1.8.1 devopsdays-austin-2026 2026-05-05 2026-05-06 2 00:05 https://talks.devopsdays.org https://talks.devopsdays.org/media/devopsdays-austin-2026/img/devopsdays-austin-logo_3c7Vrxz_g8rYa_nnK5xYV.webp America/Chicago Ballroom All Hands 2026-05-05T09:00:00-05:00 09:00 00:15 Welcome and opening remarks. devopsdays-austin-2026-5918-welcome All-Hands en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/AQ3ANW/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/AQ3ANW/feedback/ Ballroom Keynote 2026-05-05T09:15:00-05:00 09:15 00:45 As AI has real potential to reshape engineering landscapes, the real question isn't whether you use AI: it's how will you use AI to better engineer solutions, to improve systems, and to verify outcomes. Drawing on daily conversations with hiring managers and engineers across semiconductor, industrial, and software markets, New Iron shares what we are hearing in the 2026 job market. We hope our observations inspire you to ask questions about the intersection between yourself, AI and your organization. devopsdays-austin-2026-5919-from-the-hiring-floor-ai-signals-in-a-shifting-market Keynote Will Longenecker en false https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/CNHD3P/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/CNHD3P/feedback/ Ballroom Sponsor Pitch 2026-05-05T10:00:00-05:00 10:00 00:02 Thank you to Harness, one of our Happy Hour sponsors for 2026! https://harness.io/ devopsdays-austin-2026-5920-harness-happy-hour-sponsor Sponsored Address en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/QA8WGY/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/QA8WGY/feedback/ Ballroom Sponsor Pitch 2026-05-05T10:02:00-05:00 10:02 00:02 Thank you to Liquibase, one of our Happy Hour sponsors for 2026! https://www.liquibase.com/ devopsdays-austin-2026-5921-liquibase-happy-hour-sponsor Sponsored Address en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/3F3EBN/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/3F3EBN/feedback/ Ballroom Presentation 2026-05-05T10:15:00-05:00 10:15 00:20 TBD devopsdays-austin-2026-5995-beyond-the-prompt-building-a-cognitive-control-plane Presentation Byron Miller en false https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/KJKEHM/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/KJKEHM/feedback/ Ballroom Presentation 2026-05-05T10:45:00-05:00 10:45 00:20 AI is notorious for "solving" test failures in questionable ways. Ask AI to fix a failing test and watch it delete the test entirely; ask it to write new tests and get hardcoded values that always pass. Teams often end up wasting time "babysitting" the AI to get it to work right, or outright stop trusting AI altogether, never taking advantage of its full potential as a collaborator. At worst, teams may accept faulty tests from AI that give false confidence in their production system. The good news is that there are techniques you can use to get AI to give you both consistent and high-quality test results. Not only that, but the same practices also help make your code more maintainable. This session covers strategies that make test generation with AI actually work. You'll leave with test structures, coding standards, prompts, and specific AI features to apply immediately on your own projects that help turn AI from liability to a lifeline. devopsdays-austin-2026-5709-how-to-get-started-with-automated-testing-in-the-age-of-ai Presentation Daniel Ward en false https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/FJ3MDF/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/FJ3MDF/feedback/ Ballroom Presentation 2026-05-05T11:15:00-05:00 11:15 00:20 Unlocking the full potential of AI starts with your data, but real-world documents come in countless formats and levels of complexity. This session introduces Docling, an open-source Python library designed to convert complex documents into AI-ready formats. Learn how Docling simplifies document processing, enabling you to efficiently harness all your data for downstream AI and analytics applications. devopsdays-austin-2026-5651-unlocking-document-intelligence-with-open-source-ai Presentation Mingxuan ZhaoAbby Tse en Most organizational knowledge is still locked inside complex documents, making it difficult to extract and use the information effectively. Traditional tools often fail when working with real-world document formats, particularly PDFs. In this talk, I'll be introducing Docling, an open-source project that takes a different approach, using deep learning models to parse documents the way humans read them. It preserves hierarchy, extracts structured data through a consistent API, and supports over ten common file formats out of the box. We will walk through Docling's architecture and its unique DoclingDocument data structure, demonstrate how Docling's features help build document processing pipelines that can be leveraged for various applications. Lastly, I'll share how teams have leveraged Docling to ingest previously inaccessible data while reducing document processing costs. And of course most importantly, all of Docling is open-source and under an MIT license, which allows for fully local execution with low latency to reduce data privacy exposure. false https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/QESPSK/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/QESPSK/feedback/ Ballroom Sponsor Pitch 2026-05-05T13:05:00-05:00 13:05 00:02 Thank you to LaunchDarkly, one of our Gold sponsors for 2026! https://launchdarkly.com/ devopsdays-austin-2026-6006-launchdarkly-gold-sponsor Sponsored Address en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/3EYMGF/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/3EYMGF/feedback/ Ballroom Sponsor Pitch 2026-05-05T13:07:00-05:00 13:07 00:02 Thank you to Zesty, one of our Gold sponsors for 2026! https://zesty.co/ devopsdays-austin-2026-6008-zesty-gold-sponsor Sponsored Address en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/GKLTKH/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/GKLTKH/feedback/ Ballroom Ignite 2026-05-05T13:10:00-05:00 13:10 00:05 We are going through uncertain times. Engineering leaders routinely need to drive decisions across teams they don’t directly manage, under circumstances they don’t control. The result: high-stakes technical choices that depend entirely on influence, not authority. Most advice on this topic is vague: “build relationships," "communicate clearly." But influence during this time of uncertainty requires more than soft skills. It requires deliberate frameworks: how you position tradeoffs, when you escalate versus absorb friction, and how you make the cost of inaction visible without creating defensiveness. This talk introduces a set of influence frameworks drawn from years of working across enterprise engineering teams, regional stakeholders, and startup environments where formal authority was never an option. We'll cover how to accelerate trust-building with new teams, structure proposals so the right decision feels obvious, and recognize when consensus-seeking is helping versus when it's stalling progress. These patterns don't replace good engineering judgment or strong