A look back at QCon San Francisco 2024
Thank you to the 850+ senior software engineers, architects, and team leads who made QCon San Francisco 2024 a success! Explore conference highlights and catch up on session videos you missed. With 114+ software leaders sharing practical insights and real-world use cases, QCon helped attendees validate their technical roadmaps, solve challenges, and confidently adopt the right innovations and practices. Looking ahead, join us for QCon San Francisco 2025 (November 17-21). Sign up for email alerts today to be the first to hear about tracks, speakers, and special pricing.
QCon San Francisco focused on emerging software trends and innovations
Technical talks from over 114 software domain experts focused on innovation and change. Talks focused on patterns & practices, not products and pitches. Attendees learned implementable ideas they could apply after the event.
- Green Tech
- Rust
- WASM
- eBPF
- Machine Learning @ Edge
- Scalable Configuration Management
- Infrastructure Unification
- Cue Lang
- MLOps
- Team Topologies
- Staff+ Engineer Path
- Service Meshes
- Microfrontends
- Multicloud Practices
- Software Ethics
- Feature Engineering
- Mode Inference/Prediction
- Observability Practices
- Server-Driven Frontend
- Decarbonizing the Grid
- Operator Pattern for
Non-Clustered Resources - Patterns & Heuristics
Enabling Fast Flow - Open Policy Agent
- Java 17 (LTS)
- Paved Road
- DevSecOps
- DevOps in Practice
- Kubernetes Strategies
- Observability / Telemetry
- Site Reliability Engineering
- Chaos Engineering
- Operating Microservices
- Data Engineering
- GraphQL
- Go Techniques & Patterns
- DevEx
- Reactive
- Performance
- Macroservices
- Serverless: Orchestration &
Choreography - Cloud Architectures
- Patterns for Scale
- IaC (Infrastructure as Code)
- Polyglot Software Practices
Loved by senior software practitioners like you
Take a look at the event highlights and see what your peers had to say on social media about #QConSF.
First time attending #QConSF and cant be more happy with the amazing learning and networking presented here. More importantly, great to have fresh and varied perspective of the software world from experts around us.
Harsh Tamakuwala
Software Developer at Bloomberg
In just 3 days: - 12 new LinkedIn connections made - ~25 pages of handwritten notes taken - 20 incredible talks attended - Another 20 sessions bookmarked for later - Numerous technical and industry conversations had - One amazing conference experienced Thank you QCon Software Development Conferences San Francisco for an inspiring three days packed with learning, networking, and engaging discussions. A big thank you to Paylocity for fostering an environment that values continuous learning and growth. I’m excited to share the insights and takeaways with my teams and colleagues—here’s to putting them into action! 🎉
Saloni Shah
Principal Software Engineer | STEM Advocate
Was an amazing experience. I will be back to a QCon Conference in the future. Without a doubt, just an amazing time. Great depth of talks. No salesy stuff. And plenty of connections. A++
2024 Topics and Tracks
Behind every QCon is a Program Committee of senior software leaders who curate the essential topics you need to know about. A track is a peer-curated day of talks around important topics in software. Take a look at the QCon San Francisco 2024 topics and tracks.
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Nov 18
Architectures You've Always Wondered About
Be inspired by speakers sharing real-world examples of how they've scaled systems to handle massive amounts of traffic, data, and complexity. Learn from their challenges so you're prepared for your own journey to hyperbolic scale.
Thomas Betts
Laureate Application Architect @Blackbaud, Lead Editor for Architecture & Design @InfoQ
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Nov 18
AI and ML for Software Engineers: Foundational Insights
Machine Learning (ML) and AI play a key role in modern software, and powers much of what we see and interact with. Each talk in this track covers a foundational area of ML, along with real-life use cases. Attendees will learn how ML works behind-the-scenes with software systems, as well as about tools, platforms, and algorithms that make up the discipline.
Susan Shu Chang
Principal Data Scientist @Elastic, Author of "Machine Learning Interviews"
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Nov 18
Rust [in Production]
The "Rust in Production" track at QCon San Francisco 2024 will showcase how AWS, Momento, Amazon, and Fly.io are leveraging Rust to build high-performance, scalable systems. From memory safety to blazing speed, you'll learn about Rust’s standout features—and the growing pains, like wrangling a team with mixed Rust skills. Whether you're eyeing Rust for your next big project or just curious about the hype, these talks will provide the insights (and battle scars) to help you decide if Rust is the right fit for your stack
Daniela Miao
Co-Founder & CTO @Momento, Systems & Observability Nerd, ex-Lightstep, ex-DynamoDB
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Nov 18
Sociotechnical Resilience
This track explores how artificial intelligence is reshaping traditional leadership models, and the skills required for engineering leaders to effectively guide teams in the age of AI. It will dive into the tactical actions that teams and engineering leaders have taken to build a robust system that is adaptable and resilient.
Carol Barrett
Director, Engineering @Netflix, Previously @Intel and @Cisco
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Nov 19
Embracing Shift-Left in Data Architecture
Decisions about how to handle data cross all areas of a software system. The Modern Data Architectures track will showcase how innovators are finding new ways to store, analyze, and scale data components.
Adi Polak
Director, Advocacy and Developer Experience Engineering @Confluent
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Nov 19
Generative AI in Production & Advancements
Unleash the power of Generative AI! This track dives into the latest advancements, exploring how to translate groundbreaking research into real-world applications across various industries. Discover how to navigate the challenges and unlock the potential of AI-generated content, data, and code.
