What Makes a Developer Conference Worth Attending in the AI Era?
What Makes a Developer Conference Worth Attending in the AI Era?
We all know that a developer’s time is valuable, as taking two days away from delivery deadlines, code reviews and technical decisions should come with a clear reason, doesn’t it? This question becomes even more relevant as AI assistants can explain concepts in seconds, technical tutorials are everywhere, and recorded talks are available whenever you need, wherever you need them. What makes attending a conference worthwhile?
A conference earns its place in your calendar when you leave with a clearer understanding of a problem, an approach worth trying, compare experiences and interact with other people in your domain.
On 4th & 5th November, DevCon 2026 returns to NORD Events Center by Globalworth in Bucharest for its eighth edition. Across our six specialised conferences, the programme creates space to explore the engineering decisions behind the technologies developers are using and the challenges that come with them.
From 2025 to 2026: a timeline that evolves with the work
In 2025, DevCon’s six conferences covered Java, Web & Mobile, Cybersecurity, Data, AI & ML, DevOps, and QA & Testing. Technical sessions, masterclasses and conversations across the expo area brought different engineering disciplines together.
In 2026, that structure has evolved. The combined Data, AI & ML conference gives way to two dedicated spaces: AI Con and Data & Cloud Con. Java Con expands into Java & Go Con, while DevOps Con and Cybersecurity Con continue. DeepTech Con joins the programme, bringing subjects including robotics, IoT, quantum computing, semiconductors and automotive technologies into focus. Web & Mobile and QA & Testing no longer appear as standalone conferences.
For attendees, this creates more focused routes through the programme. AI implementation has its own space, alongside the data platforms and cloud infrastructure that support modern applications. Backend discussions span Java and Go, while DeepTech opens the conversation to the relationship between software, hardware and the physical world.
Web, Mobile or QA? Here’s where to look
When a conference changes its structure, the first question is often: will I still find the content I’m looking for? Honestly, this year there is no dedicated Web, Mobile or QA stage. The aim is a more focused experience, not to suggest that only certain disciplines matter, since frontend, backend, mobile, quality, architecture and infrastructure all shape the product people use.
That is why the programme is relevant to frontend and mobile developers, QA engineers, architects, tech leads, DevOps and security specialists, and engineering managers alike. A few sessions to start with:
“You Trust More Code Than You Ship” (Niek Palm, DevOps Con, 4th November) A live software supply chain attack and the controls that stop it, relevant to any team whose builds pull in dependencies.
“The API Made Me Do It- Do Bad APIs Lead AI To Generate Vulnerable Code” (Yariv Tal, Cybersecurity Con, 5th November) Do insecure-by-default APIs push AI coding tools to generate vulnerable code? A question for frontend and mobile teams.
“After 25 Years of Test-First, I Started Pairing with an AI” (Thomas Sundberg, Java & Go Con, 5th November) An honest look at AI pairing in TDD and BDD, and where it does not help.
Learn from the engineers behind leading tech companies
At AI Con, Oleksandra Bovkun, Senior Developer Advocate at Databricks, will examine how developers can work with multiple coding agents within a shared workflow. Her session addresses practical concerns such as maintaining context, setting spending limits and defining approval policies.
Alex Volkov, CTO at Deutsche Bank’s Technology Centers, brings the enterprise perspective through “Where’s My 10× in Enterprise?” His session asks what happens when fast-moving AI tools meet organisational complexity, established processes and infrastructure constraints.
Meanwhile, Alex König, Senior Solutions Architect at AWS, will explore AI inference at scale, including GPU orchestration, scheduling and autoscaling on Kubernetes. Together, these sessions move from using AI tools to understanding how they fit into engineering workflows and production environments.
Mary Grygleski, Senior VP of AI Evangelism, Enterprise AI & Architecture at LuMay AI and Java Champion, will explore event-driven approaches to multi-agent systems. Alexandru Oancea, Full Stack Developer at AD/01, will ask a complementary question: “AI Can Write Code. Can You Engineer Software?”
