrics. Response times. Availability. Coupling scores. Maturity models. Dashboards filled with comforting colours. We convince…
“The difference between good and bad architecture is the time you spend on it.” – David Chipperfield There is a specific kind of architect that worries me. Not the junior one learning the ropes. Not the experienced one who double checks the consequences. I mean the architect who is absolutely convinced they are right, and talks incessantly to prove it.
I was in the war room at 2 AM, staring to the aftermath of what was supposed to be our next evolutionary leap. We pushed the final piece of our cloud migration at midnight. By 12:07 AM, 60% of our customers couldn’t log in. By 12:15 AM, the rollback plan failed because the servers it was meant to restore to didn’t even exist anymore. Despite the thorough migration plan, the old system was gone…
“True friends are never apart, maybe in distance but never in heart.” — Helen Keller Friendships don’t always end with fights. Sometimes they just fade, without drama, without closure. One day they’re there. The next, they are just names in your phone.
Show me an architecture no one questions, and I’ll show you a system no one understands. A few years back, I walked into a post-mortem where the architecture was being blamed for everything from latency spikes to the office coffee machine malfunctioning. The architect? Well, he was calm. Unbothered. Certain. “It’s not the design,” he said. “The team just didn’t implement it properly.” There it…
Consulting rule #1: Smile, nod, and translate chaos into meaning. Rule #2: Don’t let your sarcasm show. Rule #3: Break Rule #2 when appropriate. Trying to be client-friendly while carrying a sarcasm habit is like juggling flaming swords in a library: impressive if it works, disastrous if it doesn’t. This is my daily dilemma: I’m in a customer-facing role, but my personality leans dry, cynical, and…
A few years ago, I took a week off. First vacation in months. On day two, I got six Slack messages, three “urgent” calls, and by Wednesday, the team had spun up a new feature that killed the application’s performance like a toddler on an espresso overdose: fast, chaotic, and entirely unsupervised. That’s when it hit me: I hadn’t built a system, I’d built a babysitting job.
errorless (adj) Free from error, accurate, correct. Being complete of its kind and without defect or blemish. I stumbled lately onto a strange feeling: many of the architectures I review are overcomplicated, fragmented, full of flows jumping here and there. And what makes it worse? The costs of development, the deployment, the running, the operations — just to keep the system alive — are…
I’ve been wondering how to celebrate this milestone. Because yeah… today marks exactly 20 years since I hit “publish” on my very first blog post — April 18th, 2005. That post? Honestly… it was bad. A clumsy “hi”, a confused tone, and zero clue about where I was heading. It was a start. But hey… here we are. Twenty years later. Still blogging. Still writing — even if what that means has changed a…
I was never into the whole American dream thing. Even as a kid, something about it felt… off. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it back then. But as I grew up, it became painfully clear: their values, their way of life, their self-image—it just never clicked with me.
A question has been raised about the future of the architect role with the rise of AI. If human-built software (and SaaS, as claimed by Microsoft’s CEO) is going away, what happens to the practice of architecture? I’m rarely optimistic (the curse of architecture, I guess), but I feel safe.
So there I was, 8 years old, dragged to the shopping center by my dad because, apparently, shopping for socks is a family event . We’re walking through this temple of consumerism when—BAM!—I spot a computer showroom. Not just any computers. MSX/Sakhr machines .
If, after quitting your job, you hear or get notified about your ex-leader doing these : Speaking negatively about your departure Undermining your decision by criticizing you, your new role or company Attempting to make you feel guilty Spreading resentment throughout the organisation Taking the resignation as a personal attack Prioritizing their own interests over those of the team Being absent or…
Back in 2014, I was at a meeting with a prominent French bank about a challenging project. At the time, “low-code” was a fresh concept, and the bank aimed to build its own low-code IDE to let business analysts craft UIs and speed up delivery. The team already knew each other from previous projects, so introductions were a formality. Our manager introduced everyone: “This elegant lady is the…
Imagine, if you will, that building a SaaS application is like constructing the perfect sports car. Sleek, powerful, a marvel of engineering. I, of course, am Jeremy Clarkson in this scenario — the architect with the vision, the genius behind the wheel. My engineers? Well, they’re supposed to be the pit crew, precision-tuned experts ready to make my dream a reality.
Many call it architecture; others call it wizardry. I call it “layered confusion” … What do you call it ?
“I hate and categorically refuse quick wins”, I angrily yelled. The managers in the meeting jumped. They weren’t used to seeing me lose my zen and calm temper so often. “I have a huge ethical problem with this organisation’s culture of quick wins. We are adding more layers of band-aids before even healing the scares”, I continued.
Being an Architect is like being a conductor 1 in an orchestra. You’re not playing all the instruments, but your job is to make sure everyone is in concert [ pun intended ] and that the result is harmonious. I once saw Simon Rattle conducting 6 Berlin school orchestras playing Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite. As a matter of fact, they never worked nor rehearsed together before. Their…
After a heavy lunch break with a team, Dorian, one (among others) young and competent developer, enthusiastically asked me: “How does someone become an Architect, and what’s the path to follow and what to learn to be one?” I wasn’t asked this question for the first time, and to be honest, I was never able to answer it properly.
As I am in my late 40ies, I’ll be closing my 25th year as an IT engineer this year and my 20th year as an architect. As I was reflecting about the journey, I wondered: Am I really a Senior or just a Vintage, a Relic? We often tend to think that a person with considerable years of experience is usually a respected Senior (as a rank and age), but Experience in some careers is viewed as…
During an after-work with some dear colleagues, one asked: “How can we define our success?”. People started throwing answers like : by the customer’s happiness, by listing the greatest achievements, the metrics hit, by the completed tasks and goals, the career evolution or even by the gain accumulated. Unsurprisingly, I was unsatisfied. These answers looked more like a standard…
In a world where specialization is often hailed as the pinnacle of success, I find myself cheerfully perched atop the hill of ambiguity, happily wearing the badge of a “polyglot” in the tech cosmos. This term, I’ve grown quite attached to it over the years, It’s morphed from its linguistic origins to become, synonymous with an approach that values versatility over…
I’ve always been fascinated and reflecting about the peacefulness and the respect that emerges when watching some masters doing their professions. So, I spent lately some years time observing and trying to see the world through their lenses and may be, and if I’m good enough, adopt their skills and get inspired to improve myself personally and professionally.
The role of the software architect remains a subject of considerable debate: it is vaguely defined, difficult to pin down, and sometimes leads to nonsensical responsibilities in certain job descriptions. I will not discuss here the precise day-to-day responsibilities of an architect within a team or company, but I will attempt, through my experience, to describe some of the aspects and qualities…