{"$schema": "https://c3voc.de/schedule/schema.json", "generator": {"name": "pretalx", "version": "2026.1.2"}, "schedule": {"url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/schedule/", "version": "0.21", "base_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org", "conference": {"acronym": "devopsdays-philadelphia-2025", "title": "DevOpsDays Philadelphia 2025", "start": "2025-09-30", "end": "2025-10-01", "daysCount": 2, "timeslot_duration": "00:05", "time_zone_name": "America/New_York", "colors": {"primary": "#3aa57c"}, "rooms": [{"name": "Workshop Room", "slug": "240-workshop-room", "guid": "81131ee9-f7c7-5656-9c4c-24489fd034d3", "description": null, "capacity": null}, {"name": "Room 1", "slug": "237-room-1", "guid": "476c983f-ec22-5af1-8882-91f27553ab3a", "description": null, "capacity": null}], "tracks": [], "days": [{"index": 1, "date": "2025-09-30", "day_start": "2025-09-30T04:00:00-04:00", "day_end": "2025-10-01T03:59:00-04:00", "rooms": {"Room 1": [{"guid": "694aaaf7-a6ec-58ed-a10b-41caff007135", "code": "KDGRFH", "id": 5474, "logo": null, "date": "2025-09-30T09:05:00-04:00", "start": "09:05", "duration": "00:30", "room": "Room 1", "slug": "devopsdays-philadelphia-2025-5474-cybersecurity-meets-ai-roadmap-for-next-gen-skills", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/KDGRFH/", "title": "Cybersecurity Meets AI: Roadmap for Next Gen Skills", "subtitle": "", "track": null, "type": "Talk", "language": "en", "abstract": "Cybersecurity and AI are colliding in ways that DevOps teams cannot ignore. This talk examines how AI expands attack surfaces with threats like model poisoning and prompt injection, while enabling defenses via predictive threat intelligence and automated incident response. We address the critical skills gap between cybersecurity and AI engineering by providing a practical upskilling roadmap covering LLM architectures, adversarial ML, and secure AI CI/CD pipelines. Attendees will gain a structured view of emerging hybrid roles at the intersection of DevOps, security, and AI, and actionable steps to future-proof their careers in this dynamic landscape.", "description": "", "recording_license": "", "do_not_record": false, "persons": [{"code": "PQQLNG", "name": "Brian M. Green", "avatar": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/media/avatars/PQQLNG_4IyGb6q.jpeg", "biography": "Brian is the Chief AI Officer at Health-Vision.AI, LLC, overseeing responsible AI implementation for clients in the US and EU, and developing ethical AI, security, and governance frameworks for healthcare and life sciences. He is also the founder of Envision-Health.AI, a startup developing ethical and patient-centric AI solutions.  Brian has decades of experience working in the public health and private sector in health tech, data analytics, AI, and commercial strategy.", "public_name": "Brian M. Green", "guid": "34b70cee-ffd2-5455-93da-d0c33663b70a", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/speaker/PQQLNG/"}], "links": [], "feedback_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/KDGRFH/feedback/", "origin_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/KDGRFH/", "attachments": []}, {"guid": "b981e85c-7f4a-567d-8811-ac31a8935292", "code": "7VCBVN", "id": 4908, "logo": null, "date": "2025-09-30T09:35:00-04:00", "start": "09:35", "duration": "00:30", "room": "Room 1", "slug": "devopsdays-philadelphia-2025-4908-from-iac-to-idp-a-practical-guide-to-self-service-maturity", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/7VCBVN/", "title": "From IaC to IDP: A Practical Guide to Self-Service Maturity", "subtitle": "", "track": null, "type": "Talk", "language": "en", "abstract": "Not every team needs a full-blown internal developer platform\u2014but every team needs something to reduce friction. In this talk, we\u2019ll walk through three levels of self-service maturity: the IaC factory (where platform teams write most of the infrastructure), the template/module model (where platform teams publish reusable components), and the full IDP model (where app teams provision resources through UI or CLI with guardrails). We\u2019ll also break down what actually goes into a platform\u2014including foundational infrastructure, shared services, workloads, and developer experience\u2014and how to right-size your approach without overbuilding. Whether you\u2019re just starting out or trying to improve adoption, this talk will help you map where you are and where you should (or shouldn\u2019t) go next.", "description": "This talk gives a practical framework for thinking about self-service maturity and platform architecture. I\u2019ll describe three common models of self-service:\r\n\r\n1. \u201cIaC factory\u201d where the platform team implements all infra,\r\n2. \"templates and modules\" model where app teams consume reusable code\r\n3. A fully realized internal developer platform (IDP) where dev teams provision via low-code/no-code UI or CLI.\r\n\r\nI\u2019ll help attendees assess which model fits their org based on team maturity, scope, and culture.