Information Presentation:
In the heart of Berlin, Germany, Christopher Kujawa, a seasoned engineer at Camunda, is on a mission to build tools that developers love to use. He is on the lookout for engineers who think in systems, who get excited by hard problems, and care deeply about making a difference.
At Camunda, engineers face technical challenges around scalability, real-time orchestration, and integration in distributed systems and event-driven architectures. They address these challenges using a flexible, standards-based architecture supporting BPMN, CMMN, and DMN, combined with REST APIs for integration to facilitate business process automation across complex hybrid environments.
Technical Challenges and Solutions
One of the key technical challenges is managing distributed systems and scalability. To tackle this, Camunda supports deployment on Kubernetes and Docker ECS containers to enable horizontal scalability and manage resource thresholds like CPU and memory. Although scalable, some performance issues arise in cloud environments, requiring careful architecture and tuning.
Another challenge is event-driven architecture, which can be complex due to handling signals, queries, and state updates. Camunda’s open platform allows extensive customization, but mastering robust event-driven workflows demands skill and understanding of distributed coordination patterns.
Reliability testing and fault tolerance are also essential for maintaining data consistency without relying on complex two-phase commit protocols, which are hard to maintain in microservices. Camunda addresses this by enabling automation with features like process history tracking and decision tables for governance and auditability.
System Design Approaches
Camunda's engineering design tackles distributed, event-driven workflows by combining standardized process modeling, scalable container deployments, and open integration. This approach allows for flexible, extensible hybrid workflows.
Christopher Kujawa, who joined Camunda in early 2016 and has worked on Camunda 7 and the Zeebe team, has been instrumental in driving initiatives like reliability testing and introducing Chaos Engineering at Camunda.
Kujawa's personal mantra, "There are no problems, only challenges, and every challenge is an opportunity to learn," reflects his approach to work. Every day is different, and he finds joy in tackling new challenges.
A Rewarding Remote Setup
Working in a fully remote setup, Kujawa finds it rewarding as it allows him to focus and connect with his peers. Despite initially wanting to be a Policeman, his A levels were not good enough, leading him to study Computer Science.
Kujawa has been part of bootstrapping the Zeebe project, which was initially an experiment. He has run regular load tests and investigated the reliability of the system. Recently, he led a project to create a new Camunda Exporter.
In his spare time, Kujawa recommends the book "The Pragmatic Programmer" by Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas. He also finds his favourite debugging tools, JFR, async profiler, and VIM, jq, invaluable.
Looking ahead, Kujawa is currently focusing on investing more effort in reliability testing and building the foundation for load testing and chaos experimenting. He believes in being pragmatic and finding the solution that brings the most value with the least cost.
- As a senior engineer at Camunda, Christopher Kujawa is working to build tools that developers love, especially focusing on solutions for managing distributed systems and event-driven architectures, which leverage technologies like Kubernetes, Docker ECS containers, and Camunda's open platform.
- With his belief that there are no problems, only challenges, and every challenge an opportunity to learn, Christopher Kujawa focuses on improving Camunda's remote setup and its technology, currently working on investing more effort in reliability testing, building the foundation for load testing, and chaos experimenting.
