Herman Langner

Zappi, a growing scale-up, faced a make-or-break moment: to unlock the next generation of insights, it needed a purpose-built Lakehouse platform - fast. With limited runway after previous setbacks, it took a bold gamble: adopting Elixir, despite having zero prior experience with the language.

This high-stakes choice paid off. Elixir’s concurrency model, scalability, and “Let it crash” philosophy were a force multiplier for us to design a robust, decoupled system. From onboarding Elixir newcomers to overcoming technical challenges, we learned invaluable lessons about maximizing delivery under pressure.

In this talk, I’ll share:

• Why we chose Elixir.
• Strategies for rapidly onboarding a team with no Elixir experience.
• How Elixir’s unique principles turned challenges into opportunities.
• Practical insights for teams betting on new technologies in high-risk projects.

Whether you’re a tech lead or engineer, this story offers real-world guidance for innovating under constraints.

Key Takeaways:

• How Elixir’s design can be used to elevate and improve your design and architecture.
• Eliminate concern around adopting Elixir and some tips on how to approach.
• Useful insights on how to use Elixir in practice.

Target Audience:

The intended scope of the audience is quite broad. While it won’t go into deep technical details, there will be content for

• Engineers who are cautious about adopting Elixir
• Engineers interested in real world implementations, especially in organisations where the primary language is not Elixir
• Engineers who are interested in design and architecture