\r\n\r\nThe second half of the talk will break down the key layers that commonly make up a modern platform: foundational infrastructure (e.g. account vending), shared services (e.g. VPCs, clusters), workload enablement, and developer experience. I\u2019ll also touch on how these layers map back to the three maturity model - and how platform teams can avoid building features no one will use by setting realistic expectations and measuring adoption early.", "recording_license": "", "do_not_record": false, "persons": [{"code": "SHZBLK", "name": "Josh Kodroff", "avatar": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/media/avatars/SHZBLK_lAKefU7.png", "biography": "Josh Kodroff is a Principal Customer Success Architect at Pulumi. He has over two decades of experience in software, cloud infrastructure, and platform engineering working with organizations of all sizes: from startups to Fortune 500 enterprises.", "public_name": "Josh Kodroff", "guid": "48cdcb31-04ec-51b5-9570-4369c89bfdbc", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/speaker/SHZBLK/"}], "links": [], "feedback_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/7VCBVN/feedback/", "origin_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/7VCBVN/", "attachments": []}, {"guid": "05f1b5aa-d4ab-5d48-b071-76799383f5d0", "code": "BU73EQ", "id": 4693, "logo": null, "date": "2025-09-30T10:05:00-04:00", "start": "10:05", "duration": "00:30", "room": "Room 1", "slug": "devopsdays-philadelphia-2025-4693-i-m-a-machine-and-you-should-trust-me-the-future-of-non-human-identity", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/BU73EQ/", "title": "I'm A Machine, And You Should Trust Me: The Future Of Non-Human Identity", "subtitle": "", "track": null, "type": "Talk", "language": "en", "abstract": "Security boils down to trust. Trusting that the code will do what is expected and is free from vulnerabilities. Trusting that the entities interacting with our data and resources have the right to access those resources. Our current approach to both human and non-human access uses the same basic flawed pattern: long-lived credentials. \r\n\r\nThis approach to trusted access does not take into account who or what is requesting that resource. These secrets, which quite often leak, are an attacker's best friend and are how attackers think about getting into and moving throughout your system. \r\n\r\nWhat if instead of simply asking for a security key or credential to gain access, our applications, workloads, and resources asked \"Who are you and how can you prove that?\" Humans can move towards leveraging our non-changing characteristics, like biometrics. But what about machines? Especially in the world where pods and workloads last for only hours or days? \r\n\r\nAttend this session to:\r\n- Better communicate about why we must do things differently and soon\r\n- Learn how the open-source software community has looked at addressing the identity problem\r\n- Understand what commercial options are available\r\n- Map a path away from the world of long-lived credentials\r\n\r\nThe future of identity and access management is the future of security, IT, and, ultimately, business resiliency.", "description": "", "recording_license": "", "do_not_record": false, "persons": [{"code": "9UHVBR", "name": "Dwayne McDaniel", "avatar": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/media/avatars/9UHVBR_EP6hQOo.png", "biography": "Dwayne has been working as a Developer Advocate since 2014 and has been involved in tech communities since 2005. His entire mission is to \u201chelp people figure stuff out.\u201d He loves sharing his knowledge, and he has done so by giving talks at hundreds of events worldwide. He has been fortunate enough to speak at institutions like MIT and Stanford and internationally in Paris and Iceland. Dwayne currently lives in Chicago. Outside of tech, he loves karaoke, live music, and crochet.", "public_name": "Dwayne McDaniel", "guid": "f808977e-363a-5996-b82e-274cf18dbd0c", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/speaker/9UHVBR/"}], "links": [], "feedback_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/BU73EQ/feedback/", "origin_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/BU73EQ/", "attachments": []}, {"guid": "defefbcf-85f9-5ef1-93d9-238e6adf696e", "code": "EJERTJ", "id": 5473, "logo": null, "date": "2025-09-30T10:45:00-04:00", "start": "10:45", "duration": "00:30", "room": "Room 1", "slug": "devopsdays-philadelphia-2025-5473-supercharge-your-git-workflows", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/EJERTJ/", "title": "Supercharge your Git workflows", "subtitle": "", "track": null, "type": "Talk", "language": "en", "abstract": "1. Why Git Clone performance is critical  \r\n   1. The default is very heavy  \r\n   2. Yet, many things do not require the default full history  \r\n   3. It affects the cost of the entire chain right back to centralized remote Git services  \r\n      1. End point sizing  \r\n      2. Network sizing  \r\n      3. Git cloning requires programmatic response from the server level \\- so large workload requests drive the performance hard.  \r\n      4. Garbage collection and maintenance on Git clients and servers  \r\n2. When is Git Clone performance critical (things that are on the rise)  \r\n   1. special uses cases such as scaled CI,   \r\n   2. remote dev environments  \r\n   3. scaled monorepos, polyrepos  \r\n   4. Binaries in repos  \r\n   5. GitOps \"lightweight\" manifest / config retrievals  \r\n3. Why is Automated Benchmarking Especially helpful?  \r\n   1. Works in many buried environments  \r\n   2. Allows testing of optimizations to see if build or other processes are compatible", "description": "", "recording_license": "", "do_not_record": false, "persons": [{"code": "EGJ7XC", "name": "Darwin Sanoy", "avatar": null, "biography": null, "public_name": "Darwin Sanoy", "guid": "93be6909-3a5c-5445-9f63-627386c52669", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/speaker/EGJ7XC/"}], "links": [], "feedback_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/EJERTJ/feedback/", "origin_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/EJERTJ/", "attachments": []}, {"guid": "4e5fd09e-1f8a-5440-9ace-0406dd01d3ba", "code": "N33CVD", "id": 5187, "logo": null, "date": "2025-09-30T11:15:00-04:00", "start": "11:15", "duration": "00:30", "room": "Room 1", "slug": "devopsdays-philadelphia-2025-5187-surviving-a-high-stakes-40m-federal-live-code-challenge", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/N33CVD/", "title": "Surviving a High-Stakes $40M Federal Live Code Challenge", "subtitle": "", "track": null, "type": "Talk", "language": "en", "abstract": "Earlier this year I led TCG's technical team for a competitive real-time development challenge vying for a $40 million contract with the Department of Treasury. What began as a seemingly simple \"one-day code challenge\" rapidly devolved into a month-long race to prepare the Release One build needed to just begin the challenge day. Our final solution featured a full DevOps pipeline, Terraform deployment, multi-region failover Kubernetes infrastructure, and a comprehensive web application with AI image processing.  