In this Q&A series, Matthew Hirst and Nate Mitchell of Hornet discuss their experiences with Apache Cassandraâ„¢ and open-source technologies in building cloud-native, data-driven applications. They share their technical backgrounds, current priorities for the team, systems in place at Hornet, key learnings and challenges faced while working on this project, vision for the future, and advice for their younger selves. The discussion highlights the importance of stability, availability, Infrastructure as Code, and keeping up with upgrades to ensure a seamless user experience.