Speakers
Kelsey Hightower
Author, Distinguished Engineer at Google and Tech figure known for his work with Kubernetes
Now What?
It's been over 10 years since Kubernetes was released and the cloud native movement came to life. Now what?
Kelsey is a former distinguished software engineer, developer advocate and speaker known for his work with Kubernetes, open-source software, and cloud computing.
He is renowned for his expertise in Kubernetes, open-source software, and cloud computing. Kelsey's journey into technology began with a passion for self-learning over 20 years ago and he quickly advanced through the tech industry, making impactful contributions at companies like Google, Puppet Labs, New Relic, and CoreOS.
Kelsey will be sharing his insights, expertise, and inspiring journey. Stay tuned for more details! In the meantime, watch Kelsey's talks from our previous events.
Patrick Debois
Co-author of the DevOps Handbook and Technologist known as the Father of DevOps
AI Native Development principles and practices
Development is experiencing a new phase of automation, similar to what we saw with DevOps. Numerous new tools are emerging, and it can be challenging to keep up with them. These tools are leading to new practices, and understanding the principles and patterns of these practices will help you navigate the space of AI Native Development.
Patrick Debois is a renowned expert in DevOps, DevSecOps, and the interaction with AI. He is a principal product engineer at Humans and code, and the co-author of the DevOps Handbook.
Patrick's work focuses on helping engineering teams become more productive with AI tooling, and delivering AI-powered products with engineering rigor and good practices. He takes a pragmatic approach to his work, grounded in reality and experience.
Patrick is active on social media and can be found on LinkedIn, YouTube, bSky, and X.
Lesley Cordero
Staff Software Engineer, The New York Times
DevOps is for Product Engineers, too
In this talk, we'll be diving into the intersection between product engineering, DevOps, and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE). We'll explore how they're combined to create a culture of technical excellence and psychological safety, both within a team and across an entire organization.
We'll start by discussing the fundamentals of DevOps and SRE, and then we'll explore how product engineers can use these principles and practices to develop more reliable, scalable, and resilient systems. We'll cover topics such as Service Level Objectives (SLOs), and how to define and use them effectively to manage expectations and prioritize high-impact work.
We'll also touch on how to create feedback loops to continuously improve the quality and performance of your products, and how to get buy-in from key stakeholders. Ultimately, you'll leave this talk with a deeper understanding of how to foster a culture of excellence, accountability, and psychological safety in your product engineering teams, and drive better outcomes for your organization as a whole.
In her current role, she is focused on observability, shared platforms, and building excellent teams by setting reliability vision & strategy across The Times, improving our observability footprint, and cultivating culture that builds with the most vulnerable employees in mind first. She shows care for others by holding them accountable to the best versions of themselves – and by buying them the occasional bubble tea.
Francesca Salvati
Lead Delivery Manager, Just Eat
Do more with less: scaling delivery management in large organizations
Navigating the complexities of scaling Agile delivery in a large organisation can be daunting. In this talk, we delve into the challenges faced in scaling Agile across 50 teams with limited resources and varying levels of maturity. At Just Eat Takeaway.com, we proposed a structured solution consisting of defining minimum service coverage, conducting deep dives into opportunity areas, and providing self-service tools for continuous improvement.
Through practical examples, we demonstrate how to analyse data, address team-level issues, and promote stakeholder buy-in. Join us to explore actionable strategies for achieving scaled agility, enhancing delivery efficiency, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement within your organisation.
Currently, Francesca serves as a Lead Delivery Manager at Just Eat Takeaway, where she leads a team of Agile Delivery Managers and Technical Programme Managers within the CIO org.
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Johan Abildskov
Software Engineer, Uber
Evolving teams beyond DevOps
As software engineers, we know the disappointment of working with bad software. As technology leaders, we know making software involves navigating tradeoffs, technical and organizational challenges, and a pragmatic approach.
As a DevOps consultant and now a Software Engineer at Uber, I’ve spent the last ten years experiencing different approaches to software engineering. I’ve seen teams struggling to ship while having an Agile transformation imposed on them and stood on the side of organizations declaring a successful DevOps transformation.
In this talk, I’ll cover some of the troubles that come from the disconnect between how we perceive making software and what reality shows us, emphasizing concrete examples and practices. My goal is to change the way you see software engineering, and if not that, at least give you a few useful practices that can be applied in your teams and organizations immediately.
Before being a Software Engineer, Johan spent a few years as DevOps and Continuous Delivery consultant, gathering experience across the industry.
Johan is passionate about how we build software, how we think about software and how we remember the humans involved in these complex sociotechnical systems.
Johan has a proud tradition of public speaking, with the firm belief that it is not only the best way to start small talk for introverts, but also that it is the most effective way to evolve your mental models and thinking.
When not in the midst of building or thinking of software Johan hyperfocuses on oddly specific hobbies such as competitive memory and speedsolving rubik's cubes.