This was all delivered under immense pressure within a one month schedule and limited customer access.\r\n\r\nThis isn't theoretical; it's a raw, honest look at real-world challenges.  We'll delve into the critical, sometimes painful, lessons learned about DevOps principles and Agile anti-patterns that surfaced under fire. I believe these in-person live coding and technical assessments will become increasingly common in contract competitions, especially as AI blurs the lines of expertise when presented via written proposals.", "description": "Join us for immediate, practical steps your teams can implement, drawn directly from our experience competing in a real-time development challenge vying for a $40 million contract with the Department of Treasury. This isn't theoretical; it's a raw, honest look at real-world challenges.  We'll delve into the critical, sometimes painful, lessons learned about DevOps principles and Agile anti-patterns that surfaced under fire:\r\n\r\n\u2022\tWhy Continuous Integration from Day One isn't just best practice\u2014it's a survival mechanism. We'll share our practice run panic and how targeting the \"perfect CI pipeline\" nearly derailed us.\r\n\u2022\tHow to establish an effective customer surrogate when direct stakeholder collaboration is impossible, and why their early feedback is non-negotiable, even in a challenge scenario.\r\n\u2022\tThe unexpected payoff of a production-ready mindset in a demo environment, and how small efforts can save your project during a live presentation.\r\n\u2022\tNavigating the tricky balance of tooling choice and team familiarity: When powerful tools become bottlenecks, and why a gelled team outperforms a collection of individual experts.\r\n\u2022\tThe often-overlooked secret weapon: realistic team availability. Discover how managing after-hours expectations impacts velocity and team morale.\r\n\r\nThis talk offers concrete, actionable takeaways for anyone navigating complex software development on a laughably short timeframe, whether you're competing for a new contract or launching your startup MVP. We\u2019ll share the \"aha!\" moments and the pitfalls, providing practical pro-tips to help you succeed in your next race to release 1.0.", "recording_license": "", "do_not_record": false, "persons": [{"code": "KJM8FP", "name": "Al Crowley", "avatar": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/media/avatars/KJM8FP_kIVrcaU.JPG", "biography": "Al Crowley is a Principal Engineer at TCG where he has built web applications for the federal government since 1996. He currently serves as TCG's DevSecOps Capability Captain, driving initiatives to integrate security and automation into the development lifecycle. Al is a company evangelist for these best practices, both internally and externally. He previously led the South Jersey Python Development Group and actively provides training and mentorship within TCG. A proud alumnus of Villanova and the University of Pennsylvania, Al loves being part of the tech and social culture in Philadelphia.", "public_name": "Al Crowley", "guid": "ffc77230-89b8-5475-a08f-31dc1dce0b27", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/speaker/KJM8FP/"}], "links": [], "feedback_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/N33CVD/feedback/", "origin_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/N33CVD/", "attachments": []}, {"guid": "809a5a39-2f4e-5593-830b-61f2c7bba32e", "code": "KSCGYQ", "id": 5211, "logo": null, "date": "2025-09-30T11:45:00-04:00", "start": "11:45", "duration": "00:30", "room": "Room 1", "slug": "devopsdays-philadelphia-2025-5211-finding-what-s-important-actionable-automated-and-accurate-alerting", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/KSCGYQ/", "title": "Finding what\u2019s important: Actionable, Automated and Accurate Alerting", "subtitle": "", "track": null, "type": "Talk", "language": "en", "abstract": "An alert came in, waking you from a dream. What to do? Is it a vulnerability that needs immediate attention? Or just a flaky script? Alerts come in all sorts of frustrating shapes and sizes, but sadly not enough of them are worthy of your attention. There\u2019s many ways to solve this: how much AI do you want here? Lots! Great, we\u2019ll do that. Let\u2019s explore ways to make alerting more helpful, more useful and more deserving of your precious time and attention.", "description": "As more teams move to microservices and managed systems, the number of ephemeral systems and resources explodes. With those new systems come new monitors, new alerts, and new middle-of-the-night pages. And that means wasted time and attention. Join us as we walk through ways to improve the automation of parsing and filtering alerts, and create intelligent systems that can suggest, or even take, action for you when alerts come in. Finally, we will all have more time to relax and enjoy the fruits of our labors.", "recording_license": "", "do_not_record": false, "persons": [{"code": "SEKUS7", "name": "Max Saltonstall", "avatar": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/media/avatars/SEKUS7_DFqSQRh.jpg", "biography": "Max Saltonstall loves teaching, especially when it comes to The Cloud and Cybersecurity. A New York native, he\u2019s part of the Datadog Technical Storytelling team within Advocacy. He's also known to expound on board games and juggling