Staff engineers often get overwhelmed by long-term ownership of critical projects. This talk explores how to avoid burnout by starting every project with an exit strategy—whether transferring ownership, pausing or bootstrapping a team.

Thirty-nine seconds after launch, the Ariane 5 rocket exploded—caused by software design errors. In this talk, Mark analyzes these historical flaws to explore key lessons in resilience and product security. We’ll discuss testing, validation, legacy code, design assumptions, and the challenge of proving when things don’t go wrong.

Staff+ Engineers often fear working on the wrong projects. This talk explains how that fear stems from misalignment with your company’s business strategy. Learn to identify your company’s strategy, align your projects with it, and communicate value to stakeholders. Maximize your impact by refocusing efforts on work that truly matters.

In this keynote talk, Kelly explores principles, practices, and patterns that are actually effective at sustaining systems resilience, from the overlooked to the counterintuitive.