MAIN TRACK
Arrival & Coffee
Mind the gap: Navigating the staff+ performance cliff
Explore why new Staff+ leaders often feel lost and how to rebuild confidence, clarity, and impact after the transition.
Overcoming “us vs. them” thinking
Why us vs. them thinking arises, how to spot it, and how – and why – to bridge the divide.
Scaling AI for high-stakes, real-time payments
What does it take to run real-time AI in Stripe’s core payment flow? This is the story of scaling ML in a latency-critical system used by billions and built by multiple engineering orgs.
Morning Break
Marcy Lab’s 90-day lift-off playbook: Building high-impact, durable engineers
From classroom to commit: How a one-year, industry-co-designed fellowship equips engineers to ship in the AI era and the simple onboarding patterns partner teams use to turn early talent into durable performers.
Coherent impact: The art of strategy
Explore how to turn short-term chaos into long-term impact through practical strategies for resilient, grounded engineering leadership.
Scaling systems, scaling influence: Lessons from distributed architecture
Scaling systems and scaling influence share the same principles. Learn how distributed systems thinking can help you become a more effective technical leader at scale.
The silent infrastructure crisis: AI bots and the future of web performance
A technical deep dive into AI bot traffic’s infrastructure, security, and performance impacts, backed by Fastly’s large-scale 2025 analysis.
Anti-Misalignment: Nobody knows what “alignment” is
Most “alignment” efforts just react to misalignment. This talk reframes alignment as group flow, explores why misalignment is so viscerally felt, and shares practical tools to move from reactive coordination to proactive clarity and autonomy.
Lunch
You can big bang!
Explore when rewriting code from scratch actually works and how to plan a successful, high-impact system redesign.
Leading a team through 0-1 product development
In this talk we will discuss tips for leading an engineering team through developing a new product fast, especially when there are a lot of unknowns. In this talk we will discuss tips for leading an engineering team through developing a new product fast, especially when there are a lot of unknowns.
Building braver: How to take bigger risks in your roadmap
Discover why engineering teams avoid bold bets and how leaders can build confidence to pursue transformative high impact projects.
Lessons from the other side: What your VP is actually thinking
Learn how to build a partnership with your VP by sharing unfiltered reality and gaining the context you need.
Afternoon Break
The altitude slider: Knowing when to dive into code vs. drive the strategy
Practical cues and rituals that help senior ICs oscillate between architectural vision and hands-on execution.
Are we arguing or are we architecting?
Guiding technology decisions at scale is daunting for senior ICs. Spirited debates often feel like conflict, but they’re crucial. Learn to turn these clashes into collaborative, well-informed decisions. Are we arguing or architecting?
Engineering excellence: New product development in medical devices
Lessons from leading a seven-year development of a NextGen SPECT/CT scanner, focusing on innovation, compliance, and team leadership.
Networking Mixer
INTERACTIVE SESSIONS
Meet the speakers
Chat with the speakers face-to-face in a relaxed, conversational environment.
Connecting Black leaders
Connect with other leaders who have similar backgrounds and experiences to yours, and build a peer network for support throughout your leadership journey.
How do you know where to focus your attention as a staff+ leader?
Join facilitated conversations and dive into key issues facing engineering teams
How do you embed observability into your engineering culture?
Join facilitated conversations and dive into key issues facing engineering teams
I have a mix of junior and senior engineers – how do I adjust my management style to fit their needs?
Trade tactics for tackling everyday challenges.
How do you ensure your team knows what AI code is doing in production?
Join facilitated conversations and dive into key issues facing engineering teams
How can you manage your workload with your parenthood duties, without burning out?
Join facilitated conversations and dive into key issues facing engineering teams
How can you facilitate valuable post-incident reviews?
Join facilitated conversations and dive into key issues facing engineering teams
I have to work closely with my product management peer – how do I make that relationship work?
Trade tactics for tackling everyday challenges.
Meet the speakers
Chat with the speakers face-to-face in a relaxed, conversational environment.
Tackling the role of Tech Lead
Dedicated sessions on how to take the next step in your career for tackling the role of a Tech Lead
Connecting Neurodivergent leaders
Connect with other leaders who have similar backgrounds and experiences to yours, and build a peer network for support throughout your leadership journey.
Meet leaders from the Banking and Financial Services domain
Join our relaxed sessions where you can meet peers working in similar domains to share ideas, collaborate on challenges and exchange solutions.
How can you measure developer productivity without damaging morale?
Join facilitated conversations and dive into key issues facing engineering teams
Voltron Quest
Inspired by Lara Hogan’s Manager Voltron, meet other leaders to build your peer network at StaffPlus New York.
Stepping into the role of Staff Engineer
Dedicated sessions on how to take the next step in your career for stepping into the role of a Staff Engineer
Connecting Asian leaders
Connect with other leaders who have similar backgrounds and experiences to yours, and build a peer network for support throughout your leadership journey.
