QCon Plus focused on emerging software
trends and innovations
Technical talks from 54 software development practitioners focused on innovation and change.
Focused on patterns & practices, not products and pitches.
Learnt implementable ideas they could apply after the event.
Project Valhalla
Deep Learning
GraalVM
Java 15 (and beyond)
Green Initiatives
C# 9
.NET 5
Data Mesh
Quantum Computing
IoT Data Pipelines
Service Mesh
GraphQL Federation
Mechanical Sympathy
Micro Frontends
Multi-Cloud
Evolutionary Architecture
Operating Microservices
WebAssembly
Chaos Engineering
Serverless
IaC
Kubernetes
Remote Working / WFH Strategies
Observability / Telemetry
Building High Performing Teams
Event-Driven Architectures
.NET Core
Next.js
Streaming Data Analytics

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 #QConPlus.
second week of @QCon plus, as of now great value! I’ll need to rewatch so many talks. it’s interesting to see how the Bigs are doing things, and the conference is doing a very good job at showing how organization structure, system architecture, culture, best practices intersect
— Monica 🇪🇺 (@KFMolli) November 11, 2020
That was a lot of fun. Thanks to everybody who attended my talk and for all the excellent questions. Congratulations to @QCon for managing to put on a high quality conference in 2020!
— Dan Woods 🥁 (@danveloper) November 18, 2020
Best quote from @littleidea talk today at #QConPlus:
— Manuel Pais #blacklivesmatter (@manupaisable) November 4, 2020
"Code that works but doesn't reveal its underlying mechanisms and intent is one broken dependency away from being useless"
"Communicate with other humans"!@QCon #DevOps pic.twitter.com/bo5RBqcHtg
Excellent conversation in the hallway track at #QConPlus; takeaways include "when we investigated our estate we found it wasn't just 25% zombies, it was 75% zombies" and "automating server shut-off out of hours doesn't work so well when our devs are in India, London, and SF."
— Dr Holly Cummins (@holly_cummins) November 18, 2020
Thanks to everyone who came to my talk @QCon today & for the great discussion, and to @randyshoup for being such a lovely host! –
— Lena Reinhard (@lrnrd) November 11, 2020
You all asked about reading recommendations, here are some I’ve gathered over the years 📚 https://t.co/gA9wDPRa2Z https://t.co/OfYsYWndZt
Wow, the organizing team @QCon are doing a fantastic job with a virtual conference. I am blown away with how well orchestrated #QConPlus is. This is how to run a con.
— Travis McPeak (@travismcpeak) November 17, 2020
#QConPlus far exceeded my expectations (and I had high expectations). Great job making the online experience such a great one. Really enjoyed the conference both as speaker and attendee. @QCon
— Paul Bakker (@pbakker) November 18, 2020
I really loved the talk by @0xkitty and @jkriss - great introduction to Netflix's solution to a complex problem: How to make the security adapt to the users, rather than force the users to adapt to arbitrary security measures #QConPlus
— Kristjan Wager (@kriswager) November 10, 2020
A delightful history of infrastructure as code, with @littleidea taking us through time. #QConPlus pic.twitter.com/JIvXWJEWgJ
— Bridget Kromhout (@bridgetkromhout) November 4, 2020
2020 Tracks, Hosts and Workshops
“Operating Microservices”, “Distributed Systems for Developers”, “Best Practices for Remote Work” and “Inclusion & Diversity in Tech” were just some of the 18 editorial tracks at QCon Plus 2020. Take a look at the rest and catch a glimpse of the workshop selection.
See the 2020 Tracks,Hosts and Workshops →
2020 Trending Technical Talks
Some of the top sessions from QCon Plus 2020 included “A Sticky Situation: How Netflix Gains Confidence in Changes” by @Netflix’s Senior Software Engineer, Resilience Team Haley Tucker, and “User Simulation for Rapid Outage Mitigation” by @Uber’s Carissa Blossom.
Watch all the trending technical talks →2020 Keynotes
QCon Plus 2020 keynotes included SRE @Salesforce/Heroku Johnny Boursiquot and Technology Executive & Formerly VP R&D @ Pivotal, leading enterprise cloud and data products Elisabeth Hendrickson.