These are different perspectives on a shared responsibility: understanding the systems we build. Explore the agenda and make sure you’ll be choosing your keynotes.
The conversations between sessions count
Systematic returns as DevCon’s Main Partner for the fifth consecutive year, bringing experience from secure software development and infrastructure management to the programme.
At Java & Go Con on 5 November, Lucian Maican, General Manager at Systematic Romania, will deliver the opening speech. Mihaela Gheorghe-Roman, Senior Software Architect, will then present “Collaborative Editing Without Assumptions: What Happens When the Cloud Is Not an Option.” Drawing on a production system, she will explore the challenges of building real-time collaborative editing in an air-gapped defence environment, without internet access, cloud infrastructure or external key management.
At DevOps Con on 4th of November, Raluca Bica and Steffen Baarsgaard Poulsen, Senior Systems Engineers at Systematic, will present “Grafana Fleet Management Using Grafana-Operator.” Their session will examine how Kubernetes-native manifests and GitOps workflows can help teams manage dashboards, data sources and alerts consistently across multiple Grafana instances, clusters and customers.
Beyond the sessions, participants can meet the Systematic team at its booth, explore a live Defence product demonstration and discuss the engineering decisions behind software built for demanding operational environments. It is an opportunity to follow a technical presentation with a conversation about how those lessons apply to your own work.
Bring a problem. Leave with a solution.
What makes a developer conference worth attending in the AI era?
Start with one challenge on your desk and find the sessions that address it. Explore a neighbouring discipline, bring the question you have been meaning to ask and leave with a practical solution to try with your team.
DevCon 2026 takes place on 4th & 5th of November at NORD Events Center by Globalworth, Bucharest.
A conference earns its place in your calendar when you leave with a clearer understanding of a problem, an approach worth trying, compare experiences and interact with other people in your domain.
On 4th & 5th November, DevCon 2026 returns to NORD Events Center by Globalworth in Bucharest for its eighth edition. Across our six specialised conferences, the programme creates space to explore the engineering decisions behind the technologies developers are using and the challenges that come with them.
From 2025 to 2026: a timeline that evolves with the work
In 2025, DevCon’s six conferences covered Java, Web & Mobile, Cybersecurity, Data, AI & ML, DevOps, and QA & Testing. Technical sessions, masterclasses and conversations across the expo area brought different engineering disciplines together.
In 2026, that structure has evolved. The combined Data, AI & ML conference gives way to two dedicated spaces: AI Con and Data & Cloud Con. Java Con expands into Java & Go Con, while DevOps Con and Cybersecurity Con continue. DeepTech Con joins the programme, bringing subjects including robotics, IoT, quantum computing, semiconductors and automotive technologies into focus. Web & Mobile and QA & Testing no longer appear as standalone conferences.
For attendees, this creates more focused routes through the programme. AI implementation has its own space, alongside the data platforms and cloud infrastructure that support modern applications. Backend discussions span Java and Go, while DeepTech opens the conversation to the relationship between software, hardware and the physical world.
Web, Mobile or QA? Here’s where to look
When a conference changes its structure, the first question is often: will I still find the content I’m looking for? Honestly, this year there is no dedicated Web, Mobile or QA stage. The aim is a more focused experience, not to suggest that only certain disciplines matter, since frontend, backend, mobile, quality, architecture and infrastructure all shape the product people use.
That is why the programme is relevant to frontend and mobile developers, QA engineers, architects, tech leads, DevOps and security specialists, and engineering managers alike. A few sessions to start with:
“You Trust More Code Than You Ship” (Niek Palm, DevOps Con, 4th November) A live software supply chain attack and the controls that stop it, relevant to any team whose builds pull in dependencies.
“The API Made Me Do It- Do Bad APIs Lead AI To Generate Vulnerable Code” (Yariv Tal, Cybersecurity Con, 5th November) Do insecure-by-default APIs push AI coding tools to generate vulnerable code? A question for frontend and mobile teams.
“After 25 Years of Test-First, I Started Pairing with an AI” (Thomas Sundberg, Java & Go Con, 5th November) An honest look at AI pairing in TDD and BDD, and where it does not help.
