As engineering systems expand, teams often create microservices, which can eventually lead to a fragmented ecosystem with dispersed data access, repeated business logic, and inconsistent developer experiences. A unified data graph and consistent execution layer can mitigate these issues by centralizing schemas, streamlining functionality composition, and minimizing operational overhead while maintaining performance and reliability.
Viaduct is Airbnb’s open-source, data-oriented service mesh and GraphQL platform, centered around a highly connected central schema. It has been pivotal in scaling Airbnb’s engineering operations.
Adam Miskiewicz, a Principal Software Engineer at Airbnb, contributed to Viaduct and is interviewed by Gregor Vand in a podcast. They discuss Viaduct’s inception at Airbnb, the architectural principles behind it, the challenge of scaling GraphQL to handle millions of queries per second, and the decision to open-source the platform. They also explore the potential future of backend development in an AI-driven landscape and the role unified data layers may play in shaping future engineering systems.
Gregor Vand is a security-focused technologist and former CTO in various cybersecurity and software engineering organizations. Based in Singapore, he can be found through his profile at vand.hk or on LinkedIn.
[Click here to see the episode transcript.](http://softwareengineeringdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/SED1897-Airbnb.txt)
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