AI DevSummit 2025 + DeveloperWeek Leadership 2025: Full Schedule

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9:30am PDT

[Virtual Exclusive] OPEN Session: Your Brain is Buggy: How Understanding Cognitive Biases Can Make You a Better Engineering Leader

Thursday June 5, 2025 9:30am - 9:55am PDT

VIRTUAL DeveloperWeek Leadership Expo Stage

Limor Mekaiten, Titan, Software engineering team leader

As engineering managers, we constantly debug systems and optimize processes—but what about the cognitive "bugs" in our own minds? This talk explores common cognitive biases, how they subtly influence our perceptions and decisions, and why understanding them is critical to better leadership.

You'll gain actionable strategies to uncover these mental shortcuts, manage team dynamics with fairness, and build a culture of empathy and clarity. By acknowledging and mitigating cognitive biases, we can improve team performance, strengthen trust, and inspire the humans behind the code.

Speakers

Limor Mekaiten

Software engineering team leader, Titan

Limor is a Software engineering team leader at Titan. Prior to her current role, she worked at different-sized startups with different cultures as both a software developer and a manager. She volunteers in Baot, the largest community for Senior female engineers in Israel in a program... Read More →

Thursday June 5, 2025 9:30am - 9:55am PDT
VIRTUAL DeveloperWeek Leadership Expo Stage

DeveloperWeek Leadership

Additional Topics Engineering Culture, Learning and Development, Team Collaboration
Session Type OPEN Session
Tracks OPEN Session, Virtual, DeveloperWeek Leadership, Technical Leadership / Management & Teams (Managing People) (DeveloperWeek Leadership)
In-Person/Virtual Virtual, Virtual Exclusive

9:30am PDT

[Virtual] OPEN Session: Interpersonal Dynamics: The foundation of Team Excellence

Thursday June 5, 2025 9:30am - 9:55am PDT

VIRTUAL DeveloperWeek Leadership Main Stage

Sudha Viswanathan, ByteDance, Data Architect

Effective team connection, communication, and collaboration across all levels stems from strong interpersonal dynamics. This is a fundamental element of achieving exceptional team performance. Just as with any art, interpersonal skills are cultivated through learning, practice, and refinement. A team mastering both technical expertise and these vital interpersonal skills gains a significant competitive advantage, becoming a truly formidable force. This talk explores common interpersonal challenges encountered in the workplace and provides attendees with a valuable mind map, a practical tool for navigating and resolving these challenges.

Speakers

Sudha Viswanathan

Data Architect, ByteDance

Sudha Viswanathan brings two decades of experience as a seasoned technical leader, having worked at industry-leading companies such as Tiktok, Netflix, Wayfair, Walmart, JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, IBM, and Cognizant. Specializing in large-scale data processing, analytics, and... Read More →

Thursday June 5, 2025 9:30am - 9:55am PDT
VIRTUAL DeveloperWeek Leadership Main Stage

DeveloperWeek Leadership

Additional Topics AI Strategy and Leadership, Leadership Career Paths, Learning and Development, Team Collaboration, Technical Decision Making, Remote and Distributed Team Management, Cross-functional Collaboration
Session Type OPEN Session
Tracks DeveloperWeek Leadership, Career Development: Impact & Change (DeveloperWeek Leadership), Technical Leadership / Management & Teams (Managing People) (DeveloperWeek Leadership), Virtual, OPEN Session
In-Person/Virtual Virtual

10:00am PDT

[Virtual] KEYNOTE (Leadership): Shipyard -- How DevEx Drives DORA Metrics: Why Developer Happiness Directly Impacts Software Delivery

Thursday June 5, 2025 10:00am - 10:25am PDT

VIRTUAL DeveloperWeek Leadership Main Stage

Benjie De Groot, Shipyard, Co-founder and CEO

DORA Metrics measure performance holistically, so that top scorers are those who put people and process first, and do it smartly. This means that prioritizing good DevEx eventually converts to improved DORA Metrics.

DevEx and DORA have a cause and effect type of relationship: the core components of DevEx (unblocking developers, utilizing self-service infrastructure) are all direct drivers of DORA. The 2024 DORA Report urges Platform to study the developer workflow so they can better solve for areas of friction. The most successful Platform teams use DevEx as their North Star for measuring productivity, and the subsequent DORA impact isn’t coincidental. Benjie will discuss how you can manage Platform to enable good DevEx, and what the corresponding DORA outcomes should be.