Donna-Marie Patten
Executive Director, JP Morgan Chase & Co
Foundations for the Future – AI: Transforming Enterprise Technology Operations
AI presents opportunities to deliver transformation at scale for how we operate – particularly knowledge management with LLMs and agentic workflow operations.
Donna-Marie will share insights from her experience driving AI delivery aligned to customer outcomes and tips on how to identify and enable your largest value opportunities, including pitfalls and unexpected gotchas.
As we have learned, differentiating what is really an AI use case versus what is traditional automation is an acquired skill; Donna-Marie will talk about how you can do that for your business!
Donna-Marie is an outcomes-driven Programme Director with 22+ years of strategic and operational leadership experience. She excels in delivering large-scale global managed services and transformation programmes for Tier 1 Financial Services organisations.
Since joining JPMorgan Chase in 2021, she has been instrumental in driving key transformation initiatives as a Technical Programme Manager for Infrastructure Platforms, leading multiple initiatives, including AI for Transforming Enterprise Technology Operations.
As a certified Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) Master Practitioner and Trainer, Donna-Marie uses her expertise to coach and mentor high-performing individuals and teams.
Her leadership and expertise have been recognized with several accolades, including the 2022 Leader Award Finalist at the FDM Every Woman in Technology Awards and a 2023 Diversity Champion Finalist at the Black Tech Achievement Awards. Additionally she recently won the 2025 Women in Motivation category at The Power of a Woman Awards.
Outside of work, Donna-Marie is passionate about travel, new experiences, and fitness, serving as a Fitness Instructor and Presenter.
Jan Bosch
Professor of Software Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology
The end of Software Engineering (as we know it)
GenAI is affecting everything in the software development lifecycle, including requirements, architecture, coding, testing, validation/certification and documentation. Currently, many use GenAI to locally change one aspect of software development, but I claim that we have to reinvent SE in a holistic and end-to-end fashion in order to reap the benefits of AI.
Jan Bosch is professor at Chalmers University Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden and director of the Software Center (www.software-center.se), a strategic partner-funded collaboration between more than 15 large European companies (including Ericsson, Volvo Cars, Volvo Trucks, Saab Defense, Scania, Siemens and Bosch) and five universities focused on digitalization. Earlier, he worked as Vice President Engineering Process at Intuit Inc where he also led Intuit's Open Innovation efforts and headed the central mobile technologies team. Before Intuit, he was vice president and head of the Software and Application Technologies Laboratory at Nokia Research Center, Finland. Prior to joining Nokia, he headed the software engineering research group at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. He received a MSc degree from the University of Twente, The Netherlands, and a PhD degree from Lund University, Sweden.
His research activities include digitalisation, evidence-based development, business ecosystems, artificial intelligence and machine/deep learning, software architecture, software product families and software variability management. He is the author of several books including "Design and Use of Software Architectures: Adopting and Evolving a Product Line Approach" published by Pearson Education (Addison-Wesley & ACM Press) and ÒSpeed, Data and Ecosystems: Excelling in a Software-Driven WorldÓ published by Taylor and Francis, editor of several books and volumes and author of hundreds of research articles. He is editor for Journal of Systems and Software as well as Science of Computer Programming, chaired several conferences as general and program chair, served on numerous program committees and organised countless workshops. Jan is a fellow member of the International Software Product Management Association (ISPMA) and a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Science.
Jan serves on the boards of Burt Intelligence, Shelfplanner and Strawberry planet. Earlier he served on the boards of IVER and Peltarion and was chairman of the boards of Auqtus, Fidesmo and Remente. In the startup space, Jan is an angel investor in several startup companies. He also runs a boutique consulting firm, Boschonian AB, that offers its clients support around the implications of digitalization including the management of R&D and innovation. For more information see his website: www.janbosch.com.
Peter Gostev
Head of AI, Moonpig
Panel Discussion: Responsible AI in an era of transformation
Get ready for a dynamic discussion diving into the biggest challenges and opportunities in Responsible AI. How is AI changing the job market—are we looking at a future of mass displacement, or can we turn the tide toward a transformed and empowered workforce? We’ll also tackle the big questions: What about AI’s massive energy demands? Are regulations like the EU AI Act helping or holding back innovation? And with AI advancing at lightning speed, how do we keep it ethical and under control—can DevOps Guardrails do the job?
The panel will break down these hot topics and spark fresh insights on how we can shape AI’s future for the better. Don’t miss it!
Anne Currie
Co-Founder, Strategically Green
Panel Discussion: Responsible AI in an era of transformation
Get ready for a dynamic discussion diving into the biggest challenges and opportunities in Responsible AI. How is AI changing the job market—are we looking at a future of mass displacement, or can we turn the tide toward a transformed and empowered workforce? We’ll also tackle the big questions: What about AI’s massive energy demands? Are regulations like the EU AI Act helping or holding back innovation? And with AI advancing at lightning speed, how do we keep it ethical and under control—can DevOps Guardrails do the job?