Learn from the engineers behind leading tech companies
At AI Con, Oleksandra Bovkun, Senior Developer Advocate at Databricks, will examine how developers can work with multiple coding agents within a shared workflow. Her session addresses practical concerns such as maintaining context, setting spending limits and defining approval policies.
Alex Volkov, CTO at Deutsche Bank’s Technology Centers, brings the enterprise perspective through “Where’s My 10× in Enterprise?” His session asks what happens when fast-moving AI tools meet organisational complexity, established processes and infrastructure constraints.
Meanwhile, Alex König, Senior Solutions Architect at AWS, will explore AI inference at scale, including GPU orchestration, scheduling and autoscaling on Kubernetes. Together, these sessions move from using AI tools to understanding how they fit into engineering workflows and production environments.
Mary Grygleski, Senior VP of AI Evangelism, Enterprise AI & Architecture at LuMay AI and Java Champion, will explore event-driven approaches to multi-agent systems. Alexandru Oancea, Full Stack Developer at AD/01, will ask a complementary question: “AI Can Write Code. Can You Engineer Software?”
These are different perspectives on a shared responsibility: understanding the systems we build. Explore the agenda and make sure you’ll be choosing your keynotes.
The conversations between sessions count
Systematic returns as DevCon’s Main Partner for the fifth consecutive year, bringing experience from secure software development and infrastructure management to the programme.
At Java & Go Con on 5 November, Lucian Maican, General Manager at Systematic Romania, will deliver the opening speech. Mihaela Gheorghe-Roman, Senior Software Architect, will then present “Collaborative Editing Without Assumptions: What Happens When the Cloud Is Not an Option.” Drawing on a production system, she will explore the challenges of building real-time collaborative editing in an air-gapped defence environment, without internet access, cloud infrastructure or external key management.
At DevOps Con on 4th of November, Raluca Bica and Steffen Baarsgaard Poulsen, Senior Systems Engineers at Systematic, will present “Grafana Fleet Management Using Grafana-Operator.” Their session will examine how Kubernetes-native manifests and GitOps workflows can help teams manage dashboards, data sources and alerts consistently across multiple Grafana instances, clusters and customers.
Beyond the sessions, participants can meet the Systematic team at its booth, explore a live Defence product demonstration and discuss the engineering decisions behind software built for demanding operational environments. It is an opportunity to follow a technical presentation with a conversation about how those lessons apply to your own work.
Bring a problem. Leave with a solution.
What makes a developer conference worth attending in the AI era?
Start with one challenge on your desk and find the sessions that address it. Explore a neighbouring discipline, bring the question you have been meaning to ask and leave with a practical solution to try with your team.
DevCon 2026 takes place on 4th & 5th of November at NORD Events Center by Globalworth, Bucharest.
A conference earns its place in your calendar when you leave with a clearer understanding of a problem, an approach worth trying, compare experiences and interact with other people in your domain.
On 4th & 5th November, DevCon 2026 returns to NORD Events Center by Globalworth in Bucharest for its eighth edition. Across our six specialised conferences, the programme creates space to explore the engineering decisions behind the technologies developers are using and the challenges that come with them.
From 2025 to 2026: a timeline that evolves with the work
In 2025, DevCon’s six conferences covered Java, Web & Mobile, Cybersecurity, Data, AI & ML, DevOps, and QA & Testing. Technical sessions, masterclasses and conversations across the expo area brought different engineering disciplines together.
In 2026, that structure has evolved. The combined Data, AI & ML conference gives way to two dedicated spaces: AI Con and Data & Cloud Con. Java Con expands into Java & Go Con, while DevOps Con and Cybersecurity Con continue. DeepTech Con joins the programme, bringing subjects including robotics, IoT, quantum computing, semiconductors and automotive technologies into focus. Web & Mobile and QA & Testing no longer appear as standalone conferences.
For attendees, this creates more focused routes through the programme. AI implementation has its own space, alongside the data platforms and cloud infrastructure that support modern applications. Backend discussions span Java and Go, while DeepTech opens the conversation to the relationship between software, hardware and the physical world.