with almost no provocation. Max has strong opinions about chocolate and ice cream - just ask.", "public_name": "Max Saltonstall", "guid": "d77d65be-ef2c-56a5-857a-06729416986a", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/speaker/SEKUS7/"}, {"code": "YCUHQ7", "name": "Kennedy Toomey", "avatar": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/media/avatars/YCUHQ7_3BgXnGJ.JPG", "biography": "Kennedy Toomey is an Application Security Researcher & Advocate at Datadog. Previously she was an Application Security Engineer where she spent her time working with developers to help fix vulnerabilities and write more secure code.", "public_name": "Kennedy Toomey", "guid": "1d2f555c-16fa-51a7-9269-d1ac3422e4e1", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/speaker/YCUHQ7/"}], "links": [], "feedback_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/KSCGYQ/feedback/", "origin_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/KSCGYQ/", "attachments": []}, {"guid": "37366db3-21b0-56a3-97a8-3cc561df902a", "code": "DQLKAT", "id": 5498, "logo": null, "date": "2025-09-30T13:30:00-04:00", "start": "13:30", "duration": "00:15", "room": "Room 1", "slug": "devopsdays-philadelphia-2025-5498-ablative-resilience", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/DQLKAT/", "title": "Ablative Resilience", "subtitle": "", "track": null, "type": "Ignite", "language": "en", "abstract": "Ablative Resilience", "description": "", "recording_license": "", "do_not_record": false, "persons": [{"code": "LGKK7B", "name": "Damion Waltermeyer", "avatar": null, "biography": null, "public_name": "Damion Waltermeyer", "guid": "b786c269-dbe6-5d27-8c8a-47773703409d", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/speaker/LGKK7B/"}], "links": [], "feedback_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/DQLKAT/feedback/", "origin_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/DQLKAT/", "attachments": []}, {"guid": "2d9d97a7-43a0-5001-a081-0f2f4f859968", "code": "EXKQMY", "id": 5132, "logo": null, "date": "2025-09-30T13:45:00-04:00", "start": "13:45", "duration": "00:15", "room": "Room 1", "slug": "devopsdays-philadelphia-2025-5132-secure-coding-automate-secret-management-and-security-scanning", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/EXKQMY/", "title": "Secure Coding: Automate secret management and security scanning", "subtitle": "", "track": null, "type": "Ignite", "language": "en", "abstract": "Numerous developers swiftly write and launch code in an agile environment, postponing secret management for later. A developer might opt to temporarily hard-code the secrets, and, upon merging the final version with the main branch, eliminate the secrets and transition to more secure alternatives, such as retrieving the secret from them. Regrettably, individuals err, and frequently those secrets are overlooked, hidden within the code, and missed during code review, ultimately ending up merging code into the main brach.  The most obvious place to start scanning for secrets is in code. Securing the code and automating the scan could be the right solution to avoid any human error.", "description": "In this session we will cover:\r\n- How to automate the scanning of secrets and sensitive phrases in the code.\r\n- Solution to manage the secrets securely.", "recording_license": "", "do_not_record": false, "persons": [{"code": "UYS9CB", "name": "Ankur Bansal", "avatar": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/media/avatars/UYS9CB_kT8ag7n.png", "biography": "Ankur is an Expert Application Engineer at Discover, a division of Capital One, N.A. He is very passionate about building large and complex highly available applications using Java/JavaScript/Python and related open source tooling. He is a full stack developer who also wears an architect hat from time to time. Ankur loves to follow the latest in technology trends and how enterprise apps can take advantage of them to deliver a better customer experience. He holds a Bachelors of Engineering degree from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. Besides work, Ankur loves to follow cricket and is very active in the field of investing.", "public_name": "Ankur Bansal", "guid": "158f2870-16cc-5329-b9ef-bd3b79625687", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/speaker/UYS9CB/"}, {"code": "JZRLBW", "name": "EHFAJ KHAN", "avatar": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/media/avatars/JZRLBW_Z396PPO.png", "biography": "Ehfaj Khan is an Expert Application Engineer at Discover, a division of Capital One, N.A. He has strong experience building large-scale, highly available event-oriented architectures and cloud-native application modernizations.", "public_name": "EHFAJ KHAN", "guid": "e6026e6a-3bd4-5365-aa9e-10d5be62863c", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/speaker/JZRLBW/"}], "links": [], "feedback_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/EXKQMY/feedback/", "origin_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/EXKQMY/", "attachments": []}, {"guid": "b10c8f8a-6358-5df3-b6ef-94eb83e36120", "code": "CEMMCM", "id": 5200, "logo": null, "date": "2025-09-30T14:00:00-04:00", "start": "14:00", "duration": "00:15", "room": "Room 1", "slug": "devopsdays-philadelphia-2025-5200-small-batch-delivery-why-tiny-changes-make-a-big-difference", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/CEMMCM/", "title": "Small Batch Delivery: Why Tiny Changes Make a Big Difference", "subtitle": "", "track": null, "type": "Ignite", "language": "en", "abstract": "In the race to deliver software, bigger often feels better\u2014but it comes at a cost. This talk champions Small Batch Delivery, a practice that streamlines development by shrinking the size of changes we ship. You\u2019ll discover how small pull requests reduce risk, improve code quality, and keep teams in a state of flow. We'll dive into the ripple effects of bloated PRs, the psychology behind fast reviews, and why this isn't just a dev tactic\u2014it's a cultural mindset shift. If you're ready to ship faster with less stress, it's time to think small.", "description": "In the fast-moving world of software delivery, it\u2019s tempting to pack as much as possible into every release. But here\u2019s the truth: smaller is safer, faster, and smarter. This Ignite talk makes the case for Small Batch Delivery\u2014a practice that reduces risk, accelerates feedback loops, and makes pull request reviews a breeze.