relationships. They build on them, giving practitioners actionable tactics for environments that are simply chaotic. devopsdays-austin-2026-5706-a-practical-field-guide-to-influence-technical-decisions-you-don-t-own Ignite /media/devopsdays-austin-2026/submissions/LGQJNK/image_sEHYevd.webp Sindhu en Hi, I'm Sindhu 👋🏽 I'm an organizer for DevOpsDays ATL. I have played the various roles of Engineer, Consultant, and Product Manager over the years. I regularly coach customers and colleagues on navigating influence challenges, and I've found that practitioners are hungry for specific, actionable tactics rather than leadership generalities. I'd like to take years offline coaching and turn it into an audubon society style field guide. false https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/LGQJNK/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/LGQJNK/feedback/ Ballroom Sponsor Pitch 2026-05-05T13:15:00-05:00 13:15 00:02 Thank you to Red Hat, one of our Gold sponsors for 2026! https://www.redhat.com/ devopsdays-austin-2026-6010-red-hat-gold-sponsor Sponsored Address en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/DF8PTL/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/DF8PTL/feedback/ Ballroom Sponsor Pitch 2026-05-05T13:17:00-05:00 13:17 00:02 Thank you to Perforce Puppet, one of our Gold sponsors for 2026! https://www.puppet.com/ devopsdays-austin-2026-6011-perforce-puppet-gold-sponsor Sponsored Address en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/DWHYZC/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/DWHYZC/feedback/ Ballroom Ignite 2026-05-05T13:20:00-05:00 13:20 00:05 Campbell's Law states, "The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor." If we go deep, and wide in our thinking, just how far do the implications of Campbell's Law reach and what does it tell us about measurement, control, and corruption? In five minutes I'm going to explain how Campbell's law (or at least what it points us to) applies to everything we do... Everything! devopsdays-austin-2026-5701-campbell-s-law-applied-to-everything-in-five-minutes Ignite Darren Carpenter en Measurements used for control purposes can corrupt systems especially when you are measuring peoples behavior and coupling those measurements with incentive structures. But there are multiple laws that parallel Campbell's Law, and derivatives of Campbell's Law as well. These span multiple fields of study. Here I'm going to push Campbell's law to the maximum and apply it to everything... false https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/MPKKXU/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/MPKKXU/feedback/ Ballroom Sponsor Pitch 2026-05-05T13:25:00-05:00 13:25 00:02 Thank you to groundcover, one of our Gold sponsors for 2026! https://www.groundcover.com devopsdays-austin-2026-6012-groundcover-gold-sponsor Sponsored Address en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/7GSL38/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/7GSL38/feedback/ Ballroom Sponsor Pitch 2026-05-05T13:27:00-05:00 13:27 00:02 Thank you to Port, one of our Gold sponsors for 2026! [https://www.port.io/](https://www.port.io/?utm_source=devopsdays_austin&utm_medium=event&utm_campaign=devopsdays_austin_2026) devopsdays-austin-2026-6097-port-gold-sponsor Sponsored Address en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/7R7QKK/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/7R7QKK/feedback/ Ballroom Ignite 2026-05-05T13:30:00-05:00 13:30 00:05 Most of us were never taught how to review code. And too often we end up rubber stamping, becoming hero reviewers, or fall victim to fatigue-driven approvals. This Ignite talk explores common peer review anti-patterns and presents 10 actionable ways to redesign review as a deliberate risk management practice instead of a ritual. devopsdays-austin-2026-5678-lgtm-is-not-a-process Ignite David Boothe en Ever approved a PR without fully understanding the change? Peer review is supposed to protect production. Too often, it becomes a formality, a box to check before merge, instead of a meaningful evaluation of the change. In this fast-paced Ignite session, you will learn 10 practical ways to redesign peer review as intentional friction in your delivery pipeline. The goal is not to eliminate friction, but to design it so it reduces risk, improves decisions, and strengthens your team without creating unnecessary pain. false https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/BXP8RN/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/BXP8RN/feedback/ Ballroom Sponsor Pitch 2026-05-05T13:35:00-05:00 13:35 00:02 Thank you to Modicus Prime, one of our Food sponsors for 2026! https://modicusprime.com/ devopsdays-austin-2026-6013-modicus-prime-food-sponsor Sponsored Address en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/W7AGJS/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/W7AGJS/feedback/ Ballroom Sponsor Pitch 2026-05-05T13:37:00-05:00 13:37 00:02 Thank you to Texas State University, one of our Community sponsors for 2026! https://www.txst.edu/ devopsdays-austin-2026-6017-texas-state-university-community-sponsor Sponsored Address en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/HVZUK7/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/HVZUK7/feedback/ Ballroom All Hands 2026-05-05T14:00:00-05:00 14:00 00:30 Putting together our open spaces! Come propose topics in the main ballroom. devopsdays-austin-2026-5924-open-space-formation All-Hands en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/3P9ZBF/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/3P9ZBF/feedback/ Ballroom Presentation 2026-05-05T14:40:00-05:00 14:40 00:20 Everyone wants double digit year over year growth in revenue at the same time also wanting double digit percentage reduction of their cloud spend. It seems impossible, but I've done it multiple times for multiple companies. It's not easy, it can be undone by one engineer (or director) overnight, and it requires lot of Aikido with management. I want to go over how you can re-frame success and still get costs to go down without slowing everything down with Infrastructure As Code and billing approvals. devopsdays-austin-2026-5633-pruning-during-a-growth-phase-lessions-and-techniques-for-optimizing-cloud-spend Presentation Carl Perry en We're paying Professional Services a lot of money to give us generic and mostly useless advice as part of our Cloud Provider Annual Agreement. They say it so often my teammates and I have started making bingo cards for every meeting. If we could have done the simple things, we would have already. These are the solutions they sold your bosses on, but engineering doesn't think those are priorities. They have requirements from sales to increase footprint to enable that double-digit growth. Pushing everyone to a strictly controlled IAC where every request for new resources has to be approved instead of just spinning up only means you'll be even more over-provisioned "because the process is so slow". I'll talk about the ways to do effective cost collection, which is going to have a cost. The next level is analysis of that billing data to find you have places