Gus Buchele's team of software engineers orchestrated a significant transformation of their cloud-native platform, composed of hundreds of microservices, by upgrading from Prefect 1.0 to Prefect 2.0. This transition was driven by the need for a more modular, scalable, and observable workflow orchestration system that could handle dynamic workloads and strict reliability expectations. By deploying their system on Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) and utilizing Kubernetes workers, they achieved dynamic infrastructure scaling, reduced deployment times from several hours to just 20–30 minutes, and prevented API and database overloads. The new architecture allowed for better concurrency control and debugging capabilities, reducing cascading failures and improving system maintainability. This enhancement enabled the team to confidently tackle large-scale data initiatives and manage complex workflows, setting the stage for future upgrades to Prefect 3.0 for even deeper observability and advanced scaling features.