AI, Rust, and Resilience: Key Software Trends Seen by the QCon San Francisco 2024 Program Committee

QCon San Francisco Conference Overview

• The QCon San Francisco programming committee has been working on the conference coming up in November, which will feature talks about the latest innovations and software trends (12s).
• The committee discusses trends in software development to decide what goes into the QCon conference, covering various aspects such as architecture, design, AI, ML, culture, and methods (35s).
• The committee members include Quaja, co-founder at Momento; Sua, senior staff engineer at Monzo Bank; HL, leading the ML platform team at Zuck; Aaron Doyle, staff engineer at Lob; and Thomas Betts, application architect at Blackb (1m43s).
• QCon San Francisco is a curated conference where the program committee decides on the themes and finds track hosts to create a mini-conference on one topic (2m9s).
• The conference has 12 tracks, with two dedicated to AI and machine learning, and several talks on other tracks related to the subject (2m45s).

AI and ML Tracks

• The AI and ML tracks focus on generative AI in production and advancements, covering the adoption of Gen AI technology in companies and its development over the last two years (3m14s).
• The committee chose to focus on these areas because Gen AI is a significant trend in software development, with many companies trying to figure out how to adopt these technologies (3m28s).
• The Gen Technologies track at QCon San Francisco 2024 aims to bring knowledge and experience from various companies around the world that have successfully implemented this technology and built products on top of it, with a focus on best practices, learnings, pitfalls, and use cases (3m35s).
• Sessions in this track include how to bring Gen for employee productivities, how to deploy MLM models into the Enterprise, and use cases from companies like Pinterest that integrate Gen into search (4m12s).
• The field of Gen Technologies is evolving rapidly, with advancements in AI agents being a particularly exciting development, and a session is dedicated to learning about AI agents and how to integrate them into products (4m30s).
• The AI and ML for Software Engineers track is focused on foundational insights and best practices for getting started with machine learning, including predictive models, recommended systems at scale, and evaluating and assessing MLM models (5m11s).
• This track also aims to bring sessions from industry experts who have experience with machine learning and can share their knowledge and pitfalls with the audience, which is mostly senior engineers and above (6m13s).

Embracing Shift Left in Data Architecture

• Another track, Embracing Shift Left in Data Architecture, is related to AI and focuses on integrating machine learning and big data models into products, rather than treating them as an afterthought (6m36s).
• This track explores how to support use cases that require more integrated data architecture, including traditional batch processing, stream processing, reliability, resilience, and autoscaling (6m54s).

AI's Impact on Teams and Organizations

• AI and machine learning are becoming core components of systems, and their integration is changing the landscape of how work is done, impacting all aspects of the job, including how teams function and how individuals approach their work (7m11s).
• The Soot Technical Resilience track focuses on how to integrate AI into teams and adapt to the changes it brings, including how to use AI to enable faster work and better job performance (7m35s).
• The track also covers how managers can leverage AI tools and how the entire organization is affected by the changes AI brings (7m59s).

Path to Principal Engineer and Beyond

• The Path to Principal Engineer and Beyond track is not specifically focused on AI, but rather on how to become a better individual contributor and team member, maximizing productivity for oneself and the broader company (8m29s).
• This track includes topics such as building a personal brand, increasing influence, and understanding the biology of the brain to improve influence, as well as the importance of "soft skills" or "power skills" in becoming a better engineer (8m40s).
• The term "soft skills" is seen as outdated, and some prefer the term "power skills" because it emphasizes the importance of these skills in enabling engineers to perform higher-level tasks (10m13s).

Programming Languages and Paradigms

• The conference also features tracks on programming languages and paradigms, highlighting current language trends (10m37s).
• Rust is a trend that everybody seems to be talking about, and it's finally getting to a place where we're seeing massive adoption at larger enterprises, making it ready to take on production (10m44s).
• A track for Rust in production was created to inspire folks with real-world use cases and how people are using it in production, including talks about the philosophies of Rust and its adoption in larger enterprises (10m46s).
• The track is not a Rust evangelism track, but rather a showcase of inspiring ways where people have taken it to production, along with objective rationale as to why you should and shouldn't take it to production in your stack (11m38s).
• The decision to use Rust in production is another "it depends" situation, and it may make sense for some, but not for others (11m56s).
• The programming languages and paradigms track aims to shift the narrative from showcasing new things in programming languages to focusing on the world of software engineering for how most people do it on a daily basis (12m12s).
• The track includes talks about programming languages, finding and identifying bugs within program languages, and statically finding bugs with typing (12m39s).
• Jake's talk from Stripe introduces sbet into their big code base to help find bugs with typing in Ruby, and Paul's take on platform engineering explores the blurring of lines between writing defensive code and putting layers of defense elsewhere (12m49s).

