Quarkus in Action • Martin Stefanko, Jan Martiska & Holly Cummins

Feb 3, 2026

Jan Martiška, Quarkus software engineer and integrations specialist, and Martin Štefanko, Quarkus core engineer with app-server experience, and Holly Cummins, senior Quarkus technologist, talk about writing Quarkus in Action. They cover developer productivity, dev mode and continuous testing. They discuss the book’s structure, choosing extensions, native vs JVM tradeoffs, containerization, and frontend options.

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INSIGHT

Developer Productivity First

Quarkus prioritizes developer productivity with fast dev mode and continuous testing to speed iteration.
Build-time initialization and an ecosystem of integrations reduce boilerplate and improve flow.

INSIGHT

Build-Time Initialization Powers Speed

Quarkus does build-time initialization to pre-initialize applications and achieve blazing-fast startup.
That approach enables small memory footprints and fast native start times.

ANECDOTE

Why Martin Wrote The Book

Martin decided to write the book after being inspired by Heinz Kabutz's advice to write young.
He recruited Jan and seized an opportunity when the prior authors dropped out.

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This interview was recorded for the GOTO Book Club.
http://gotopia.tech/bookclub

Check out more here:
https://gotopia.tech/episodes/416

Martin Štefanko - Quarkus Core Engineer at IBM & Co-Author of "Quarkus in Action"
Jan Martiška - Software Engineer Quarkus at IBM & Co-Author of "Quarkus in Action"
Holly Cummins - Senior Technical Staff Member, Quarkus at IBM

RESOURCES
Martin
https://bsky.app/profile/xstefank.bsky.social
https://mastodon.cloud/@xstefank
https://x.com/xstefank
https://github.com/xstefank
https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-stefanko

Jan
https://bsky.app/profile/janmartiska.bsky.social
https://x.com/janmartiska
https://github.com/jmartisk
https://www.linkedin.com/in/janmartiska

Holly
https://hollycummins.com
https://hollycummins.com/type/blog
https://bsky.app/profile/hollycummins.com
https://hachyderm.io/@holly_cummins
https://twitter.com/holly_cummins
https://github.com/holly-cummins
https://linkedin.com/in/holly-k-cummins

Links
https://code.quarkus.io
https://vaadin.com

DESCRIPTION
Holly Cummins sits down with Martin Stefanko and Jan Martiška, authors of "Quarkus in Action", to discuss their journey writing this comprehensive guide to the Java framework. The authors share insights about Quarkus's developer experience, from its blazing-fast dev mode to native compilation capabilities, while revealing what they learned writing about 29 different extensions across 12 chapters.

They discuss the book's structure - from getting started to deploying in the cloud- and offer practical advice on when to use JVM versus native compilation, making this essential reading for both Quarkus newcomers and experienced developers.

RECOMMENDED BOOKS
Martin Stefanko • Jan Martiska • Quarkus in Action • https://amzn.to/3K1En2z
Ben Evans & Jim Gough • Optimizing Cloud Native Java • https://amzn.to/41nivD9
Kief Morris • Infrastructure as Code • https://amzn.to/4e6EBQc
Alex Soto Bueno & Jason Porter • Quarkus Cookbook • https://amzn.to/4au3QfF

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