Watch all the 2020 keynotes →2020 QCon Plus Impact
As software developers ourselves, we designed QCon Plus to be practical, actionable, and software-focused. The goal was to create an event where senior software engineers, architects, and team leads heard from software leaders pushing the boundaries.
Discover the Experience →2020 Hosts and Tracks
What is a QCon track? Each "editorial" track (that's what we call the curated talks focused on developer lessons) is a collection of software topics curated by a domain expert in areas such as software architecture, machine learning, front-end technologies, remote teams, and culture. Take a look at the QCon Plus 2020 hosts and tracks
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TRACK
Modern API Architectures
Philip Fisher-Ogden, Director of Engineering @Netflix -
TRACK
Social Responsibility: Implications of Building Modern Software
David Millar, Content & Product Manager @QCon -
TRACK
Clientside: From WASM to Browser Applications
Ryan Burgess, Software Engineering Manager @Netflix -
TRACK
Mechanical Sympathy: The Software/Hardware Divide
Ed Hunter, Engineering Leader @Netflix -
TRACK
Java: Delivering Continual Innovation in a Mature Software Ecosystem
Ben Evans, Java Champion, Author of "Java in a Nutshell" -
TRACK
Modern Data Engineering
Sid Anand, Chief Architect @Datazoom, PMC/Committer @Apache Airflow, Co-chair @QCon -
TRACK
Inclusion & Diversity in Tech
Anjuan Simmons, Engineering Coach @helpscout -
TRACK
Architecting for Confidence: Building Resilient Systems
Haley Tucker, Senior Software Engineer, Resilience Team @Netflix -
TRACK
Best Practices for Remote Work
Travis McPeak, Security Engineering Manager @Netflix -
TRACK
Operating Microservices
Michelle Brush, Engineering Manager, SRE @Google -
TRACK
Distributed Systems for Developers
Cindy Sridharan, Distributed Systems Engineer -
TRACK
Resurgence of Functional Programming
Randy Shoup, VP Engineering and Chief Architect @eBay -
TRACK
Non-Technical Skills for Technical Folks
Randy Shoup, VP Engineering and Chief Architect @eBay -
TRACK
Languages of Infra
Wes Reisz, Platform Architect @VMware & Creator/Co-host of #TheInfoQPodcast, previous VP of Technology @Section -
TRACK
Paths to Production: Deployment Pipelines as a Competitive Advantage
Luke Demi, Engineer @DoorDash ex @coinbase -
TRACK
Security in a State of Insecurity
Christina Camilleri , Senior Security Engineer @Netflix -
TRACK
Machine Learning for the Software Engineer
Roland Meertens, Product Manager @annotell -
TRACK
Architectures You've Always Wondered About
Charles Humble, Freelance Software Architect
2020 Workshops
QCon Plus offered additional workshops that provided shorter technology-focused deep dives. This year’s topics included: containers, Kubernetes, microservices, security, micro-frontends, collaborative culture. Find out more:
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Workshop
Kubernetes
Effective Spring + Kubernetes
Friday Nov 6 / 09:00AM PSTBoth Spring and Kubernetes have massive ecosystems leading to lots of ways to use Spring on Kubernetes. Which way is the best, what are the pros and cons of different approaches to using Spring and Kubernetes?This workshop is organized as a series of recommendations for how to best use Spring and...
Adib Saikali Principal Platform Architect -
Workshop
Spring Boot
Easy Integration Testing with Spring Boot + Test Containers
Friday Nov 13 / 09:00AM PSTIntegration tests require external resources such as databases, message queues .... to execute successfully. A developer must consults the project's development environment setup guide to install and configure the various dependencies that integration tests require before they can...
Adib Saikali Principal Platform Architect Sergei Egorov Software Developer @VMware & Member of the Spring Team -
Workshop
Service Mesh
Multi-Cluster Service Mesh Patterns, Configuration and Operations
Friday Nov 13 / 12:30PM PSTMicroservices promise greater agility and speed in delivering innovation to customers through digital experiences. As a set of many, small services that are loosely coupled together and often written in different languages and packages, microservices allow organizations to make changes to a...
