Last month, I had the opportunity to attend DDD Europe 2025 in the Queen Elisanbeth Hall in Antwerp — a few inspiring days full of insights, ideas, and engaging discussions around Domain-Driven Design, software quality, and architecture. Here are some of my key takeaways:

The Talks

Charting the Uncharted

By Prem Chandrasekaran
A passionate talk about the complexity of defining Bounded Contexts and subdomains in DDD. While well delivered, it mostly reinforced existing knowledge for me.

Domain Experiments

By Mike Wojtyna
Loved this practical take on using TDD as a tool to experiment with domain models safely — a great approach to avoid full rewrites when evolving your model.

Design Patterns for Software Diagramming

By Jacqui Read
One of the more directly applicable sessions! Clear and actionable tips on visual communication and software diagramming. I’ll definitely adopt some of these patterns in my day-to-day work.

Improving Feature Flag Implementation

By Dorra Bartaguiz
This one didn’t quite land for me — the core message around feature flags got a bit lost in the delivery.

Team Topologies & Microservices

By Chris Richardson
A strong reminder that microservices only thrive when paired with the right organizational design. Chris made a compelling case for using Team Topologies patterns to shift toward vertically sliced teams and improve team alignment and delivery effectiveness.

A Defence of Technical Excellence

By Chris Simon

⭐ My personal highlight!

Chris introduced an excellent tool for visualizing reinforcing and balancing feedback loops to explain why internal software quality should never be compromised. As someone who has often had to defend technical quality in the face of budget or time pressure, this session gave me new arguments and a better mental model for those crucial conversations.

Breaking Conventions for More Performant Models

By Cyrille Martraire
Some interesting examples of when breaking conventions can better align your model with its bounded context — though the practical takeaways for my own work were limited.

My AI Learning Journey

By Eric Evans
A fascinating deep dive from Eric into the world of LLMs and how companies like Anthropic shape model behavior. Academic in nature, but full of insight into how these models really work under the hood.

Final Thoughts

Overall, DDD Europe 2025 was a great mix of deep dives, practical tips, and renewed perspectives. Already looking forward to next year!