The panel will break down these hot topics and spark fresh insights on how we can shape AI’s future for the better. Don’t miss it!
She is also the author of the scifi Panopticon series.
Lofred Madzou
AI Governance Expert
Panel Discussion: Responsible AI in an era of transformation
Get ready for a dynamic discussion diving into the biggest challenges and opportunities in Responsible AI. How is AI changing the job market—are we looking at a future of mass displacement, or can we turn the tide toward a transformed and empowered workforce? We’ll also tackle the big questions: What about AI’s massive energy demands? Are regulations like the EU AI Act helping or holding back innovation? And with AI advancing at lightning speed, how do we keep it ethical and under control—can DevOps Guardrails do the job?
The panel will break down these hot topics and spark fresh insights on how we can shape AI’s future for the better. Don’t miss it!
Before, he was an AI Lead at the World Economic Forum where he supported Fortune 500 companies across jurisdictions in their implementation of AI governance processes. He also advised various EU and Asia-Pacific governments on AI regulation. Previously, he was a policy officer at the French Digital Council, where he co-drafted the French National AI Strategy.
Chris Davidson
Lead Solutions Engineer, Atlassian
Building the future of modern work: Practices to empower every team in the age of AI
In a recent survey, enterprise executives told us that their organization’s most significant challenges are productivity, collaboration, and tracking progress against goals. Aligning teams, reacting quickly to changes, and giving visibility to each other’s work are top-of-mind for business leaders in 2024.
Chris Davidson, Lead Solutions Engineer at Atlassian, will talk about how top enterprise organizations are balancing autonomy with alignment and discover how technology trends like AI and modern ways of working can make your teams more effective.
Nerea Leguinazabal
Solutions Engineer, GitHub
Automate and Elevate: Boosting Developer Productivity with AI
Engineering teams are in demand, but we also know teams are now being asked to deliver software faster than ever before. With the introduction of AI, how can you make your teams more productive and increase efficiency? In this talk we'll explore the possibilities of AI to unlock your developers' productivity and to transform the way we build software.
We'll show how we can leverage AI to write cleaner, more efficient code, reduce errors and bugs, all while accelerating our development cycles. We will also discuss some of the challenges and opportunities that come with integrating AI, but how it can accelerate our DevOps adoption and delivery. Join us as we address the need to balance automation with human oversight and creativity.
Nerea is a Solutions Engineer at GitHub, working closely with customers to design and implement effective solutions using GitHub's platform. She supports organizations in their transition from legacy systems to modern, cloud-native architectures, promoting a code-first approach and enabling DevOps best practices.
Nerea frequently collaborates with customers to demonstrate the latest innovations from GitHub and Microsoft, delivering live, industry-specific demos tailored to real-world use cases.
Outside of work, you'll often find Nerea outdoors—hiking, running, or pushing her limits in Hyrox races.
Henri Terho
Senior AI Consultant, Eficode
Demystifying AI or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the LLM
Everyone and everything is talking about AI and how it will revolutionise everything. But what even is this AI? You hear about models, you hear about self healing tests, you hear about Gemini or ChatGPT. But what even is a GPT? What is a large language model and why does it have to be large? Does AI steal all my IP and is deepseek as a model safe to use.
Join me in this session to demystify what is currently going on in the AI field and learn to peek behind the curtain on what’s actually going on and where AI fits and where it does not. We will go thorough the basics of math behind AI and why this revolution is happening now. Also learn about the problems in measuring and evaluating AI and how to answer these problems in the future, as all AI problems right now are AI evaluation problems.
After the session I hope you can make decisions on AI usage more confidently and check out Rovo, Gemini, ChatGPT and make informed decisions on what you want and how these technologies will shape the future of software development.
Henri Terho is a Senior AI Consultant at Eficode with broad experience spanning regulated industries—automotive, banking, aerospace, and beyond—alongside a deep commitment to open-source collaboration. He has played a key role in fostering community-driven innovation, having served as chairman of Tampere Entreprenourship society and co-founding Tampere Tribe to support local startup culture.
Henri’s passion for AI, quality assurance, and rapid software development is evident in both his industry work and ongoing PhD research on agile product innovation. He frequently shares his expertise on stage and in publications, championing lean practices and the latest AI advances to empower organizations worldwide.
Conference hosts
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Pinja Kujala
Agile and Product Management coach at Eficode
Dan Khurram
Senior Strategy and Product Management Consultant at Eficode
Dan is a senior strategy and product management consultant. Since landing in the software and product development world after years of customer and business facing roles, he’s developed a deep respect for the people who bravely turn ideas into impacts.
Dan is a champion for connecting the creators directly with their audience, ensuring that every product is a true reflection of the people behind it and the problems it aims to solve. Agile, people-focused, and a believer in the power of experimentation led learning and doing