where you can turn off unused resources (as well as identifying bursty loads). Finally we'll talk about how to reset expectations with management so that you can still succeed while the number goes up... just not as quickly. false https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/XAVK3K/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/XAVK3K/feedback/ Ballroom Open Space 2026-05-05T15:15:00-05:00 15:15 00:30 TBA devopsdays-austin-2026-5925-open-space-day-1-slot-1-ballroom Open Space en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/3ES7WY/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/3ES7WY/feedback/ Ballroom Open Space 2026-05-05T16:00:00-05:00 16:00 00:30 TBA devopsdays-austin-2026-5928-open-space-day-1-slot-2-ballroom Open Space en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/KTMNZ3/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/KTMNZ3/feedback/ Ballroom Open Space 2026-05-05T16:45:00-05:00 16:45 00:30 TBA devopsdays-austin-2026-5929-open-space-day-1-slot-3-ballroom Open Space en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/RHLMSH/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/RHLMSH/feedback/ Ballroom All Hands 2026-05-05T17:25:00-05:00 17:25 00:05 A couple quick announcements, then to the buses! devopsdays-austin-2026-5930-announcements-and-day-1-closing All-Hands en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/VNSNJM/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/VNSNJM/feedback/ Inspiration A/B Presentation 2026-05-05T10:15:00-05:00 10:15 00:20 High-Performance Compute (HPC) environments break many assumptions behind modern DevOps and CI/CD. Simulation jobs are long-running, stateful, and expensive to fail. Feedback can arrive hours or days too late to be useful. This talk demonstrates how applying DevOps principles in an enterprise HPC and simulation environment saves valuable time by shifting focus away from deployments and toward feedback loops. From error troubleshooting after the fact to failure prevention. Instead of forcing standard CI/CD patterns we adapted them to fit the constraints and delivered measurable value in reduced wasted compute, faster feedback, and better outcomes for engineers. devopsdays-austin-2026-5622-value-all-the-way-down-applying-devops-where-ci-cd-assumptions-break Presentation Borislav Sabotinov en High-Performance Compute (HPC) environments are expensive to operate in part because a sizeable chunk of engineer and compute time is "wasted" via failed jobs. Engineers submit long-running jobs, wait hours or days, and only then discover failures or unusable results. By that point, the data is stale, decisions are delayed, and compute and engineer time is lost. This talk is a real enterprise case study in applying a DevOps mindset to HPC by identifying and exploiting the true constraint: a reactive, instead of a proactive, feedback loop. We flipped the model from post-mortem analsysis to pre-submit validation and near real-time alerts so engineers could act with immediacy on timely, relevant data. The result was a measurable decrease in wasted compute and faster recovery time. Hundreds of thousands of compute hours preserved, tens of thousands of engineer hours saved, and millions of dollars annually avoided in wasted reruns and idle decision time. This talk is about how applying DevOps principles to the actual constraint, not the visible symptoms, allowed value to flow all the way down to the customer in an environment where DevOps may not even be part of the conversation. false https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/DDGZ7T/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/DDGZ7T/feedback/ Inspiration A/B Presentation 2026-05-05T10:45:00-05:00 10:45 00:20 With more and more tools abstracting from a developer's workflows, understanding how git visualization tools help - not simply using it - is more important than ever. In this talk, we take a look at the history of git workflows, the basics of git, and the renaissance of understanding version control in a world gone mad for “vibe coding”. devopsdays-austin-2026-5552-why-git-still-matters Presentation PJ Hagerty en In this talk we will: * Take a brief look at the history of version control tools * Look at why Git was the clear leader * What tools make Git easier to use false https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/GELWU7/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/GELWU7/feedback/ Inspiration A/B Presentation 2026-05-05T11:15:00-05:00 11:15 00:20 Endpoints are where most security incidents begin. Compromises often start with phishing, software vulnerabilities, or simple misconfigurations on individual laptops and servers. Modern security teams rely on endpoint telemetry for detection, investigation, and response. But for many engineers, this part of the stack remains opaque and difficult to reason about. This talk presents a practical, open-source blueprint for building an endpoint telemetry pipeline that engineers can actually understand and evolve. We start with osquery, a Linux Foundation project that exposes endpoint state as structured, queryable data. On top of that, we build a layered system with clear responsibilities. This includes a control layer for intent and coordination, a data layer responsible for ingestion, buffering, streaming, and storage, a detection and intelligence layer with inspectable logic, and a correlation and response layer designed for humans in the loop. Rather than pitching a product, this talk focuses on boundaries, contracts, and tradeoffs. We walk through real-world design decisions and common failure modes. We also explore why ownership of telemetry matters more than any single tool. Attendees will leave with a mental model they can adapt, a stack they can run locally, and the confidence to build endpoint security systems that are transparent, flexible, and defensible without relying on closed platforms. devopsdays-austin-2026-5619-open-source-endpoint-telemetry-blueprint-for-security-teams Presentation Victor Lyuboslavsky en false https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/EKWE9A/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/EKWE9A/feedback/ Inspiration A/B Presentation 2026-05-05T14:40:00-05:00 14:40 00:20 We migrated our production Kubernetes clusters from Cluster Autoscaler to Karpenter, but with thousands of nodes and hundreds of services, unknown problems were inevitable. This talk covers how we built a rollout strategy where "pause" and "rollback" were as routine as "continue": explicit go/no-go criteria, staged learning with hand-picked canary batches, and tiered rollout with gated alarms. The result: double-digit cost reductions, and a pattern we've reused for many more high-risk migrations. devopsdays-austin-2026-5601-rollback-by-design-safe-infrastructure-migrations-at-scale Presentation Abhinav Dahiya en ## Description Karpenter is a newer node autoscaler that promises faster scheduling and better cost efficiency. But this kind of migration touches everything: scheduling latency, scale-down behavior, and disruption semantics across every workload. Just one of our production clusters has thousands