Speakers

Benjie De Groot

Co-founder and CEO, Shipyard

Benjie is the Co-Founder and Chief Architect of Shipyard, and co-hosts the Kubelist podcast. Previously, he built out CI/CD pipelines for companies ranging in size from seed to Fortune 50. He enjoys automating the mundane, and releasing code that he knows has been tested and validated... Read More →

Thursday June 5, 2025 10:00am - 10:25am PDT
VIRTUAL DeveloperWeek Leadership Main Stage

5. KEYNOTES & FEATURED

Additional Topics Engineering Culture, Team Collaboration, Learning and Development, KPIs and Metrics
Session Type OPEN Session
Tracks DeveloperWeek Leadership, Technical Leadership / Management & Teams (Managing People) (DeveloperWeek Leadership), Strategy / Methodology & Tooling (DeveloperWeek Leadership), Virtual, OPEN Session
In-Person/Virtual Virtual

10:30am PDT

[Virtual] OPEN Session: Staying in Your Lane: Incident Response for Leaders

Thursday June 5, 2025 10:30am - 10:55am PDT

VIRTUAL DeveloperWeek Leadership Expo Stage

Kat Gaines, PagerDuty, Senior Manager, Developer Advocacy and Community

During incident response, every second counts. As a leader, you’re expected to have all the answers, and that pressure can make it very tempting to play the hero and take control of the response process. While “I’ll just do it myself” may seem faster on occasion, this instinct can hinder your team’s effectiveness and actually slow down resolution.

We’ll explore how you can evolve from a command-and-control manager into a genuinely empowering leader. You’ll learn how to maintain composure under pressure while creating space for your team to shine. We’ll cover essential frameworks, usable by new managers and individual contributors building incident response processes from scratch as well as experienced leaders looking to level up their approach.

Key takeaways will include:
How to recognize when you may be over-managing during an incident…and how to empower your team to help you recognize these moments.
Building team confidence and ownership in crisis situations
Clear guidelines for when to step in versus step back
Establishing and maintaining clear communication channels
Whether you’re establishing your first incident response playbook, fine-tuning an existing process, or managing up to help your leaders help you do your best work, you’ll leave equipped to help your team handle incidents more effectively - and help you sleep better at night knowing they’ve got this.

Speakers

Kat Gaines

Senior Manager, Developer Advocacy and Community, PagerDuty

Kat leads the Developer Advocacy and Community team at PagerDuty. She enjoys talking and thinking about incident response, customer support, and automating the creation of a delightful end-user and employee experience. She previously ran Global Customer Support at PagerDuty, and as... Read More →

Thursday June 5, 2025 10:30am - 10:55am PDT
VIRTUAL DeveloperWeek Leadership Expo Stage

DeveloperWeek Leadership

Additional Topics AI Strategy and Leadership, Leadership Career Paths, Learning and Development, Team Collaboration, Technical Decision Making
Session Type OPEN Session
Tracks OPEN Session, DeveloperWeek Leadership, Strategy / Methodology & Tooling (DeveloperWeek Leadership), Technical Leadership / Management & Teams (Managing People) (DeveloperWeek Leadership), Virtual
In-Person/Virtual Virtual

10:30am PDT

[Virtual] PRO Session: So You Want to Hire for Platform Engineering?

Thursday June 5, 2025 10:30am - 10:55am PDT

VIRTUAL DeveloperWeek Leadership Main Stage

Hazel Weakly, Nivenly Foundation, Fellow

I see you want to hire a developer to work on platform engineering, internal developer tooling, developer experience, and the overall generally intangible but admirable goal of "making life better for devs". That’s awesome; you've got one hell of a challenge ahead of you. This role is extremely difficult to hire for. In my opinion, and in my experience, it’s been the most difficult role in the company outside of senior leadership, and the most likely to fail; if there ever was a role that burns people out, it’s this one.

Come with Hazel as we draw on her experiences building platform teams and organizations in order to talk about making this platform engineering thing a reality. In doing so, we'll end up discussing topics such as

- The hiring pipeline and interview loop
- Timing, politics, and the meta strategies
- Getting to zero from negative
- Avoiding pitfalls

Speakers

Hazel Weakly

Fellow, Nivenly Foundation

Hazel spends her days working on building out teams of humans as well as the infrastructure, systems, and tooling to make life better for others. She’s worked at a variety of companies and knows that the hardest problems to solve are the social ones. One of her favorite things is... Read More →

Thursday June 5, 2025 10:30am - 10:55am PDT
VIRTUAL DeveloperWeek Leadership Main Stage

DeveloperWeek Leadership

Additional Topics Learning and Development, Strategic Technical Hiring, Technical Decision Making, Change Management, Leadership Career Paths
Session Type PRO Session
Tracks Technical Leadership / Management & Teams (Managing People) (DeveloperWeek Leadership), Career Development: Impact & Change (DeveloperWeek Leadership), Virtual
In-Person/Virtual Virtual

11:00am PDT

[Virtual Exclusive] PRO Session: Designing Architecture Flow

Thursday June 5, 2025 11:00am - 11:25am PDT

VIRTUAL DeveloperWeek Leadership Main Stage

Ivan Padabed, PandaDoc, Director of Platform Architecture

In this session, we’ll explore the essential role of the architect as an accountable decision-maker and how they can optimize their workflow to ensure the right decisions are made at the right time. We’ll discuss why relying solely on an architect’s mental capacity is a bottleneck, how decision-making infrastructure tailored to organizational specifics enables speed and quality, and what best practices can help architects scale their effectiveness in high-growth environments.

Drawing from years of experience building and refining architectural decision-making pipelines in fast-paced, high-tech organizations, the speaker will share practical insights on:
• Structuring decision flows to ensure the right information is available at the right moment.
• Creating a collaborative environment where architectural decisions are well-informed and transparent.
• Designing a decision-making infrastructure that fosters consistency, speed, and quality.
• Avoiding common pitfalls that lead to decision paralysis, misalignment, and bottlenecks.

