Cleaned Transcript

Bart Farrell: In this episode of The Landscape, I got a chance to speak with Marino Wijay, who is a Staff Solutions Architect at Kong Inc. and a CNCF Ambassador based in Canada. Marino is passionate about service meshes and dedicated to building community by organizing events and creating spaces where people of all backgrounds and experience levels can share their knowledge.

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Now, let’s check out the episode with Marino.

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Marino Wijay: Hi, my name is Marino Wijay. I am a Staff Solutions Architect at Kong, the API management and service mesh company, as well as a leader in other developer-focused technologies.

Bart: Different CNCF Ambassadors focus on different areas. What’s your focus as a CNCF Ambassador?

Marino: I like to showcase projects in public spaces, whether through events, conferences, meetups, or even on social media. I’m the kind of person who likes to throw out ideas to get the conversation started. A lot of times, we work in silos when we write code or contribute to open source, and it’s important to bring some of that magic into the public space.

For example, I’ve previously run a conference for two years, and it showed me just how many amazing stories people have when they get on stage. It’s inspiring to hear how individuals and organizations are using CNCF projects, technologies, and ecosystems in the real world.

Bart: The CNCF landscape is vast, with over 200 projects. Which ones are you most excited about?

Marino: I’m really excited about Kuma, a service mesh that’s gaining traction.

Bart: For those who may not know, can you explain what Kuma is?

Marino: Sure! Kuma is another service mesh offering in the CNCF ecosystem, alongside technologies like Istio, Linkerd, and Cilium. Like other service meshes, it helps manage communication between microservices, but it has its own unique traits. While it’s not as widely used or contributed to as some others, we’re working to drive more interest and adoption.

Bart: Any other projects that have caught your attention?

Marino: I’ve been keeping an eye on Dapr (Distributed Application Runtime). It’s interesting because it decouples networking from applications while still allowing services to communicate effectively. It mimics some service mesh functionality, but it also brings additional logic to the table. I’m curious to see how Dapr evolves and where it fits in alongside existing networking technologies.

Bart: Let’s talk about trends in the cloud-native ecosystem. Platform engineering, eBPF, and AI are hot topics right now. Which trend are you most focused on?

Marino: I think platform engineering deserves more attention. There’s plenty of talk about the technologies, but we don’t hear enough about the actual practice—how end users are implementing platform engineering in their day-to-day workflows.

I’d love to see more real-world stories from end users, especially about how tools like CI/CD pipelines are helping automate tasks, speed up deployments, and improve developer velocity. On top of that, I’m curious to see how AI influences these practices. AI won’t be the center stage, but it has the potential to move the needle significantly in areas like automation and efficiency.

Bart: If someone wants to reach out to you, what’s the best way to do that?

Marino: You can find me on BlueSky at virtual.i6.wtf, on X, or on LinkedIn. I’m also active on the CNCF Slack. If you want to talk about networking, routing, switching, data centers, Cilium, or even career development—like transitioning between roles in tech—feel free to reach out. I’m happy to share my perspective because I’ve held a variety of roles, and I want others to see the opportunities that exist beyond their current positions.

Bart: Perfect. Thank you very much, Marino!

Marino: Thanks! Cheers!