Web, Mobile or QA? Here’s where to look
When a conference changes its structure, the first question is often: will I still find the content I’m looking for? Honestly, this year there is no dedicated Web, Mobile or QA stage. The aim is a more focused experience, not to suggest that only certain disciplines matter, since frontend, backend, mobile, quality, architecture and infrastructure all shape the product people use.
That is why the programme is relevant to frontend and mobile developers, QA engineers, architects, tech leads, DevOps and security specialists, and engineering managers alike. A few sessions to start with:
“You Trust More Code Than You Ship” (Niek Palm, DevOps Con, 4th November) A live software supply chain attack and the controls that stop it, relevant to any team whose builds pull in dependencies.
“The API Made Me Do It- Do Bad APIs Lead AI To Generate Vulnerable Code” (Yariv Tal, Cybersecurity Con, 5th November) Do insecure-by-default APIs push AI coding tools to generate vulnerable code? A question for frontend and mobile teams.
“After 25 Years of Test-First, I Started Pairing with an AI” (Thomas Sundberg, Java & Go Con, 5th November) An honest look at AI pairing in TDD and BDD, and where it does not help.
Learn from the engineers behind leading tech companies
At AI Con, Oleksandra Bovkun, Senior Developer Advocate at Databricks, will examine how developers can work with multiple coding agents within a shared workflow. Her session addresses practical concerns such as maintaining context, setting spending limits and defining approval policies.
Alex Volkov, CTO at Deutsche Bank’s Technology Centers, brings the enterprise perspective through “Where’s My 10× in Enterprise?” His session asks what happens when fast-moving AI tools meet organisational complexity, established processes and infrastructure constraints.
Meanwhile, Alex König, Senior Solutions Architect at AWS, will explore AI inference at scale, including GPU orchestration, scheduling and autoscaling on Kubernetes. Together, these sessions move from using AI tools to understanding how they fit into engineering workflows and production environments.
Mary Grygleski, Senior VP of AI Evangelism, Enterprise AI & Architecture at LuMay AI and Java Champion, will explore event-driven approaches to multi-agent systems. Alexandru Oancea, Full Stack Developer at AD/01, will ask a complementary question: “AI Can Write Code. Can You Engineer Software?”
These are different perspectives on a shared responsibility: understanding the systems we build. Explore the agenda and make sure you’ll be choosing your keynotes.
The conversations between sessions count
Systematic returns as DevCon’s Main Partner for the fifth consecutive year, bringing experience from secure software development and infrastructure management to the programme.
At Java & Go Con on 5 November, Lucian Maican, General Manager at Systematic Romania, will deliver the opening speech. Mihaela Gheorghe-Roman, Senior Software Architect, will then present “Collaborative Editing Without Assumptions: What Happens When the Cloud Is Not an Option.” Drawing on a production system, she will explore the challenges of building real-time collaborative editing in an air-gapped defence environment, without internet access, cloud infrastructure or external key management.
At DevOps Con on 4th of November, Raluca Bica and Steffen Baarsgaard Poulsen, Senior Systems Engineers at Systematic, will present “Grafana Fleet Management Using Grafana-Operator.” Their session will examine how Kubernetes-native manifests and GitOps workflows can help teams manage dashboards, data sources and alerts consistently across multiple Grafana instances, clusters and customers.
Beyond the sessions, participants can meet the Systematic team at its booth, explore a live Defence product demonstration and discuss the engineering decisions behind software built for demanding operational environments. It is an opportunity to follow a technical presentation with a conversation about how those lessons apply to your own work.
Bring a problem. Leave with a solution.
What makes a developer conference worth attending in the AI era?
Start with one challenge on your desk and find the sessions that address it. Explore a neighbouring discipline, bring the question you have been meaning to ask and leave with a practical solution to try with your team.
DevCon 2026 takes place on 4th & 5th of November at NORD Events Center by Globalworth, Bucharest.
Friday 23 Oct, 2026