Dismantling the vault: scaling to a data mesh during a 5x merger
When a European software company merged 5x overnight, its central data team became the biggest bottleneck in the business, and fixing the architecture first mattered more than adding headcount.
Overview
Explores how Axway's data team transformed its architecture during rapid growth: from a centralized Data Vault on dbt Core overseeing 15+ SaaS apps to a decentralized data mesh after a merger quintupled headcount from 1,000 to 5,000+. Covers when centralization impedes agility, migrating dbt Core to the dbt platform under merger pressure, and mesh governance via cross-project refs and data contracts.
What you'll take away
- 01
After a 5x merger pushed every department through one bottlenecked team, 74 Software fixed the architecture before adding headcount: domain ownership, data-as-a-product contracts, a self-serve platform, and federated governance.
- 02
The harder shift wasn't technology, it was defining three roles: data source owner, platform owner, and each domain as business owner of its own data and AI products.
- 03
Marketing proved the model first: a three-person squad shipped a clean model layer and shared semantic layer in months, and sales and finance followed once the pattern worked.
Session speaker
Zhen Xing
74software