How to mentor effectively?
Join facilitated conversations and dive into key issues facing engineering teams
How can developer teams increase productivity while raising the security bar?
Join facilitated conversations and dive into key issues facing engineering teams.
I want to be able to influence direction outside of my direct team – how can I do that?
Trade tactics for tackling everyday challenges.
How do you influence decisions effectively as a staff+ leader?
Join facilitated conversations and dive into key issues facing engineering teams
How can you solve the problem of technical debt when you’re scaling up?
Join facilitated conversations and dive into key issues facing engineering teams.
How can you foster a culture of experimentation within your teams?
Join facilitated conversations and dive into key issues facing engineering teams.
Meet the speakers
Chat with the speakers face-to-face in a relaxed, conversational environment.
Preparing for the role of Principal Engineer
Dedicated sessions on how to take the next step in your career for preparing for the role of a Principal Engineer
Connecting Queer leaders
Connect with other leaders who have similar backgrounds and experiences to yours, and build a peer network for support throughout your leadership journey.
Meet the speakers
Chat with the speakers face-to-face in a relaxed, conversational environment.
WORKSHOP TRACK
Beyond the hype: Measuring the real impact of AI-assisted engineering
Learn how to move beyond surface-level AI metrics to measure its true impact on engineering performance. In this hands-on workshop, you’ll apply a practical AI Measurement Framework, uncover meaningful insights on developer experience, team effectiveness, and business results, and leave with actionable strategies for maximizing AI’s value.
Making your Staff+ impact visible
Practical workshop equipping Staff+ engineers with tools to showcase achievements, amplify influence, strengthen reputation, and gain recognition across organizations.
Team building in the age of AI
AI is transforming how engineering teams work—and how leaders lead. In this interactive workshop, you’ll build your team’s AI charter, rethink your role as a leader, and learn how to grow the high-value human skills your team needs to thrive in an AI-powered world.
Building a metrics-driven team
Drawing on insights from Accelerate, Jez Humble explores how to use data to drive improvement across your engineering teams. You’ll learn the key metrics that predict success, the principles behind them, and how to create a transparent, aligned, and high-performing organisation.
SOLUTIONS TRACK
Live demo: CircleCI – Meet Chunk: Your agent to ship at AI speed with confidence
Explore solutions for your technical issues.
Live demo: Tailscale – How to connect to anything, anywhere with Tailscale
Explore solutions for your technical issues.
Live demo: DX – How to measure AI’s impact on developer productivity with DX
Explore solutions for your technical issues.
Live demo: Harness – From toil to triumph: Real-world journeys to platform-driven software delivery
Explore solutions for your technical issues.
Live demo: Sonar – How SonarQube fuels AI-enabled development and builds trust into every line of code
Explore solutions for your technical issues.
Live demo: Honeycomb – From chaos to clarity: Fast, full-fidelity debugging without the guesswork
Explore solutions for your technical issues.
Live demo: Outsystems – Generate enterprise apps in minutes with AI-powered mentor and agent workbench
Explore solutions for your technical issues.
MAIN TRACK
Arrival & Coffee
Reimagining the image pipeline at Squarespace
This talk explores the evolution of Squarespace’s image pipeline—why change was needed, how the architecture adapted for scale and flexibility, and the unique challenges faced along the way.
Un-becoming the bottleneck
The biggest obstacle to team growth is often Staff+ engineers themselves. Breaking this pattern requires more than just “org-wide impact” it calls for deep, deliberate focus on growing 2-3 key engineers around you.
How I learned to stop worrying and love distributed systems: 25 years of lessons learned
Explore practical methods for continuous delivery, solving common challenges to enable faster, more reliable software releases for your team.
Morning Break
Building Figma
Explore how a small, scrappy team at Figma turned a big product vision into a major launch through smart execution.
AI won’t fix developer productivity (unless you fix context first)
Discover how context engineering unlocks real developer productivity, making AI tools effective by connecting decisions, history, and code.
AI-accelerated migrations at scale
Learn how Airbnb has been using AI and self-serve tools to enable seamless, large-scale migrations, and some of the hurdles we’ve faced to get there.
Lunch
The magic of crisis
Discover how Staff+ engineers can use moments of crisis to drive lasting technical change and strengthen organizational systems.
Scaling LinkedIn’s search infrastructure: Key decisions and engineering challenges
Explore the key engineering decisions and challenges behind scaling LinkedIn’s search infrastructure to support billions of daily queries.
Compiler makeover: How technical debt created happier developers
Tired of endless patches and quick fixes to your developer tools? So were we. Learn how we at WSO2 turned our outdated Ballerina compiler into a driver of innovation, community growth, and happier developers.
How to lead when you just don’t know the tech
How to lead successfully in unfamiliar technical domains by embracing uncertainty, empowering teams, and still delivering results—even when you’re not the expert.