This session is for architects, engineering leaders, and decision-makers looking to improve architectural effectiveness and scale decision-making without sacrificing quality or agility. Join us to rethink how architecture flows in your organization.

Speakers

Ivan Padabed

Director of Platform Architecture, PandaDoc

Over 20 years in IT, doing business, product, service, and organization re-engineering to scale. Came to DDD as a core practice through systems thinking. An advocate of the evolutional approach.Enterprise Architecture practitioner, Solution Architecture methodologist, and Systems... Read More →

Thursday June 5, 2025 11:00am - 11:25am PDT
VIRTUAL DeveloperWeek Leadership Main Stage

DeveloperWeek Leadership

Additional Topics Engineering Culture, Technical Decision Making, SCRUM, Developer Career Paths, IT/Ops Career Paths, Leadership Career Paths, Learning and Development, Team Collaboration, Cross-functional Collaboration, KPIs and Metrics
Session Type PRO Session
Tracks DeveloperWeek Leadership, Virtual, Technical Leadership / Management & Teams (Managing People) (DeveloperWeek Leadership), Strategy / Methodology & Tooling (DeveloperWeek Leadership)
In-Person/Virtual Virtual, Virtual Exclusive

11:00am PDT

[Virtual] PRO Session: Dev Productivity Will Dip Before It Soars. The Pains and Gains of GenAI in Software Development

Thursday June 5, 2025 11:00am - 11:25am PDT

VIRTUAL AI DevSummit Main Stage

Ben Lloyd Pearson, LinearB, Director, DevEx Strategy

GenAI is revolutionizing software development, offering new ways to automate repetitive tasks and improve collaboration. But with these opportunities come challenges: how do you integrate AI into your workflow without disrupting creativity or team dynamics? How do you avoid over-reliance on automation while maintaining quality and efficiency? In this session, explore practical approaches to using AI for tasks like code reviews, testing, and daily development, while overcoming the productivity dips and adoption hurdles that GenAI brings in 2025. Whether you’re optimizing your own workflow or contributing to team success, you’ll leave with actionable strategies to thrive in the evolving developer landscape.

Speakers

Ben Lloyd Pearson

Director, DevEx Strategy, LinearB

Ben hosts Dev Interrupted, a podcast and newsletter for engineering leaders, and is Director of DevEx Strategy at LinearB. Ben has spent the last decade working in platform engineering and developer advocacy to help teams improve workflows, foster internal and external communities... Read More →

Thursday June 5, 2025 11:00am - 11:25am PDT
VIRTUAL AI DevSummit Main Stage

DeveloperWeek Leadership

Additional Topics Generative AI, AI Integration Strategy, Developer Career Paths, Learning and Development, AI Strategy and Leadership, SCRUM
Session Type PRO Session
Tracks DeveloperWeek Leadership, AI DevSummit, Virtual, Productizing AI (AI DevSummit)
In-Person/Virtual Virtual

11:30am PDT

[Virtual] OPEN Session: Beyond Code: How to Take the Next Career Step?

Thursday June 5, 2025 11:30am - 11:55am PDT

VIRTUAL DeveloperWeek Leadership Main Stage

Alexander Arians, AXA, Chapter Lead

While we developers have learnt over the course of our careers how to tackle new technical challenges and frameworks, many of us struggle with our personal career development. Once we have reached senior status, there is a lack of clear requirements and expectations of us. Without the classic career ladder as in other professions, we are challenged to take our development into our own hands.

In this presentation, we will explore together the essential skills we need to advance our careers. The focus will be on practical approaches with concrete recommendations on how we can optimally position ourselves through a strategic approach, soft skills and our technical abilities.
We will also explore together how we can best utilise our leadership skills. I will share my experience as a developer and as a manager with you.

Let's find out together how we can advance our careers in a self-determined way!

learning objectives:
-Career development: strategies for professional development
-Advanced skills: Insights into communication, leadership and business acumen
-Networking: Building and utilising professional networks
-Mentoring: Benefits of mentoring and finding mentors
-Influence and impact: Scaling influence without authority and impact
-Continuous improvement: Lifelong learning for competitiveness

Speakers

Alexander Arians

Chapter Lead, AXA

With over a decade of experience in software development, I currently serve as Chapter Lead at AXA, leading a team of 25 software developers across four cross-functional teams. I oversee IT operations for the entire health insurance landscape, driving efficiency improvements through... Read More →

Thursday June 5, 2025 11:30am - 11:55am PDT
VIRTUAL DeveloperWeek Leadership Main Stage

DeveloperWeek Leadership

Additional Topics Cross-functional Collaboration, Remote and Distributed Team Management, Developer Career Paths, IT/Ops Career Paths, Leadership Career Paths, Learning and Development, Team Collaboration, Engineering Culture
Session Type OPEN Session
Tracks DeveloperWeek Leadership, OPEN Session, Career Development: Impact & Change (DeveloperWeek Leadership), Virtual
In-Person/Virtual Virtual