\r\n\r\nWe\u2019ll explore how small, focused changes keep your team in flow, why bloated PRs are a silent productivity killer, and how reviewing quickly reinforces the very habit of shipping small. You'll also learn what happens when we don\u2019t keep batch sizes small (spoiler: it\u2019s not great).\r\nIf you've ever stared down a massive pull request with dread or wished your changes shipped faster, this talk is for you. Small batches aren't just a technical strategy\u2014they\u2019re a cultural shift. And they just might be your team\u2019s superpower.", "recording_license": "", "do_not_record": false, "persons": [{"code": "VY7R8H", "name": "Scott Howard", "avatar": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/media/avatars/VY7R8H_ZHxFzim.jpg", "biography": "Scott is a Senior DevOps Engineer with Liatrio, focusing on expediting world-class software delivery for enterprises by building advanced DevOps platforms powered by open source, while coaching engineering and business teams along the way. With over a decade of experience in tech, Scott has worked as a consultant across a range of industries including Education, FinTech, Retail, Aviation, Life Sciences, and Healthcare, helping organizations modernize their software delivery practices. Prior to consulting, he worked in the defense industry, developing applications for Naval missile and automated vehicle defense systems. Scott holds a BS and MS in Computer Science from Rowan University, and when he's not building pipelines, he can be found reading Stephen King, playing guitar, or kayaking the rivers of southern New Jersey where he resides with his wife, dog, and three cats.", "public_name": "Scott Howard", "guid": "89f26dd6-c32b-519d-847f-930d05c6ecc9", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/speaker/VY7R8H/"}], "links": [], "feedback_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/CEMMCM/feedback/", "origin_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/CEMMCM/", "attachments": []}, {"guid": "b36737ba-12d7-586f-bea5-58be1efcdcb8", "code": "V3QTQR", "id": 5179, "logo": null, "date": "2025-09-30T14:15:00-04:00", "start": "14:15", "duration": "00:15", "room": "Room 1", "slug": "devopsdays-philadelphia-2025-5179-devops-is-a-foreign-language-or-why-there-are-no-junior-sres", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/V3QTQR/", "title": "DevOps is a Foreign Language (or Why There Are No Junior SREs)", "subtitle": "", "track": null, "type": "Ignite", "language": "en", "abstract": "DevOps has a notoriously steep learning curve. Getting started in the field can feel like being dropped in a foreign country without the ability to understand *anything* about the language. \r\n\r\nA language is more than just the syntax and semantic rules of the words themselves. It also encompasses the shared culture of the speakers. With the proliferation of programming languages as well as the deeply held cultural beliefs of the community, it's easy to see that learning DevOps is like trying to learn a foreign language.\r\n\r\nI will review five foundational hypotheses from the field of Second Language Acquisition and relate these hypotheses back to the world of DevOps. DevOps practitioners, trainers, tool builders, and learners should all come away with useful insights to apply to their practice.", "description": "", "recording_license": "", "do_not_record": false, "persons": [{"code": "PZDNN7", "name": "Josh Lee", "avatar": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/media/avatars/me_9KH1XQt.jpg", "biography": "Joshua is a seasoned software developer with over a decade of experience, specializing in a broad range of topics including operations, observability, agile methodologies, and accessibility. His passion for technology is matched by his enthusiasm for sharing knowledge through public speaking. Currently, Joshua serves as a Developer Advocate for Altinity, where he creates educational content on ClickHouse and OpenTelemetry.", "public_name": "Josh Lee", "guid": "e2ed70e9-e1f8-5839-83cb-448467d52a2a", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/speaker/PZDNN7/"}], "links": [], "feedback_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/V3QTQR/feedback/", "origin_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/V3QTQR/", "attachments": []}]}}, {"index": 2, "date": "2025-10-01", "day_start": "2025-10-01T04:00:00-04:00", "day_end": "2025-10-02T03:59:00-04:00", "rooms": {"Room 1": [{"guid": "10ecdfb3-e845-5f19-b470-965837b758c0", "code": "ABEQSF", "id": 5489, "logo": null, "date": "2025-10-01T09:05:00-04:00", "start": "09:05", "duration": "00:30", "room": "Room 1", "slug": "devopsdays-philadelphia-2025-5489-strategic-directions-in-devops-ai-devsecops-and-gitops", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/ABEQSF/", "title": "Strategic Directions in DevOps : AI, DevSecOps and GitOps", "subtitle": "", "track": null, "type": "Talk", "language": "en", "abstract": "What are the forward-looking career paths in DevOps, and how do we successfully navigate them? If you and your organization aren\u2019t gearing up in these critical areas, you need to start planning now. In this talk, we\u2019ll take a look at three critical areas in DevOps, the emerging trends in each, and a way for you and your team to stay meaningfully engaged as they develop.