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As cloud platforms evolve, serverless functions offer scalable solutions, but cloud-specific requirements often make it challenging to keep business logic portable. This session demonstrates building cloud-agnostic business logic in Kotlin using a simplified variant of clean architecture, combined with Spring Cloud Function and headless Gradle modules to separate core logic from cloud-specific code.
Elena will show how to structure a Kotlin serverless application to keep business logic cloud-agnostic while allowing platform-specific integrations, such as storage, where needed. By isolating core logic, developers can deploy the same business code across providers like AWS Lambda and Azure Functions.
Through live coding, attendees will explore practical techniques for creating and deploying Kotlin serverless applications with portable business logic.
Key Takeaways:
- Use clean architecture and Spring Cloud Function to make business logic portable across cloud providers.
- Leverage Gradle modules to enforce boundaries between business logic and cloud-specific code.
By the end, attendees will have a framework for building cloud-agnostic business logic in Kotlin, ready to implement in their own projects.
Interview:
What is your session about, and why is it important for senior software developers? Why should attendees prioritize your session?
This session is about structuring serverless applications so that core business logic remains portable across cloud platforms like AWS and Azure. Many teams start with serverless for its scalability but quickly find themselves locked into a single cloud due to platform-specific code. I’ll show how to apply a clean architecture approach with Kotlin and Spring Cloud Function to separate business logic from infrastructure concerns. This is especially relevant for senior developers and architects who are making design decisions that need to scale and adapt to evolving cloud strategies.
What are the common challenges developers and architects face in this area?
The biggest challenge is avoiding cloud lock-in while still taking advantage of what each platform offers. It’s easy to let infrastructure concerns bleed into your core logic, making it harder to move or reuse code later. Another common issue is a lack of clear structure in serverless projects, especially when business logic is mixed with cloud-specific triggers or storage code.
What's one thing you hope attendees will implement immediately after your talk?
I hope they’ll start thinking in terms of boundaries. Even small changes, like moving core logic into a separate Gradle module, can help enforce separation between business logic and infrastructure specific code. It’s a small step with a big long-term payoff.
What makes InfoQ Dev Summit stand out as a conference for senior software professionals?
As someone who has followed InfoQ’s articles and technical deep dives for years, I have always appreciated their no-nonsense approach to covering real-world software challenges. The Dev Summit brings that same level of depth and clarity to live, actionable discussions - no hype, just experienced practitioners talking about architecture, hard-earned lessons, and patterns that actually last.
What does being part of InfoQ Dev Summit mean to you?
It’s like joining a conversation I have been learning from for years. InfoQ’s articles have helped shape my approach to software design, so getting to contribute my own experiences feels like giving back to a community that’s made me a better engineer. In addition, I am excited to learn from the other speakers and attendees.
Speaker
Elena van Engelen
Author of "Kotlin Crash Course" | Lead Engineer, Trainer, Blogger and Speaker
I am an expert software engineer with over two decades of experience who is driven by passion for technology. I specialize in Kotlin and cloud-native solutions and focus on building mission critical, scalable and maintainable systems. Besides software development I also enjoy sharing my knowledge through talks, my blog, giving Kotlin training and my book, “Kotlin Crash Course", a project-based approach to learning Kotlin from scratch. Explore more about my work and expertise on my website.