Hien Luu
Sr. Engineering Manager @Zoox & Author of MLOps with Ray, Speaker and Conference Committee Chair
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Nov 19
Programming Languages and Paradigms for the Next Decade
This track offers a deep dive into innovative programming languages, language features, cutting-edge programming models, and paradigm shifts that aid in making code more efficient, safe, and maintainable
Julie Qiu
Uber Tech Lead, Google Cloud SDK @Google
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Nov 19
Engineering Productivity
Companies need to balance between rapid feature development and long-term product sustainability, and engineers are taking on more left-shifted, cognitive load as their features intersect with user privacy, security, accessibility, and regulations. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to Engineering Productivity, especially as market, scaling, and economic demands influence prioritization. What approaches, philosophies, and techniques have companies and products at very different points in their overall lifecycle successfully applied to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of development?
Jennifer Bevan
Senior Staff Software Engineer @Google, Previously at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory
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Nov 20
Architectural Evolution
Technology is evolving faster than ever - and it is time to re-evaluate the trends we may have previously taken for granted. Architects are now assessing whether to go back to monoliths, on-premise, multi-cloud, or go all in on an event driven serverless architecture. This track highlights key trends, including those where the pendulum may be swinging in the other direction. You will hear from practitioners about criteria they used to land where they did, as well as real world lessons from running these novel architectures at scale. You will walk away with some inspiration on what to try and how to assess the trends for your specific scenarios.
Michelle Brush
Engineering Director, SRE @Google, Previously Director of HealtheIntent Architecture @Cerner Corporation & Lead Engineer @Garmin, Author of "2 out of the 97 Things Every SRE Should Know"
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Nov 20
The Path to Staff+ and Beyond
Over recent years, the IC career path has become a nearly ubiquitous option in tech, but it is still extremely challenging to understand what the path entails and how to get there. This track explores the journey to becoming a Principal Engineer and beyond, touching on the technical and leadership skills required to excel in this strategic role. It also explores how to navigate the career progression and the vast amounts of ambiguity that often arise.
Joy Ebertz
Principal Engineer @Harness, Blogger, and Speaker, Previously @Box
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Nov 20
Hardware Architectures You Need To Know
What happens when semiconductor no longer gets faster at a predictable pace? Hardware evolution shows no sign of slowing down, and is instead introducing more profound architectural changes to meet the ever-rising needs of modern workloads. This brave new era presents both big challenges and exciting opportunities for software developers.
Yao Yue
Platform Engineer, Distributed System Aficionado, Cache Expert, and the Founder of IOP Systems
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Nov 20
Next Generation Inclusive UIs
As our world becomes increasingly online, making the web accessible and as inclusive of an experience for all is paramount. However, the web is no longer the main interface that people interact with. With the rise of VR, AR, voice-controlled UIs, conversation agents, natural UIs, and more, we must make all of these interfaces inclusive and leverage them to enhance the experiences for us all.
Erin Doyle
Sr. Staff Software Engineer @Lob, with 20+ Years Previously as a Full Stack Engineer and Instructor @Egghead
Keynotes
Learn actionable insights to help you adopt the right technologies and practices.
Top Sessions at QCon San Francisco 2024
Top 5 best voted
Building Tomorrow’s Legacy Code, Today
Shawna Martell
Senior Staff Engineer @Carta
Building Inclusive Mini Golf: A Practical Guide to Accessible XR Development
Colby Morgan
Technical Director @Mighty Coconut, Walkabout Mini Golf, XR Accessibility Advocate
Thinking Like an Architect
Gregor Hohpe
Author of "Enterprise Integration Patterns" and "The Software Architect Elevator", Cloud Architect, Member of IEEE Software Advisory Board, Previously @AWS, @Google, and @Allianz
Accessible Innovation in XR: Maximizing the Curb Cut Effect
Dylan Fox
Director of Operations @XR Access, Previously UC Berkeley Researcher & UX Designer, Expert on Accessibility for Emerging Technologies
Unleashing Llama's Potential: CPU-Based Fine-Tuning
Anil Rajput
AMD Fellow, Software System Design Eng. Java Committee Chair @SPEC, Architected Industry Standard Benchmarks and Authored Best Practices Guides for Platform Engineering and Cloud
Rema Hariharan
Principal Engineer @AMD, Seasoned Performance Engineer With a Base in Quantitative Sciences and a Penchant for Root-Causing
Top 5 most attended
How GitHub Copilot Serves 400 Million Completion Requests a Day
David Cheney
Lead, Copilot Proxy @GitHub, Open Source Contributor and Project Member for Go Programming Language, Previously @VMware
Engineering Influence and Forgetting the Soft Skills
Charlotte de Jong Schouwenburg
Co-founder of @Bravely, Business Psychologist, Executive Coach, Trainer, Speaker, 12+ Years Experience Enabling High Performing Teams and Leaders
Renovate to Innovate: Fundamentals of Transforming Legacy Architecture
Rashmi Venugopal
Product Engineering @Netflix, Speaker, Previously Product Engineer @Uber & @Microsoft, Building and Operating Reliable Distributed Systems at Scale
Changing the Model: Why and How We Re-Architected Slack
Ian Hoffman
Staff Software Engineer @Slack, Previously @Chairish
Optimizing Search at Uber Eats
Janani Narayanan
Applied ML Engineer @Uber, Previously Tech Lead on DynamoDB Control Plane (Early Stage), 10+ Years Tech Industry Experience
Karthik Ramasamy
Senior Staff Software Engineer @Uber, 15 Years of Experience in Design and Implementation of Web Applications, Distributed Systems, Search and Analytics Infrastructure
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