Track host
About the track
Big technical transitions don't run themselves. Whether an org is moving from on-prem to cloud, breaking up a monolith, adopting AI in the development loop, or growing beyond the systems and processes that got it here — the engineers doing the carrying are usually Staff+. The work is partly technical execution, but it's also setting direction when foundations are shifting, communicating across teams, establishing norms, providing technical oversight, and doing the cross-team coordination that keeps the whole thing on the rails.
This track asks: as a Staff+ IC, what are you doing to help your org navigate change — and how are you setting up colleagues and partner teams to navigate the next one? We'll hear from Staff+ engineers on the technical-leadership craft of leading through transitions: growing peers, leading across teams, surfacing decisions to leadership, owning ambiguous initiatives, and pushing change through orgs that can't always change quickly.
Sessions in this track
Tuesday 17 November. 6 sessions per track, chosen and introduced by the Track Host.
10:35 Pacific DEKJ Session Nobody Knows Everything (and That's OK): Building Alignment in Complex, Rapidly Changing Environments Kaye Mason Senior Staff Software Engineer @Meta, Previously @Google and @EA, 20+ Years in Real-Time Rendering, Spatial Computing, and Developer Platforms Successful Staff+ engineers build alignment across organizational and technical boundaries, including domains where they aren't the deepest expert. 11:45 Pacific DEKJ Session Use AI to Multiply Your Team as a Staff Engineer Jordan Cutler Senior Staff Engineer and Web Tech Lead @Pinterest, Author of High Growth Engineer Newsletter Most "AI for engineers" content is about typing faster. That's IC-level work. Staff engineers have a different question to answer. When AI raises the floor on what every engineer can ship, what is the staff engineer's job, and where does the leverage actually come from now? 13:35 Pacific DEKJ Session Transitioning From a Startup to a Mature Platform Joy Ebertz Principal Engineer @Imprint, Blogger, and Speaker, Previously @Harness, @Split, & @Box What you need to succeed in a startup with zero customers is different from what you need when you have a few thousand, and this changes many times as the company grows. Some of these changes are code and architectural changes, some are organizational changes, and some are mindset shifts. 14:45 Seacliff D Unconference Unconference: Staff+ Engineering Skills 15:55 Pacific DEKJ Session Learning What’s Already There: A Breadth-Based Approach To Onboarding Laura de Vesine Senior Staff Engineer @Reddit When onboarding to a new organization, it's vital to bootstrap your network and context quickly. 17:05 Pacific DEKJ Session Scaling Tech by Aligning Humans Scott Behrens Principal Security Engineer @Netflix, Providing GenAI Technical Leadership and Upleveling Engineers on The Engineer Setlist Blog Scaling a complex technology can get messy without a clear north star or a shared technical strategy. Product strategies from different functions can each deliver impact but may lead to disconnected solutions or inadvertently introduce various forms of technical debt.$2,835, Conference (3 days). Current pricing ends September 8th. All pass options.
QCon San Francisco 2026 is a three day conference for senior software engineers, architects and team leads. An international program committee of working engineers selects every session. Patterns and practices, not products and pitches.