As QCon San Francisco (Nov 17-21, 2025) approaches, the conference's program committee and track hosts are sharing their top picks from this year's lineup. Their selections span a wide range of topics, from AI-accelerated development and platform engineering to resilience patterns and career growth, all with QCon's signature focus on real-world case studies and lessons learned.
Here are some of the most anticipated sessions, recommended by the experts who helped build the program.
Architecture & Migration
Thomas Betts, a QCon San Francisco 2025 program committee member, laureate application architect @Blackbaud, lead editor for architecture & design @Info, highlights the power of storytelling in technical presentations. "Something that sets QCon apart", he says, "is the focus on presentations that tell a great story, with useful lessons learned along the way".
His picks for compelling architectural narratives include:
- "Platform Engineering: Lessons from the Rise and Fall of eBay Velocity" by Randy Shoup, SVP engineering @Thrive Market: A deep dive into the evolution of velocity at one of the world's largest e-commerce platforms.
- "Migrating from Monolith to Modern SaaS: Untangling 40 Years of Legacy" by Indu Alagarsamy, principal engineer @CircleCI: A masterclass in tackling decades of technical debt. Lorin Hochstein, a staff software engineer at Airbnb and track host, also recommends this session, noting, "My own track is about incident stories, but a tough migration project is like a slow-moving incident. This looks like a great story".
- "Monolith down: Cleaning up after the Great Identity Migration Disaster" by Sonya Natanzon, VP of engineering @Heartflow: An honest account of recovering from a major migration failure, offering invaluable lessons on resilience and remediation.
The Future of Development with AI
Track host Kaye Mason, a software engineer at Meta, emphasizes that the software industry is at an inflection point. "We're not going to lose our jobs to an AI any time soon", she notes, "but we might lose out to someone who knows how to use AI well...this is one of those 'adapt or be left behind' moments".
Her must-see sessions on this topic are:
- "Engineering at AI Speed: Lessons from the First Agentically Accelerated Software Project" by Adam Wolff, engineer and Individual contributor to Claude Code @Anthropic: Mason stresses the urgency: "There are good ways and bad ways to use AI in your development process, and more than that, there are ways to build your projects so that AI can be effective in your codebase".
- "Empowering Teams with AI: Productivity and the Future of Software Development" track by Jasmine Robinson, senior technical program manager - GenAI, Infrastructure Engineering, Engineering Operations @Netflix: Mason predicts a fundamental shift in skills: "I bet in the future interviews will test you not on how well you can solve LeetCode problems, but how well you can get an AI to solve LeetCode problems. Don't miss the chance to learn these skills".
Leadership & Career Growth
For those looking to advance their careers, Mason also strongly recommends the entire track on senior engineering leadership.
- "The Path to Senior Engineering Leadership" track by Kaye Mason, software engineer @Meta: "All of them", she says. "I am so stoked about each talk presenting a different perspective on how to grow a career in our industry. Every single speaker had a very different career path, and brings years of insights on how to build your skills and your career".
Resilience, Performance & Observability
For track host Lorin Hochstein, staff software engineer @Airbnb, the most valuable sessions often come from senior engineers sharing wisdom from decades of experience. "My favorite talks are ones like this", he explains, "where a senior engineer shares wisdom from their years of experience".
His selections reflect a focus on deep, practical insights:
- "Building Resilient Platforms: Insights from 20+ Years in Mission-Critical Infrastructure" by Matthew Liste, head of infrastructure @American Express: A prime example of the experience-driven talks Hochstein values.
- "Continuous Delivery for Foundational Platforms" by Ian Nowland, CEO @Junction Labs, author of O'Reilly's Platform Engineering: "Our industry has been promoting the idea of continuous delivery for over fifteen years", Hochstein says, "and I'm a big believer, but adoption is still disappointingly low. I'm excited to hear about a success story in this space at the infrastructure layer".
- "Beyond Line Charts: Why Some Diversity in Telemetry Visualization is Long Overdue" by Yao Yue, platform engineer, Distributed System Aficionado, Cache Expert, and the founder of IOP Systems: "Observability is where operations meets human-computer interaction", Hochstein notes, "and it's rare to see real innovation on the visualization aspects of observability".
- "From Monolith to Mosaic: Strategies for a Safe and Successful Polyglot Migration" by Adrian Cockroft, technology advisor and consultant @OrionX.net: Hochstein's reason is simple and powerful: "Adrian is simply one of my favorite technical speakers".
Kaye Mason also highlights the importance of resilience and performance, recommending:
- "How to Build an Exchange: Sub Millisecond Response Times and 24/7 Uptimes in the Cloud" by Frank Yu, director of engineering @Coinbase: "It's just incredibly important to understand what it takes to run a service with six digits of SLA uptime (99.9999%) that delivers responses at speeds necessary to deliver real-time experiences", she says.
- "When Incidents Refuse to End" by Vanessa Huerta Granda, resiliency manager @Enova, co-author of the Howie Guide on Post Incident Analysis: "This promises not only entertaining, real-world 'tea' from high-stakes incidents", Mason notes, "but also invaluable lessons on how to respond effectively when things go wrong".
Keynote Spotlight
Thomas Betts also points to a keynote that aligns with his appreciation for a good story.
- "Open Source, Community, and Consequence: the Story of MongoDB" by Ashkat Vig, distinguished engineer @MongoDB, and Andrew Davidson, SVP products @MongoDB: "Because I like good storytelling, I'm excited to hear the history of MongoDB", Betts shares.
Additional keynotes will be presented by Nicole Forsgren (Applied Research & Strategy, OCTO @Microsoft, author of "Accelerate: the Science of Lean Software and DevOps" and "The DevOps Handbook"), Michelle Brush (engineering director, SRE @Google), Shawna Martell (principal software engineer @Imprint), and Dan Fike (principal engineer and deputy to the CTO @Carta).
QCon San Francisco 2025 will take place from November 17 to 21 at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco. The conference provides practical insights from practitioners who solve complex problems at scale. You can view the full schedule on the QCon San Francisco website.