Christian Posta Global Field CTO @soloio_inc -
Workshop
Security
Threat Assessment for Software Architects
Friday Nov 6 / 12:30PM PSTThe systems we are developing and building can be quite complex, and are starting to use techniques and technologies that are very new.Even though the techniques and technology are new, the way we assess the security and threats remains the same. It boils down to understanding all the bits and...
Laura Bell Founder and CEO of @safestack Erica Anderson COO @safestack -
Workshop
Containers
Getting Started With Containerization
Friday Nov 6 / 09:00AM PSTContainers are the new unit of deployment. The reason is simple: containers are a very powerful tool that can streamline development and ops, save companies money by focusing on deploying a packaged unit, and reduce the friction in delivering software. However, the flip side is they’re a...
Wes Reisz Platform Architect @VMware & Creator/Co-host of #TheInfoQPodcast, previous VP of Technology @Section Jeff Butler Senior Platform Architect @VMware -
Workshop
Kubernetes
Getting Started With Kubernetes and Container Orchestration
Friday Nov 6 / 12:30PM PSTKubernetes (K8s) is a very powerful tool, primarily concerned with orchestrating and automating the deployment and management of networked applications.Understanding how Kubernetes works makes you an effective power user for building higher-level platforms. This workshop is aimed at technologists...
Wes Reisz Platform Architect @VMware & Creator/Co-host of #TheInfoQPodcast, previous VP of Technology @Section Jeff Butler Senior Platform Architect @VMware -
Workshop
Culture
Deliberately Designing a Collaborative Culture - and Keeping It Alive When Remote
Friday Nov 13 / 12:30PM PSTCollaborative organizational culture doesn't just happen, it needs conscious and deliberate design and careful nurturing. In this workshop, participants will explore what a collaborative organizational culture is, why it matters, and how to deliberately design culture. Culture...
Shane Hastie Director of Agile Learning Programs @ICAgile -
Workshop
Artificial Intelligence
[SOLD OUT] AI to Production and Its Pitfalls
Friday Nov 13 / 09:00AM PSTDuring the workshop, we will learn how to maintain a machine learning project end to end. We will show you common problems we have seen when deploying machine learning applications,like:Shipping models consistently to productionNot ensuring data sanity upon requestsTracking inputs and outputs to...
Jendrik Jördening Head of Data Science @Nooxit -
Workshop
Frontends
Building Micro-Frontends
Friday Nov 13 / 12:30PM PSTMicro-frontends are the answer to today’s increasingly complex web applications. Inspired by the microservices model, this approach lets organizations break interfaces into separate features managed by different teams of developers. Microservices provide a way for scaling our projects...
Luca Mezzalira Vice President of Architecture @dazngroup -
Sponsored Lab
[SOLD OUT] From Monolith to Kubernetes Workshop
Friday Nov 20 / 09:00AM PST*Sponsored Labs will not have an on-demand recording available*While working with Kubernetes developers need to learn a completely new ecosystem of tools and practices to efficiently deliver Cloud-Native applications. During this workshop, you will learn about tools such as Knative, Helm and...
Mauricio Salatino Principal Software Engineer @Camunda / @LearnK8s Kubernetes Instructor Ray Tsang Developer Advocate @Google Lisa Ritter Camunda Matheus Camunda Paul Camunda -
Workshop
Reactor: Mastering Concurrency
Friday Nov 6 / 09:00AM PSTDuring the workshop, we'll learn enough of Project Reactor to run complex business logic concurrently.No prior experience with reactive programming is required.The workshop is an exclusive hands-on experience with no slides but 100% exercises.I'll guide you through the details of Reactor...
Tomasz Nurkiewicz Java Champion, CTO @devskiller, Podcaster & Trainer -
Sponsored Lab
Be Real-Time: Develop and Manage your Event-Driven APIs
Friday Nov 13 / 12:00PM PST*Sponsored Labs will not have an on-demand recording available*Most organizations are adopting an event-driven architecture (EDA) to compete in a world where customer satisfaction requires real-time outcomes. Join us for this hands-on workshop where we’ll build and expand your toolbox by...