of nodes and hundreds of services, this meant unknown unknowns were inevitable. We needed two things: a way to collapse months of unknowns into days, and a rollout strategy where stopping felt as safe as continuing. **The approach:** First, explicit go/no-go criteria defined before starting, not discovered mid-rollout. The talk covers what those criteria looked like for an autoscaler migration, and how we got stakeholder alignment on "bail is a valid outcome." Second, staged learning: synthetic tests for behaviors we *knew* were problematic, staging to remove doubts, then a canary production cluster where all the real iteration happened. Within that cluster, we used a hand-picked batch of services chosen to surface different classes of problems fast. The talk walks through how we selected that batch, and what each category was designed to catch. Third, tiered rollout with explicit gates: expansion by service criticality, percentage-based phases, and dedicated alarms tied to our go/no-go signals. When thresholds crossed, on-call was notified and the decision to revert was obvious. **What we found:** Karpenter was supposed to be faster, but we found consolidation scenarios where it was actually *slower* than Cluster Autoscaler. We found workloads silently assuming pods would live "long enough." These weren't edge cases; they would have broken at scale. The selective batch surfaced these issues early, and we fixed them before the broader rollout even started. The talk covers these discoveries, how the batch selection strategy caught them, and what we did about them. **The result:** double-digit percentage reductions in idle costs, and a pattern we've since reused for other high-blast-radius migrations. ## Attendees Will Take Away - **Go/no-go criteria**: How to define must-haves and negotiables before starting—and get stakeholder alignment that "bail" is a valid outcome - **Canary batch selection**: How to pick services that surface different classes of problems fast (non-consequential baseline, critical services with aligned teams, intentional stressors) - **Gating signals**: Which metrics to watch (scheduling latency P99, sustained pending pods, service disruptions) and how to tie them to batch-specific alarms—so on-call isn't guessing, just responding false https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/MF8AJH/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/MF8AJH/feedback/ Transformation Workshop 2026-05-05T10:15:00-05:00 10:15 01:30 The fundamental building block of modern infrastructure deployments is a strong basis of codification. In this workshop, Kerim will take you from _Zero_ to _Managed_ with HashiCorp Terraform and a variety of different providers. In this hands-on ninety minute session you can expect to learn: * How to manage infrastructure with Terraform * How to safely inject credentials into the process * How to think about scalability and governance You'll leave with new insights and a solid understanding of the complete provisioning process, no matter if you're working with existing (brownfield) infrastructure or are rolling out a new platform, greenfield-style, for the first time. devopsdays-austin-2026-5613-provisioning-infrastructure-with-terraform Workshop Kerim Satirli en The fundamental building block of modern infrastructure deployments is a strong basis of codification. In this hands-on workshop, geared towards operations engineers (DevOps, SRE, Platform), Kerim Satirli will take you from _Zero_ to _Managed_ with HashiCorp Terraform and a variety of different providers for Terraform. From understanding Terraform's core workflow to deploying and configuring local and remote infrastructure, this workshop is jam-packed with all the skills and techniques needed to effectively manage infrastructure as code, with Terraform. In this hands-on ninety minute session you can expect to learn: * How to manage infrastructure with Terraform * How to safely inject credentials into the process * How to think about scalability and governance Attendees will get access to a full environment to build along. false https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/T9BNWZ/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/T9BNWZ/feedback/ Transformation Open Space 2026-05-05T15:15:00-05:00 15:15 00:30 TBA devopsdays-austin-2026-5927-open-space-day-1-slot-1-transformation Open Space en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/AXJ3D9/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/AXJ3D9/feedback/ Transformation Open Space 2026-05-05T16:00:00-05:00 16:00 00:30 TBA devopsdays-austin-2026-6033-open-space-day-1-slot-2-transformation Open Space en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/F7TUYG/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/F7TUYG/feedback/ Transformation Open Space 2026-05-05T16:45:00-05:00 16:45 00:30 TBA devopsdays-austin-2026-6038-open-space-day-1-slot-3-transformation Open Space en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/J7ZNFX/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/J7ZNFX/feedback/ Dedication Open Space 2026-05-05T15:15:00-05:00 15:15 00:30 TBD devopsdays-austin-2026-6025-open-space-day-1-slot-1-dedication Open Space en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/JLEYPH/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/JLEYPH/feedback/ Dedication Open Space 2026-05-05T16:00:00-05:00 16:00 00:30 TBA devopsdays-austin-2026-6031-open-space-day-1-slot-2-dedication Open Space en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/YFK99L/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/YFK99L/feedback/ Dedication Open Space 2026-05-05T16:45:00-05:00 16:45 00:30 TBA devopsdays-austin-2026-6036-open-space-day-1-slot-3-dedication Open Space en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/NCPKYF/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/NCPKYF/feedback/ Ballroom All Hands 2026-05-06T09:00:00-05:00 09:00 00:10 Welcome to DevOpsDays Austin 2026! Please join us in the ballroom for the start of day 2. devopsdays-austin-2026-6015-day-2-opening All-Hands en false https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/BXDRFW/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/BXDRFW/feedback/ Ballroom Keynote 2026-05-06T09:10:00-05:00 09:10 00:45 A year ago I wouldn't have imagined I'd be running my own fiber through my walls, self-hosting AI models, and managing it all with declarative infrastructure — at home. In the age of AI, having a consequence-free environment to build, break, and learn has become a real career advantage. This talk walks through how I approached building a homelab from scratch: networking, hardware, DevOps principles applied at home, and running open source AI tools that directly sharpen my skills at an AI startup. Along the way, I reclaimed something that's easy to forget when everything lives in someone else's cloud — my family's data is ours again. You don't need a big budget or a rack full of servers. You need a framework, some curiosity, and a willingness to pull some cable. devopsdays-austin-2026-5686-homelabs-craftsmanship-in-the-age-of-vibe-coded-everything Keynote Matthew Brahms en This is a story-driven