Ever been forced to make a critical architecture decision without enough time or knowledge, knowing the wrong choice could haunt you for years? This talk dives into that moment of pressure.

Meet Phippy, our fictional web app, as it grows from a lean startup to a complex corporate system. Along the way, we face real-world dilemmas: how to scale quickly, which CI/CD approach fits the team, whether to trust a managed database or self-host, when to build versus buy, and how to prioritize security without slowing delivery. Each decision looks different depending on whether speed or stability matters most.

By walking through both perspectives, you’ll gain practical strategies to navigate uncertainty and make architecture choices that serve your context—whether you’re racing to an MVP or building for the enterprise.