\r\n\r\nEric Snyder is a Senior IT Manager at the University of Pennsylvania. His 30-year tech career spans the gamut from programming to broadband network installation to leading teams and projects building CI/CD pipelines for on-prem, cloud-based and serverless execute environments. He currently manages the team supporting communication and collaboration services at Penn, including video production, streaming video services and enterprise-scale SaaS solutions -- which now include OpenAI ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot Chat.", "description": "", "recording_license": "", "do_not_record": false, "persons": [{"code": "7DWKFA", "name": "Eric Snyder", "avatar": null, "biography": null, "public_name": "Eric Snyder", "guid": "cee75681-39d8-57e1-b925-d594b617b536", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/speaker/7DWKFA/"}], "links": [], "feedback_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/ABEQSF/feedback/", "origin_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/ABEQSF/", "attachments": []}, {"guid": "3d7bd091-56d5-535a-a691-1ad2146adcad", "code": "CFDW38", "id": 4988, "logo": null, "date": "2025-10-01T09:35:00-04:00", "start": "09:35", "duration": "00:15", "room": "Room 1", "slug": "devopsdays-philadelphia-2025-4988-talk-sql-to-me-building-a-smarter-query-assistant", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/CFDW38/", "title": "Talk SQL to Me: Building a Smarter Query Assistant", "subtitle": "", "track": null, "type": "Ignite", "language": "en", "abstract": "Writing SQL slows everyone down. Non-technical users can\u2019t, data teams won\u2019t, and leadership waits. While commercial AI-powered tools promise a solution, most are pricey, opaque, and allergic to your reporting requirements. This Ignite talk presents an open-source Text-to-SQL chatbot that prioritizes transparency and user control. It combines advanced prompt engineering & guardrails to reduce hallucinations and ensure generation of reliable SQL queries. It uses an evaluation framework to assess performance by checking syntax accuracy, schema awareness and robustness to ambiguous user inputs. You\u2019ll walk away knowing what works, what breaks, and why building your own AI assistant might just be your smartest move. Query load is not a career path. Offload it to the bot.", "description": "Off-the-shelf AI tools are capable of automating text-to-SQL conversion, but many of these solutions are \"black boxes\" with serious practical limitations like hallucinations, expensive licensing, lack of customizations to company requirements and limited explainability.\r\n\r\nBy sharing a fully open, explainable approach to Text-to-SQL, this talk is about keeping AI innovation open, collaborative, and community-driven. This session will:\r\n> Empower users to build their own AI-powered analytics tools instead of relying on expensive, proprietary software.\r\n> Encourage open-source contributions by showcasing how tools like DsPy, LangChain, PostgreSQL, and SQLParse can be combined to create a transparent, community-driven solution.\r\n> Foster AI accessibility so that researchers, engineers, and organizations of any size can leverage Generative AI for structured data without compromising on control, security, or cost.\r\n\r\nThis talk is uniquely relevant to DevOpsDays because it blends:\r\n> Self-service analytics (freeing up engineers & data teams from query tickets)\r\n> Developer experience (turning LLMs into productive teammates, not flaky oracles)\r\n> Open tooling (LangChain, SQLParse, DsPy, Streamlit) to create a transparent system you can fork, debug, and improve without vendor lock-in.", "recording_license": "", "do_not_record": false, "persons": [{"code": "8FKKGD", "name": "Gamini Singh", "avatar": null, "biography": "Gamini is a data scientist and AI/ML team lead at Red Hat, Inc. with 7+ years of experience of leading high-visibility advanced analytics projects. Her expertise includes machine learning, statistical forecasting, and building AI-powered automation tools, with a strong focus on practical deployment in business environments. She is a graduate of MS in Business Analytics from Duke University and is currently on track to graduate from MS in Computer Science from Georgia Institute of Technology.", "public_name": "Gamini Singh", "guid": "e18b0370-5977-5570-9b02-c56bdaf7b697", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/speaker/8FKKGD/"}], "links": [], "feedback_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/CFDW38/feedback/", "origin_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/CFDW38/", "attachments": []}, {"guid": "2957d21f-4f0c-5893-b29a-f529efa0faeb", "code": "CCDLLM", "id": 5081, "logo": null, "date": "2025-10-01T09:50:00-04:00", "start": "09:50", "duration": "00:15", "room": "Room 1", "slug": "devopsdays-philadelphia-2025-5081-is-your-investment-in-ai-paying-off-or-just-generating-more-sh-tposts", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/CCDLLM/", "title": "Is your investment in AI paying off... or just generating more sh*tposts?", "subtitle": "", "track": null, "type": "Ignite", "language": "en", "abstract": "We all know investing in developer experience is a good call...but how do you really know if those investments are working? Traditional DevOps metrics? Sure, they help. But now AI is everywhere, promising to save the day. So how do you measure if AI is actually doing anything besides producing the internet's finest sh*tposts?