talk built around four stages of my homelab journey, each mapping to skills that matter in real DevOps and AI engineering work. **Networking**: Surveying router platforms from open source to prosumer to enterprise and picking something that made sense for home use. Then deciding to run OM-4 fiber through my house — which, honestly, was intimidating. Cutting into walls and fishing cable is a different kind of scary than a bad deploy. But I learned SFP/SFP+, how it compares to traditional copper, and how to securely access everything when I'm not home. Worth it. **Hardware**: Working with what you have (10+ year old desktop PCs) while intentionally designing a new media/storage server — GPU for local model inference, enough compute for self-hosted apps, and real storage architecture you never think about in a cloud-only world. We'll also be honest about cost — it's less than you think to get started! **"DevOps at home"**: How do you manage a homelab with real rigor without over-engineering it? Part of this is tool selection — NixOS vs Ansible vs Docker vs systemd, declarative vs traditional — but part of it is being honest about what you actually need at home versus what's appropriate for enterprise production. Not everything needs to be HA. Some things just need to work. **Self-hosted AI in practice**: A practical look at what I'm actually running and how it feeds into my day job at an AI startup. Local LLMs, self-hosted tooling, and owning your family's data rather than handing it to a dozen SaaS platforms. The goal isn't to show off a build, or what router I bought. It's super important for me to give listeners a framework to make intentional decisions to empower their learning, and inspire the confidence to start your own!! false https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/8DLNBP/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/8DLNBP/feedback/ Ballroom Sponsor Pitch 2026-05-06T09:55:00-05:00 09:55 00:02 Thank you to Crash Override, our Lanyard sponsor for 2026! https://crashoverride.com/ devopsdays-austin-2026-6014-crash-override-lanyard-sponsor Sponsored Address en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/8VVTLK/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/8VVTLK/feedback/ Ballroom Sponsor Pitch 2026-05-06T09:57:00-05:00 09:57 00:02 Thank you to Texas Mutual Insurance, our Coffee Bar sponsor for 2026! https://www.texasmutual.com/ devopsdays-austin-2026-6016-texas-mutual-insurance-coffee-bar-sponsor Sponsored Address en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/A3XEUA/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/A3XEUA/feedback/ Ballroom Presentation 2026-05-06T10:10:00-05:00 10:10 00:20 Legacy payment systems are some of the most fragile, tightly coupled, and operationally risky platforms in financial services. At SoFi (Galileo), our ACH payment system was no exception — deeply intertwined, difficult to change, and dependent on manual operations that created reliability challenges and slowed down innovation. As we began moving our infrastructure to AWS, it became clear that simply lifting and shifting the old architecture wouldn’t solve the underlying problems. In this talk, I’ll share how we’re modernizing a mission‑critical payment platform by breaking apart tightly coupled components, adopting loosely coupled patterns, and using Temporal to orchestrate durable, auditable, and fault‑tolerant workflows. I’ll walk through the architectural decisions, the DevOps practices that made this transformation safe, and the lessons we learned while evolving a high‑stakes money‑movement system. You’ll learn how durable workflows reduce operational risk, how to migrate legacy payment systems to the cloud safely, and how DevOps culture accelerates modernization in regulated environments. This is not a theoretical talk — it’s a candid, practical story of what worked, what didn’t, and what we’d do differently. If you’re modernizing legacy systems or building reliable distributed workflows, you’ll walk away with patterns you can apply immediately. devopsdays-austin-2026-5595-modernizing-payment-platforms-the-devops-way Presentation Shravani Gunturu en false https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/WGC3XM/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/WGC3XM/feedback/ Ballroom Presentation 2026-05-06T10:40:00-05:00 10:40 00:20 Coding agents are already committing code, opening pull requests, and pushing features into production across modern development workflows. AI coding tools promise velocity, but introduce a repeatable class of security failures that evade traditional detection. This talk examines the systemic risks quietly propagating across codebases and draws on findings from multiple studies, including original research conducted at DryRun Security using real development workflows. Across this body of work, consistent failure patterns emerge regardless of model, framework, or application design, revealing structural weaknesses rather than isolated mistakes. These failures stem from how coding agents construct software. They optimize for functional correctness along the happy path and lack a coherent understanding of how security controls must persist and evolve across the lifecycle of an application. Protections applied early are not reliably enforced as new features are introduced, and security assumptions erode across successive modifications. This talk distills the practical principles leading AI-driven engineering teams are using to close these gaps, with an emphasis on verification models and practices. devopsdays-austin-2026-6060-securing-the-software-factory Presentation James Wickett en false https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/N78MAJ/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/N78MAJ/feedback/ Ballroom Presentation 2026-05-06T11:10:00-05:00 11:10 00:20 Most developers can write flawless code but stumble through basic human conversations. This talk permanently solves that problem by transforming the entire music-production workflow into a practical, repeatable system for mastering social skills. Using the same tools a producer uses to turn raw tracks into a polished master — stems, count theory, levels, filters, compression, volume, automation, kaizen, and more — you’ll learn how to turn awkward interactions into effortless, high-impact connections. Whether you’re introverted, neurodivergent, or simply tired of being “the smart one nobody remembers,” this is your cheat code to become the person people fight to sit next to at conferences, the mentor juniors quote years later, and the human who finally feels in complete control of every room. devopsdays-austin-2026-5564-developer-eq-mix-and-master-your-social-game Presentation Kyle Shelton en 1. **Stems: The 4 Pillars** Your four clean, isolated tracks: Self-Awareness, Congruence, Resilience, Curiosity. Record them right or everything else sounds like garbage. 2. **Personal Brand: Crafting Your Signature Sound** Build the one sound people recognise instantly — your producer tag for real life. 3. **Count Theory: Rhythm, Cadence & Timing** Never miss the beat again. Master pauses, punchlines, entrances, and exits. 