Marc DiPasquale Developer Advocate @Solace Jonathan Schabowsky Senior Architect @Solace -
Sponsored Lab
[SOLD OUT] Cloud-Native Cassandra Workshop: Introduction to Cassandra for Developers
Friday Nov 6 / 09:00AM PST*Sponsored Labs will not have an on-demand recording available*Are you a developer tired of being let down by a database? Need scale and just can’t get it? Old solutions are just that, OLD! This online introductory workshop is perfect for those looking to migrate to, or build cloud-native...
David Joy Data Architect @DataStax Mike Barlow Data Architect @DataStax -
Sponsored Lab
[SOLD OUT] Adding Authentication To Your React Applications
Friday Nov 13 / 09:00AM PST*Sponsored Labs will not have an on-demand recording available*Authentication for front-end web applications can be daunting. The various protocols and buzzwords can be hard to follow, but don't let that hold you back.In this workshop, you will:Learn the most important concepts in web...
James Quick Senior Developer Advocate @Auth0 Sam Julien -
Sponsored Lab
Feature Management 101
Friday Nov 20 / 12:00PM PST*Sponsored Labs will not have an on-demand recording available*Feature flags have long been used by many teams to manage the release of features to their users. While feature flagging is a simple concept, feature management has evolved beyond simple feature release use cases. In this workshop,...
Rich Manalang Principal Developer Advocate @LaunchDarkly Chris Tarquini Customer Success Engineer @LaunchDarkly -
Sponsored Lab
Getting the Most from Modern Java
Monday Nov 16 / 09:00AM PST*Sponsored Labs will not have an on-demand recording available* Since JDK 9, there has been a release of the core Java platform every six months. This has led to more features being delivered more quickly in Java than ever before in its 25-year history.In this workshop, we'll...
Simon Ritter Deputy CTO @Azul Azul Systems Exhibitor -
Sponsored Lab
DevSecOps Workshop
Friday Nov 20 / 09:00AM PST*Sponsored Labs will not have an on-demand recording available*NGINX DevSecOps 101 is an overview, demo, and hands on installation of NGINX App Protect and NGINX Plus technical training where you will gain hands-on experience is a live environment. We will start by deploying a modern application...
Daniel Edgar Sr Technical Product Manager @NGINX
2020 Keynotes
QCon Plus 2020 brought together incredible software leaders who shared their insights to help software teams pivot during rapid business changes. Our keynote speakers are among the team leads, architects, and software engineers inspiring and moving our industry forward. Take a look at the 2020 keynotes:
“No two organizations implement the practices of Site Reliability Engineering in the same manner and that fact is seldom recognized when rolling out an SRE function for the first time. While there exists a through-line of best practices, those that take on the ...”
Johnny Boursiquot
SRE @ Salesforce/Heroku““How do we go faster?” It’s probably the most common question leaders ask of their teams. Common wisdom usually involves improving focus, working “smarter,” and instilling a sense of urgency. This sounds great in principle, until ...”
Elisabeth Hendrickson
Technology Executive & Formerly VP R&D @ Pivotal, leading enterprise cloud and data products“The concept of Inclusion and Diversity (I&D) is often taught to be ‘for’ and ‘about’ individuals who are a part of underrepresented groups. Unfortunately, that narrative is not only untrue, but it has also worked to prevent members ...”
Wade Davis
Vice President of Inclusion Strategy -- Product @Netflix“When I wrote “The Unicorn Project,” I wanted to explore what invisible structures are required to truly enable developer productivity — this resulted in The Five Ideals, which included 1) Locality and Simplicity, 2) Focus, Flow, and Joy, 3) ...”
Gene Kim
Author of The Phoenix Project, The Unicorn Project & Accelerate2020 Trending Talks
Some of the best attended and best voted talks at QCon Plus 2020 included:
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How Netflix Scales its API with GraphQL Federation
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A Sticky Situation: How Netflix Gains Confidence in Changes
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Less Mess, Less Stress: The Reliability Benefits of Custom Tools
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User Simulation for Rapid Outage Mitigation
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Failing Fast: The Impact of Bias When Speeding Up Application Security
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A Love Letter to Clojure
Insights shared at QCon Plus
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