\r\n\r\nIn this light-hearted talk, I\u2019ll break down real ways to measure AI\u2019s impact\u2014beyond the memes. We\u2019ll look at metrics for individual contributors, teams, and departments, exploring whether AI is a true game-changer or just another shiny buzzword.", "description": "", "recording_license": "", "do_not_record": false, "persons": [{"code": "YTERDR", "name": "Michael A Stahnke", "avatar": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/media/avatars/YTERDR_on1mEwC.png", "biography": "Michael Stahnke is a seasoned technology leader and open-source advocate, and VP of Engineering Flox. With experience in leading operations and  engineering departments,  Michael has played a pivotal role in shaping DevOps practices and automation in software development. Prior to joining Flox he held senior leadership  positions at CircleCI and Puppet, where he built and led engineering teams solving problems for developers and operations. He is a regular speaker at technology conferences,  sharing insights on DevOps transformations, scalability challenges, and the future of automated workflows. He\u2019s obsessed with measurements of engineering performance and finding a great night of karaoke.", "public_name": "Michael A Stahnke", "guid": "1875e914-be0f-518f-841d-11a631eeafd3", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/speaker/YTERDR/"}], "links": [], "feedback_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/CCDLLM/feedback/", "origin_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/CCDLLM/", "attachments": []}, {"guid": "874643b4-f6d9-57a5-be36-022324f5c991", "code": "U9WUSE", "id": 5469, "logo": null, "date": "2025-10-01T10:05:00-04:00", "start": "10:05", "duration": "00:15", "room": "Room 1", "slug": "devopsdays-philadelphia-2025-5469-from-youtube-analytics-to-search-patterns-that-scale", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/U9WUSE/", "title": "From YouTube Analytics To Search Patterns That Scale", "subtitle": "", "track": null, "type": "Ignite", "language": "en", "abstract": "YouTube Search is about understanding intent across billions of queries while managing complex metadata at scale and delivering real-time analytics.\r\n\r\n This session bridges my experience as a broadcast engineer at YouTube Space LA to the developer and open source community. We'll explore practical lessons from YouTube's search infrastructure and show how to maximize these challenges - from ambiguous queries to recommendation systems.\r\n\r\nYou'll learn:\r\n1) Observability at Scale: What YouTube\u2019s metadata means for your AIOps and observability stack\r\n2) Platform Engineering for Search: Building developer-friendly search infrastructure that your teams will actually want to use\r\n3) Real-time Analytics: Building pipelines that power recommendation engines that power both dashboards and ML-driven insights\r\n\r\nAs developer advocates, we know that effective discovery isn't just about finding content - it's about connecting developers with the knowledge they need to grow so that the next generation can build on what we've learned.", "description": "", "recording_license": "", "do_not_record": false, "persons": [{"code": "ZZDHBQ", "name": "Walt Ribeiro", "avatar": null, "biography": null, "public_name": "Walt Ribeiro", "guid": "09cb2f13-82b9-559a-a6f9-85044ad9fcda", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/speaker/ZZDHBQ/"}], "links": [], "feedback_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/U9WUSE/feedback/", "origin_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/U9WUSE/", "attachments": []}, {"guid": "f721bddc-616c-5819-9d06-7214e4cc0504", "code": "WKVGCP", "id": 5054, "logo": null, "date": "2025-10-01T11:05:00-04:00", "start": "11:05", "duration": "00:30", "room": "Room 1", "slug": "devopsdays-philadelphia-2025-5054-the-case-for-user-focused-observability", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/WKVGCP/", "title": "The Case for User-focused Observability", "subtitle": "", "track": null, "type": "Talk", "language": "en", "abstract": "Focus on intent: what people are trying to do with the system. While product analytics might give a broad sense of \u201cwhat happened,\u201d making sense of telemetry pointing to \u201cwhat went wrong\u201d is key to improving the system. For users, the specific issue doesn\u2019t matter, because the software doesn\u2019t work!", "description": "As software has become more complex, observability into its processes has been key. But the reason for this observability might have been lost.\r\n\r\nObservability hasn\u2019t focused on intention: what people are trying to do with the system. While product analytics might give a broad sense of \u201cwhat happened,\u201d making sense of telemetry pointing to \u201cwhat went wrong\u201d is key to improving the system. For users, the specific issue doesn\u2019t matter, because the software doesn\u2019t work!\r\n\r\nIf a user can\u2019t log in to their web portal for medical records due to a failing backend service, or because the modules are too old to load on contemporary browsers, or one of any other technical factors, the engineering team has failed in their relationship to the user. It might appear as an error or crash or failure to load, but to someone who intends to check on their blood tests, it\u2019s simple frustration.\r\n\r\nIn the world of browsers and mobile devices, technical issues prevent the success of the system. This success should be the goal for the entire engineering team: after all, if an API delivers a payload that the client can\u2019t use, it has failed the user. An examination of the system that points to the user, with telemetry from all technical parts of that system, is the only way forward. That is user-focused observability.", "recording_license": "", "do_not_record": false, "persons": [{"code": "SBX8VZ", "name": "David Rifkin", "avatar": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/media/avatars/SBX8VZ_uDPeYpq.jpeg", "biography": "Hi! I am a Developer Relations professional, working at the intersection of user interfaces and observability.", "public_name": "David