4. **Levels: Balancing Energy & Reading the Room** Stop clipping in meetings and stop getting buried in the mix. 5. **Filters: Stoicism as High-Pass / Low-Pass** Ruthlessly cut the mud and harshness from your life with the ultimate EQ preset. 6. **Compression: Empathy & Emotional Dynamics** Turn emotional spikes into glue that holds every relationship together. 7. **Volume: Presence, Confidence & When to Pull Back** Dial yourself from –∞ (ghost) to +3 dB (centre stage) and back — on purpose. 8. **Communication: Clarity, Reverb & Delay** Make every word hit clean, add warmth with stories, and land jokes with perfect delay. 9. **Social Rituality: Automation & Templates** Build once, run forever: handshakes, follow-ups, and goodbye loops that cost zero willpower. 10. **Scoreboard: Metrics That Actually Matter** Track your social mix like a pro: weekly KPIs, energy ROI, laughs-per-minute. 11. **Information: Sampling, Chopping & Arranging Social Data** Turn every conversation into reusable loops for your private sample pack. 12. **Kaizen: 1% Better Every Session** The Japanese art of endless small revisions that compounds into legendary charisma. 13. **Player to Coach: From Solo Producer to Label Owner** When your mix is mastered, start helping everyone else hit “export.” false https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/9ALL3R/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/9ALL3R/feedback/ Ballroom Presentation 2026-05-06T11:40:00-05:00 11:40 00:20 It's 2026, and you can now outsource your toil to a GPU cluster...and sometimes to a chip in your laptop. If you're brave, you can outsource your decisions there too. Tens of billions of dollars (trillions if you look at market cap) later, this newish tool's direction to jour is turning out deterministic software (my day job). Suddenly the bottlenecks for value delivery aren't where they used to be. Drawing on tales from both my personal experience as a dev and others' on the infra-as-code side, we'll walk through where the bottlenecks now land...turns out, the hard part of building is still the hard part, it's just more obvious now. Then we'll figure out how to fit these new cybernetic exoskeletons in to deliver real, additional, value, end to end. devopsdays-austin-2026-5695-typing-was-never-the-hard-part Presentation Ian Littman en false https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/MCQYNR/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/MCQYNR/feedback/ Ballroom Ignite 2026-05-06T13:00:00-05:00 13:00 00:05 Most teams blame model quality when AI output is weak, but the bigger issue is usually workflow design. In this Ignite talk, I use a fast compare-and-contrast format to show how common AI usage patterns create slop, then contrast them with lightweight workflow shifts that produce better outcomes. The focus is practical: clearer task framing, better handoffs, verification loops, and one extra iteration before giving up. This is not a deep implementation tutorial. It is a concise, field-tested framework to help teams reduce rework and improve output quality quickly. Attendees will leave with simple behavior changes they can apply immediately. devopsdays-austin-2026-5689-most-ai-slop-is-a-workflow-failure-not-a-model-failure Ignite Patrick Robinson en This talk will open with a simple compare-and-contrast: how teams commonly use AI today and where slop shows up, versus how small workflow changes can produce materially better outcomes. I am not trying to cram a full implementation tutorial into five minutes. The goal is to give people a practical lens they can apply immediately: define outcomes before prompting, break work into clearer stages, tighten handoffs, and add lightweight verification before accepting output. The core argument is that weak AI output is usually not proof that the model failed, it is usually a workflow design issue. Attendees should leave with a few concrete workflow adjustments they can test right away to improve quality and reduce rework. false https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/ZZ9UPS/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/ZZ9UPS/feedback/ Ballroom Ignite 2026-05-06T13:10:00-05:00 13:10 00:05 Kubernetes clusters generate huge amounts of metrics, logs, and traces even when nothing is actually wrong. I wanted to see whether anomaly detection could help separate real problems from background noise. To test this, I built a small Kubernetes cluster and intentionally broke it in different ways. The results were mixed: some failures were detected early, while normal behavior often triggered false alarms. This lightning talk shares what anomaly detection is good at, where it struggles, and what DevOps teams should realistically expect when using it in Kubernetes environments. devopsdays-austin-2026-5615-when-kubernetes-gets-noisy-what-anomaly-detection-gets-right Ignite Spoorthi Palakshaiah en This talk describes a small personal experiment combining chaos engineering and anomaly detection in Kubernetes. I instrumented a lightweight cluster with OpenTelemetry and used ChaosMesh to inject controlled failures such as pod deletions, CPU and memory stress, network latency, DNS failures, and forced autoscaling bursts. These failures reflect issues many teams see in real production environments. Next, I looked at the data coming from the cluster and used simple statistical techniques for anomaly detection to see what stood out as unusual. Some methods detected real issues quickly. Others raised alerts even when nothing was actually wrong. By comparing what the system flagged as anomalies with what was actually happening in the cluster, I was able to see where anomaly detection was genuinely helpful and where it failed without proper context. The talk shows that anomaly detection can be useful but only when combined with good observability practices and human understanding of system behavior. false https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/ZPRHEA/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/ZPRHEA/feedback/ Ballroom Ignite 2026-05-06T13:20:00-05:00 13:20 00:05 Modern DevOps environments are powerful but hard to navigate. Infrastructure lives in code, deployments run through pipelines, and critical knowledge is scattered across repositories and dashboards. Experienced engineers eventually figure it out — but it takes time, and delivery slows. Developer Portals provide a missing interface layer for DevOps systems by exposing services, ownership, workflows, and golden paths in one place. Instead of relying on tribal knowledge, teams gain a clear way to understand and operate their systems. This short talk shares lessons from real-world DevOps environments and explains why developer portals have become an important part of delivering value at scale. devopsdays-austin-2026-5682-why-developer-portals-matter Ignite German Martinez en Many teams have mature DevOps practices but still struggle with discoverability and usability. Engineers need to understand services, environments, deployment workflows, and infrastructure, yet this information is often spread across multiple systems. Developer portals such as Backstage