Event Highlights

You Really Should Look at the Execution Plan

Monica Morehouse (Rathbun)

Do you struggle to understand why a query is running slowly? Or why it runs in less than a second most of the time, and takes 10 minutes other times? Being able to review and understand query execution plans is essential to understand bottlenecks in database performance. While DBAs need to be able to understand execution plans, for proactive performance management developers need to be able to review plans as queries and procedures get developed. In this session you will learn how to gather and read execution plans, understand what query operators are and what actions they perform, understand the differences in plan types. Finally, you will learn how to improve your code and its performance by using the data revealed in these plans.

Is Gen AI the killer app, or the final boss?

Travis Webb

Many things appear to be taking over the world at the height of their power, but they often don't finish the job. Is GenAI the exception, or the rule? Can it give us a superior grasp of reality, or will it lead us down the rabbit hole? Is Nvidia experiencing an "Intel Inside" moment, and can it last? Will GenAI cause the Cloud market to fragment or homogenize? And why do the best features always seem to be one version away? This talk discusses these questions, and others, and tries to answer them by looking at clues in the present and in our past.

How love lessons can land you a great job

Chazona Baum

Tightened hiring budgets are shaking even experienced developers' confidence in their ability to secure their next role. But because getting hired has a lot in common with other relationships, what allows you to successfully navigate dating can also give you an edge in a competitive talent market. Communication (not AI) can be your greatest job-seeking superpower. In this lighthearted but safe-for-work talk, we'll look at the attitudes, skills and strategies that will best allow you to stand out, align fit and remain compelling regardless of your existing experience level.

How to Lose an App in 60 seconds

Michael Buckbee

Learn practical web application security survival strategies based on hundreds of real-world attacks I've personally helped stop. Come away knowing what kinds of attacks you do and don't need to worry about, how to identify them and how to prevent them in the future.

Empowering Efficiency at a National Lab through Low Code Solutions

Jenah Parman & Marla Schuchman

In this session, we'll delve into the journey of the Sponsored Research Portal (SRP), spotlighting its development as a low code/no code solution that simplified grant management and proposal development at Jefferson Lab, a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science national laboratory. Explore how simplicity meets innovation as we discuss the potential of low code/no code solutions in addressing internal workflow challenges.

The Rise of AI Copilots

Ken Collins

Embark on a transformative journey into AI Agents and Assistants with Custom Ink's insights, empowering your engineering and product teams from the get-go. We chart the course from AI's inception to the cutting-edge of Copilots, unveiling novel semantic interfaces and cognitive architectures. Discover revolutionary mental models to revitalize your team dynamics. We'll demystify how blending traditional software architecture with AI-informed team strategies catalyzes rapid, ethical learning and cost-effective knowledge retrieval.

The Day of Learning: Amplifying L&D

Omar McNeil

As a change maker, have you ever wondered how even the smallest of roles can spark significant transformations within an organization? In today's highly disruptive and busy workplace, squeezing in self-development and learning is hard. I'm thrilled to share how we turned GitHub's Day of Learning (DoL) program from just another event into a powerhouse of employee learning and development. It transformed into a beacon of continuous learning by injecting a few agile values and principles into the program. From this talk, you'll walk away with improved insights on applying agile principles to revamp learning programs, strategies for fostering continuous improvement and personalized learning, tips on leveraging cross-functional relationships, and practical advice on managing learning programs through data-driven decision-making.

Managing On-Call Chaos

Guillermo Fisher

For many software engineers, the on-call experience can be daunting, characterized by unexpected middle-of-the-night alerts that disrupt sleep, contribute to heightened stress levels, and undermine work/life balance. This talk aims to tackle the on-call conundrum head-on, sharing effective strategies and industry innovations to transform on-call from a dreaded obligation into a manageable, and even rewarding, aspect of software engineering work. Attendees will leave equipped with actionable insights on optimizing rotation configurations, enhancing communication, refining scheduling practices, streamlining hand-offs, conducting effective post-mortems, and balancing sprint work with on-call duties.