Neal Ford is Director, Software Architect, and Meme Wrangler at ThoughtWorks, a global IT consultancy with an exclusive focus on end-to-end software development and delivery. Before joining ThoughtWorks, Neal was the Chief Technology Officer at The DSW Group, Ltd., a nationally recognized training and development firm.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 J2EE and other technologies.