or Port help by acting as a unified interface to DevOps tooling. They expose service catalogs, ownership, documentation, and self-service workflows in a way that makes existing automation easier to use. This talk explores why developer portals are becoming a key part of modern DevOps environments and how they help teams deliver value more consistently. false https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/WTDBJE/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/WTDBJE/feedback/ Ballroom Ignite 2026-05-06T13:30:00-05:00 13:30 00:05 Building a start-up usually means moving fast and fixing things later. This often includes getting ideas out the door quickly to test a feature with their client base, to demonstrate progress to prospective customers, or even secure additional funding. As a result, security becomes an after-thought, requiring organizations to retrofit their architecture to “never trust, always verify” while scaling. Drawing on my experience implementing Zero Trust at start-ups in government adjacent industries, I’ll show why starting out with a Zero Trust mindset can save you a lot of headache later on. We’ll discuss how to implement the core principles with limited hands, the lack of a “perimeter” when it comes to remote-first start-ups, and how to bake identity-based security into your Day Zero workflow without slowing down your development cycles. devopsdays-austin-2026-5592-zero-trust-from-day-zero Ignite Mya Jaye en false https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/SKFPU9/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/SKFPU9/feedback/ Ballroom All Hands 2026-05-06T14:00:00-05:00 14:00 00:20 Help us schedule the open spaces for the afternoon. Bring your topics! devopsdays-austin-2026-5931-open-space-formation All-Hands en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/MXVCPL/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/MXVCPL/feedback/ Ballroom Open Space 2026-05-06T14:30:00-05:00 14:30 00:30 TBA devopsdays-austin-2026-5932-open-space-day-2-slot-1-ballroom Open Space en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/JDWETC/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/JDWETC/feedback/ Ballroom Open Space 2026-05-06T15:15:00-05:00 15:15 00:30 TBA devopsdays-austin-2026-5933-open-space-day-2-slot-2-ballroom Open Space en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/3DWG3J/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/3DWG3J/feedback/ Ballroom Open Space 2026-05-06T15:55:00-05:00 15:55 00:30 TBA devopsdays-austin-2026-5934-open-space-day-2-slot-3-ballroom Open Space en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/PLJXFE/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/PLJXFE/feedback/ Ballroom All Hands 2026-05-06T16:35:00-05:00 16:35 00:25 Join us for the closing circle where you share what you've learned, closing remarks, and raffles from sponsors. devopsdays-austin-2026-6018-closing-ceremonies-and-raffles All-Hands en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/WN9MY7/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/WN9MY7/feedback/ Inspiration A/B Presentation 2026-05-06T10:10:00-05:00 10:10 00:20 Your best engineer says they're fine. Their resignation letter arrives two weeks later. On-call burnout follows predictable patterns. Christina Maslach and the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory mapped them decades ago. Yet most engineering leaders still rely on 1:1 vibes to catch it. Here's the problem: social desirability bias means people tell managers what they want to hear. Fear of appearing weak, culture of heroism, or simply forgetting what "fine" actually feels like. In this talk, I'll connect burnout research to the signals hiding in your on-call data. After-hours pages correlate to sleep disruption. Consecutive on-call days block recovery. Incident severity drives emotional load. And critically: the same load that's routine for a veteran can break someone six months into their first rotation. You'll leave with: • A framework for detecting burnout before it becomes a resignation • Why observed data beats asking, and when to combine both • How to have evidence-based 1:1s that get past "I'm fine" devopsdays-austin-2026-5632-the-science-of-on-call-burnout-why-how-are-you-doing-always-gets-fine Presentation Sylvain Kalache en This talk explores why traditional methods of detecting burnout fail, and what actually works. I'll start with the science: Maslach's burnout model (exhaustion, cynicism, inefficacy) and the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory explain how burnout accumulates over time. On-call engineers are uniquely vulnerable due to unpredictability, sleep disruption, and lack of control. Then I'll address the elephant in the room: when you ask "how are you doing?" in a 1:1, you almost always get "fine." Social desirability bias, fear of appearing weak, heroism culture, and normalization all conspire to hide the truth until it's too late. The core of the talk translates burnout research into observable on-call signals: after-hours page frequency, consecutive on-call days, incident severity exposure, and the critical insight that the same load affects people differently based on their baseline. I'll demonstrate these concepts using On-Call Health (open-source, https://github.com/Rootly-AI-Labs/On-Call-Health), showing how to combine observed data with optional self-reported check-ins to catch problems early. Attendees leave with a practical framework: what to track, how to have real conversations with data, and how to make rotation decisions they can defend to leadership. false https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/WZEVJQ/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/WZEVJQ/feedback/ Inspiration A/B Presentation 2026-05-06T10:40:00-05:00 10:40 00:20 As I have worked as a manager and managed engineering managers (EM) in recent years, I have continued to see an anti-pattern that makes the role much harder: the excessive focus on managing individuals. And that is not surprising. A common industry perspective is that the EM's role is to support engineers. Unblock them, shield them from meetings, let them make technical decisions. That framing is helpful, but it's also why so many EMs feel accountable for outcomes they can't quite control. The reality is that engineering leadership is not only about people management. It is about delivering results. And results come from actively building effective systems for your team. As an engineering manager, you’re the micro-CTO of your team: your role is to define those systems. You own how work gets defined, how your process operates, and how your people collaborate. You're responsible for creating an environment where engineers can be effective, not just hoping they figure it out. This talk will focus on real stories. The story of an EM who had great feedback from his reports but led a team that was slowly failing, and how it impacted the engineers they were trying to support. The story of another EM who worked extremely hard but managed a team that was constantly overwhelmed and burned out. And my story of struggling to stabilize a team in