Afternoon Break
The lean architect: Experimenting your way to better decisions
Discover how hypothesis-driven architecture helps Staff+ engineers make better decisions early, reduce risk, and build resilient systems.
Citation needed
A reflective talk on questioning “requirements,” exposing assumptions, and reducing costly missteps through honesty, clarity, and adaptability.
Guiding mentees on the path to distinguished engineering
Discover how to mentor engineers toward Distinguished roles by developing technical excellence, strategic impact, and organizational influence.
INTERACTIVE SESSIONS
Meet the speakers
Chat with the speakers face-to-face in a relaxed, conversational environment.
Connecting Women leaders
Connect with other leaders who have similar backgrounds and experiences to yours, and build a peer network for support throughout your leadership journey.
How do you impact the technical standards of your org as a staff+ leader?
Join facilitated conversations and dive into key issues facing engineering teams
How can I create the conditions for remote and international teams to thrive?
Join facilitated conversations and dive into key issues facing engineering teams.
I am now regularly in meetings with non-engineering stakeholders – how do I communicate technical ideas and decisions effectively?
Trade tactics for tackling everyday challenges.
How can AI practically deliver value to engineering teams?
Join facilitated conversations and dive into key issues facing engineering teams.
How do you work effectively on cross-team projects as a staff+ leader?
Join facilitated conversations and dive into key issues facing engineering teams
How can I address automation anxiety in my engineering teams?
Join facilitated conversations and dive into key issues facing engineering teams.
People keep telling me I need an engineering strategy – how do I do this?
Trade tactics for tackling everyday challenges.
How can I effectively prevent LLMs from creating hidden technical debt?
Join facilitated conversations and dive into key issues facing engineering teams.
Meet the speakers
Chat with the speakers face-to-face in a relaxed, conversational environment.
Meet leaders from the Media and Entertainment domain
Join our relaxed sessions where you can meet peers working in similar domains to share ideas, collaborate on challenges and exchange solutions.
Making the leap to Engineering Manager
Dedicated sessions on how to take the next step in your career for making the leap to Engineering Manager.
Connecting Parent leaders
Connect with other leaders who have similar backgrounds and experiences to yours, and build a peer network for support throughout your leadership journey.
How do you keep learning even when you’re short on time?
Join facilitated conversations and dive into key issues facing engineering teams
Diving into the role of Engineering Director
Dedicated sessions on how to take the next step in your career for preparing for the role of an Engineering Director
Connecting Latinx leaders
Connect with other leaders who have similar backgrounds and experiences to yours, and build a peer network for support throughout your leadership journey.
How can AI be leveraged in day to day workflows?
Join facilitated conversations and dive into key issues facing engineering teams.
How can you enable collaboration across your whole developer org?
Join facilitated conversations and dive into key issues facing engineering teams.
How do you effectively evaluate what LLMs to use in your SDLC?
Join facilitated conversations and dive into key issues facing engineering teams.
My company lives in ambiguity with frequently changing direction – how do I lead effectively through this?
Trade tactics for tackling everyday challenges.
How do you make technical decisions that balance benefits and tradeoffs?
Join facilitated conversations and dive into key issues facing engineering teams
How can you minimize context-switching and keep your developers focused?
Join facilitated conversations and dive into key issues facing engineering teams.
Connecting Disabled leaders
Connect with other leaders who have similar backgrounds and experiences to yours, and build a peer network for support throughout your leadership journey.
Meet the speakers
Chat with the speakers face-to-face in a relaxed, conversational environment.
Becoming a VP of Engineering
Dedicated sessions on how to take the next step in your career for Becoming a VP of Engineering
WORKSHOP TRACK
Making your Staff+ impact visible
Practical workshop equipping Staff+ engineers with tools to showcase achievements, amplify influence, strengthen reputation, and gain recognition across organizations.
Beyond the hype: Measuring the real impact of AI-assisted engineering
Learn how to move beyond surface-level AI metrics to measure its true impact on engineering performance. In this hands-on workshop, you’ll apply a practical AI Measurement Framework, uncover meaningful insights on developer experience, team effectiveness, and business results, and leave with actionable strategies for maximizing AI’s value.
Team building in the age of AI
AI is transforming how engineering teams work—and how leaders lead. In this interactive workshop, you’ll build your team’s AI charter, rethink your role as a leader, and learn how to grow the high-value human skills your team needs to thrive in an AI-powered world.
Building a metrics-driven team
Drawing on insights from Accelerate, Jez Humble explores how to use data to drive improvement across your engineering teams. You’ll learn the key metrics that predict success, the principles behind them, and how to create a transparent, aligned, and high-performing organisation.
SOLUTIONS TRACK
Engineering in Action with Augment Code
Sponsored by Learn how real engineering teams turn ideas into practice.
Live demo: Unblocked – Instantly find answers from code, docs, discussions and more
Explore solutions for your technical issues.
Live demo: Draftt – Manage software end-of-life before it manages you
Explore solutions for your technical issues.