Fran Méndez Joins Hookdeck to Build the Future of Event-Driven Architecture

If you've been following my work with AsyncAPI and event-driven architecture over the years, you know how passionate I am about building open, developer-first infrastructure. Today, I'm thrilled to officially announce that I've joined Hookdeck as VP & General Manager of Outpost. After spending years working on event-driven architecture and open standards, I'm excited to help shape the future of how platforms deliver events to their users.

Why Event-Driven Infrastructure Matters

Throughout my career, I've been passionate about event-driven systems. From creating AsyncAPI to working with companies building real-time, asynchronous platforms, I've seen firsthand how critical reliable event delivery is to modern software architecture.

The reality is that most SaaS and API platforms eventually need to notify their users when something happens: a payment completes, a workflow advances, data changes. But building robust outbound event delivery infrastructure is deceptively complex. What starts as a simple webhook system quickly becomes a maintenance burden as you scale.

Why Hookdeck and Outpost

Hookdeck has already built something remarkable with their Event Gateway, a unified infrastructure layer for both receiving and sending events, with a primary focus on inbound event handling. When I learned about Outpost, their open-source event delivery infrastructure, I knew this was where I wanted to be. Outpost represents a fundamental shift in how we think about event delivery: moving beyond basic webhooks to a comprehensive approach that includes message queues, event buses, and more.

What excites me most is that Outpost isn't just another proprietary solution. It's open source (Apache 2.0), built on the Event Destinations standard, and designed to give developers full control over their infrastructure while delivering a best-in-class experience.

My work with AsyncAPI taught me that when you build on open standards and put developers first, you create ecosystems that transcend individual products. Event Destinations is following that same path. It's an open, community-driven initiative to establish consistent guidelines for event delivery across the industry. Like AsyncAPI, it's about creating shared patterns that benefit everyone. Outpost is our open-source implementation of these guidelines, and I'm here to help both the standard and the product become the foundation for how platforms deliver events.

What I'll Be Working On

As VP & General Manager of Outpost, I'll be focused on:

• Growing the Outpost ecosystem: Working with the community to expand destination types, improve documentation, and make deployment even easier
• Establishing standards: Building on the Event Destinations initiative to create consistent patterns across the industry
• Developer experience: Ensuring that both platform builders and their end users have the best possible experience
• Strategic partnerships: Collaborating with cloud providers, infrastructure companies, and developer platforms

An Event-Driven Future

I believe we're moving toward a world where every application is event-driven by default. Events are the connective tissue of modern software: they power real-time experiences, enable loose coupling, and make systems more resilient and scalable.

But to get there, we need better infrastructure. We need tools that handle the complexity of multi-tenant event delivery, provide observability and debugging capabilities, and support the growing heterogeneity of destination types that developers expect.

That's exactly what we're building at Hookdeck.

Join the Outpost Community

If you're building a platform that delivers events to users, I'd love to hear from you. Whether you're just getting started with webhooks or managing a complex multi-tenant event delivery system, Outpost can help.

One of the most exciting aspects of Outpost is its open-source nature. This means you're not just adopting a tool; you're joining a community that's actively shaping how event delivery works across the industry. We're looking for contributors, early adopters, and thought leaders who want to influence the direction of event infrastructure.

Whether you're interested in adding support for new destination types, improving the developer experience, or sharing your use cases and feedback, there's a place for you.

🧑‍💻 Try Outpost: https://github.com/hookdeck/outpost

📚 Read the docs: https://outpost.hookdeck.com/docs

💬 Get in touch: https://hookdeck.com/contact

The future of event-driven infrastructure is open, reliable, and developer-first. Together, we can build the event delivery infrastructure that the industry deserves: one that's transparent, extensible, and built on proven standards.