a highly competitive startup environment. Most importantly, it will demonstrate how all these situations improved when managers took control of their team’s systems. To support these examples, I'll introduce the three interconnected areas every engineering manager must understand: Product (what you're building), Engineering (how you're building it), and People (who's building it). When these areas are misaligned, like when product demands speed while engineering processes demand more quality, everything feels hard. When they work together, your team becomes remarkably effective. By understanding this perspective, teams can be transformed by fixing misalignments rather than working harder. devopsdays-austin-2026-5671-you-are-the-micro-cto-managing-your-team-to-effectiveness Presentation Francisco Trindade en false https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/LUAXC3/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/LUAXC3/feedback/ Inspiration A/B Presentation 2026-05-06T11:10:00-05:00 11:10 00:20 When Roxy’s son was hospitalized yet again, she noticed nurses struggling to calculate his g-tube feed rates, so she built solution with simply HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, then almost didn’t share it due to everyone’s favorite pal, imposter syndrome. This talk chronicles a very specific calculator’s evolution into a production React PWA with AI integration, now used daily by families worldwide, who even find it through organic Google searches. Through honest code comparisons, you’ll see when vanilla JavaScript hits its limits, why React’s patterns became necessary, and how AI tools can accelerate development while you continue learning. You’ll also leave with a six-step framework for iterative development that overcomes the fear of shipping imperfect solutions. Whether you’re considering a React migration, curious about AI-assisted development, or sitting on a side project, you’ll leave with technical insights and a renewed motivation to ship. devopsdays-austin-2026-5656-ship-it-first-fix-it-later-how-a-medical-crisis-led-to-a-global-tool Presentation RoxyRodbeck en false https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/AFX9ZH/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/AFX9ZH/feedback/ Inspiration A/B Presentation 2026-05-06T11:40:00-05:00 11:40 00:20 Platform teams are often great at keeping systems running, but still struggle to deliver value quickly. This talk shares how platform engineering decisions directly shaped delivery speed, reliability, and confidence, and how removing hidden bottlenecks helped value reach users faster. devopsdays-austin-2026-5625-from-rollouts-to-results-how-platform-engineering-removed-bottlenecks-in-value-delivery Presentation Ajo Augustine en Platform teams are often successful at stability, but delivery speed is where value becomes visible. In this talk, I’ll share how our platform engineering team identified and removed the hidden bottlenecks that slowed delivery, transforming deployments from a slow, manual process into a fast, reliable, and confidence-driven workflow. You’ll hear a real-world story of how we moved from imperative, CLI-driven deployments to a declarative, GitOps-based platform, reduced rollout times from ~20 minutes to just a few minutes, and improved trust in change across teams. Along the way, I’ll cover what worked, what took longer than expected, and what didn’t improve at all. This talk is for anyone building or operating internal platforms who wants to understand how platform decisions affect real-world value delivery, not just uptime. false https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/W99FP3/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/W99FP3/feedback/ Transformation Workshop 2026-05-06T10:10:00-05:00 10:10 01:30 AI models are sycophants. Ask one to manage your infrastructure and it will confidently invent API responses, fabricate deployment results, and return whatever answer it thinks you want to hear. It is not lying, it is optimized to please, and it is very good at sounding right even when it is shooting darts in the dark. This workshop introduces attendees to the Model Context Protocol (MCP) and demystifies why tool calling changes the equation. Participants will deploy MCP servers hands-on, then experience the before and after firsthand: the same model, the same prompt, completely different behavior once it has real tools to call instead of blank space to fill. All lab elements run locally. Attendees can use an optional deployment of Ollama for a fully offline experience or connect API keys to the LLM of their choice, Anthropic, OpenAI, or Google Gemini. The github project will be available as a take home to continue learning after the conference. devopsdays-austin-2026-5652-darts-in-the-dark Workshop Noe Lorona en false Personal Website https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/7WTCWJ/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/7WTCWJ/feedback/ Transformation Open Space 2026-05-06T14:30:00-05:00 14:30 00:30 TBA devopsdays-austin-2026-6044-open-space-day-2-slot-1-transformation Open Space en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/9X3VRP/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/9X3VRP/feedback/ Transformation Open Space 2026-05-06T15:15:00-05:00 15:15 00:30 TBA devopsdays-austin-2026-6050-open-space-day-2-slot-2-transformation Open Space en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/JXGR8N/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/JXGR8N/feedback/ Transformation Open Space 2026-05-06T15:55:00-05:00 15:55 00:30 TBA devopsdays-austin-2026-6056-open-space-day-2-slot-3-transformation Open Space en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/CAKFXE/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/CAKFXE/feedback/ Dedication Sponsor Pitch 2026-05-06T12:00:00-05:00 12:00 01:00 Join our local startups during lunch on day 2 to explore what they're working on! Each startup will give a short presentation and ask for your feedback as experts. Grab your lunch and find out if you can help our local community thrive. devopsdays-austin-2026-6099-startup-huddle-presentations Sponsored Address en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/JZW9EZ/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/JZW9EZ/feedback/ Dedication Open Space 2026-05-06T14:30:00-05:00 14:30 00:30 TBA devopsdays-austin-2026-6041-open-space-day-2-slot-1-dedication Open Space en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/8D3CTR/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/8D3CTR/feedback/ Dedication Open Space 2026-05-06T15:15:00-05:00 15:15 00:30 TBA devopsdays-austin-2026-6047-open-space-day-2-slot-2-dedication Open Space en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/7KF7LK/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/7KF7LK/feedback/ Dedication Open Space 2026-05-06T15:55:00-05:00 15:55 00:30 TBA devopsdays-austin-2026-6053-open-space-day-2-slot-3-dedication Open Space en true https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/HJMEYV/ https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-austin-2026/talk/HJMEYV/feedback/