Rifkin", "guid": "ed207d32-c6e9-5b33-97b8-88426afc1492", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/speaker/SBX8VZ/"}], "links": [], "feedback_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/WKVGCP/feedback/", "origin_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/WKVGCP/", "attachments": []}, {"guid": "c0e8bd5b-f2c4-570d-aeab-de7ab7e4352e", "code": "TCKB8U", "id": 4562, "logo": null, "date": "2025-10-01T13:00:00-04:00", "start": "13:00", "duration": "01:00", "room": "Room 1", "slug": "devopsdays-philadelphia-2025-4562-workshop-building-ai-agents-for-aws-infrastructure-automation", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/TCKB8U/", "title": "Workshop: Building AI Agents for AWS Infrastructure Automation", "subtitle": "", "track": null, "type": "Workshop", "language": "en", "abstract": "AI agents are transforming the way we manage cloud infrastructure \u2014 bringing automation, context awareness, and natural language control to everyday DevOps and SRE tasks. \r\n\r\nIn this hands-on workshop, we\u2019ll build an intelligent AI agent to interact with AWS services. \r\n\r\nAttendees will learn how to use Agent Framework Strands using Python, fundamentals of MCP, and leverage AWS service AgentCore to improve authentication, scaling and observability. \r\n\r\nRequirement: \r\nFamiliarity with Python and basic AWS services. AWS account with Bedrock access or any LLM API key.\r\nTarget Audience: Cloud engineers, AI/ML practitioners, early-career tech professionals.", "description": "", "recording_license": "", "do_not_record": false, "persons": [{"code": "LHU7MB", "name": "Anuj Tyagi", "avatar": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/media/avatars/LHU7MB_p0HC8GT.png", "biography": "Anuj is Senior SRE with more than a decade of experience in SRE/DevOps and passionate for Cloud Native, OpenSource. He is also AWS Community Builder.", "public_name": "Anuj Tyagi", "guid": "63b16b4e-1ac8-5e38-8712-53a5288cfed1", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/speaker/LHU7MB/"}], "links": [], "feedback_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/TCKB8U/feedback/", "origin_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/TCKB8U/", "attachments": []}, {"guid": "0545d1f6-4b1c-5d59-a3c7-c28125e0f3e9", "code": "BL88PN", "id": 5090, "logo": null, "date": "2025-10-01T14:00:00-04:00", "start": "14:00", "duration": "00:15", "room": "Room 1", "slug": "devopsdays-philadelphia-2025-5090-what-the-makefile-got-right-49-years-later", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/BL88PN/", "title": "What the Makefile got right (49 years later)", "subtitle": "", "track": null, "type": "Ignite", "language": "en", "abstract": "Back in 1976, the Makefile made it easy to compile C programs. In 2025, it\u2019s used for automating just about everything, from shell scripts to build workflows to CI/CD pipelines.\r\n\r\nOver 49 years, a lot has obviously changed about the way we design and build software. However, the fundamentals (esp. design patterns, algorithms, and architectures) have stayed more or less the same. We can learn a lot from the Makefile, from its design to how it has remained relevant in such a quickly evolving space. In this ignite, Benjie will talk about what patterns made the Makefile a mainstay in software development and deployment. He\u2019ll also cover why good software is timeless.", "description": "", "recording_license": "", "do_not_record": false, "persons": [{"code": "99PLA9", "name": "Benjie De Groot", "avatar": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/media/avatars/Screenshot_2024-01-12_at_3.31.45_PM_tIVUFlT.png", "biography": "Benjie is the co-founder of Shipyard and co-hosts the Kubelist podcast. Previously, he built out CI/CD pipelines for companies ranging in size from seed to Fortune 50. He enjoys automating the mundane and releasing code that he knows has been tested and validated! When not working, he likes hanging out with his pug and family.", "public_name": "Benjie De Groot", "guid": "0dd0fa25-36a4-5342-9a6f-d4553d559b71", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/speaker/99PLA9/"}], "links": [], "feedback_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/BL88PN/feedback/", "origin_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/BL88PN/", "attachments": []}, {"guid": "60c45971-c6a4-5e0d-b659-b9b3b4dae583", "code": "FQWY3M", "id": 4561, "logo": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/media/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/submissions/FQWY3M/final_gitops_1_lxnmZLG.png", "date": "2025-10-01T14:15:00-04:00", "start": "14:15", "duration": "00:15", "room": "Room 1", "slug": "devopsdays-philadelphia-2025-4561-breaking-gitops-bottlenecks-the-power-of-sharding", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/FQWY3M/", "title": "Breaking GitOps Bottlenecks: The Power of Sharding", "subtitle": "", "track": null, "type": "Ignite", "language": "en", "abstract": "Scaling GitOps for large-scale deployments can be challenging with a single repository or controller. This talk explores sharding as a strategy to optimize performance, improve reliability, and manage complexity in GitOps workflows for multi-environment or multi-tenant setups.", "description": "", "recording_license": "", "do_not_record": false, "persons": [{"code": "LHU7MB", "name": "Anuj Tyagi", "avatar": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/media/avatars/LHU7MB_p0HC8GT.png", "biography": "Anuj is Senior SRE with more than a decade of experience in SRE/DevOps and passionate for Cloud Native, OpenSource. He is also AWS Community Builder.", "public_name": "Anuj Tyagi", "guid": "63b16b4e-1ac8-5e38-8712-53a5288cfed1", "url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/speaker/LHU7MB/"}], "links": [], "feedback_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/FQWY3M/feedback/", "origin_url": "https://talks.devopsdays.org/devopsdays-philadelphia-2025/talk/FQWY3M/", "attachments": []}]}}]}}}