Additional Tracks and Topics

• The track also includes talks on Pickle, a new configuration language recently open-sourced by Apple, and Closure, which is used for Datomic at Newbank (13m43s).
• The QCon San Francisco 2024 Program Committee chose 12 tracks for the conference, focusing on the big themes of the year, and some topics like platform engineering and SRE (Site Reliability Engineering) were not included as separate tracks (14m15s).
• Despite not having a dedicated platform engineering or SRE track, there are multiple talks across various tracks that would be of interest to platform engineers and SREs, such as those in the Hardware Architectures and Rust tracks (15m1s).
• The committee ensured that at any given time slot, there would be something relevant for SREs or platform engineers, making it a common job family for the audience (15m27s).
• The Hardware Architectures track covers topics like CPU-based fine-tuning, systems-level things, and deploying in production, which would be of interest to SREs and platform engineers (15m45s).
• The Rust track also covers systems-level topics, deploying in production, and fine-tuning, making it relevant for SREs and platform engineers (15m57s).
• Not having a dedicated SRE track allows for intermingling with other parts of the community and attendees, providing a better experience for SREs (16m11s).
• The Architectural Evolution track has talks about why companies made certain shifts, which is relevant to platform engineers and SREs (16m35s).
• The conference exposes attendees to various topics, and some platform engineers have found value in tracks like People and Processes, which was not initially expected (17m0s).

Broadening Perspectives and Learning

• The importance of broadening one's perspective and horizon in software development is emphasized, as it allows individuals to meet people with different roles and interests, creating a fantastic crossover of ideas and knowledge (17m38s).
• Attending conferences is a great way to enhance one's knowledge base, and it's recommended to sit in on tracks that are outside of one's daily work to learn something new and applicable (17m54s).
• For example, an SRE (Site Reliability Engineer) could benefit from attending tracks on fundamental machine learning or socio-technical resilience, which could provide a fresh perspective and new insights (18m12s).
• The idea of combining different roles and perspectives, such as DevOps and MLOps, is seen as a positive trend, as it brings together people with different viewpoints to solve problems and achieve better results (18m33s).

Inclusive User Interfaces

• The concept of inclusive UIs (User Interfaces) is becoming increasingly important, as it's not just about making the web more accessible, but also about making other UIs, such as augmented reality, virtual reality, and voice-controlled UIs, inclusive and accessible to people with limited capabilities (19m31s).
• The trend of inclusive UIs is important to discuss, as it's an area that requires more attention and resources, and it's essential to make these UIs accessible to everyone, regardless of their abilities (19m33s).
• The need for inclusive user interfaces is becoming increasingly important, as users may have a subpar experience or be unable to access certain experiences at all if they are not designed with inclusivity in mind (20m25s).
• Engineers, not just designers, need to think outside the box to achieve goals and provide alternative ways for users to interact with products (20m45s).
• Innovative solutions are being developed to address these issues, making it a great fit for the QCon conference (21m8s).
• QCon and InfoQ focus on innovator and early adopter trends, such as inclusive UI in virtual reality, which didn't exist four years ago (21m13s).
• Attending sessions on these topics can help engineers think about how to handle specific use cases and make products more inclusive (21m38s).
• It's not just designers who need to solve the problem of inclusivity, engineers also need to be involved (21m55s).
• The conference track on inclusive user interfaces will provide valuable insights for anyone working on user-facing interfaces, regardless of their specific work (22m3s).

QCon Community and Unconference Sessions

• Two recommended activities at QCon are attending tracks and talks outside of one's area of expertise to broaden horizons and learn about new domains, and meeting people from other areas to spark conversations and connections (22m20s).
• The QCon community is inclusive, and attending unconference sessions can provide opportunities to meet like-minded individuals and have meaningful conversations (23m17s).
• The unconference sessions are run in a way that encourages inclusivity and allows attendees to be heard, and can even lead to new friendships and connections (23m37s).
• The QCon San Francisco 2024 conference offers attendees the opportunity to interact with practitioners who work on software development day in and day out, allowing for questions and discussions over three days (23m49s).
• The unconference format is beneficial for introverts, as it provides a structured environment for productive conversations, allowing participants to share ideas and learn from each other (24m47s).
• Unconferences involve a time-boxed conversation with a small amount of structure, where participants can put up topics and engage in moderated discussions (25m5s).
• This format makes it easier for introverts to participate, as they can put up a sticky note on the board with a topic they'd like to discuss, and see if others have similar interests (25m19s).

Practitioners and Architectural Evolution

• The conference features practitioners, not just experts, allowing attendees to learn from others who are doing the same job (25m35s).
• The architectural evolution track at the conference focuses on getting back to basics, discussing the pendulum swing between different architectural approaches, such as monoliths, microservices, and serverless (26m15s).
• This track explores areas where people are trending backwards in time but forward in productivity, informing their unique architectural approach rather than becoming zealots about a particular philosophy (26m46s).

Hardware Architectures Track

• The QCon San Francisco 2024 conference includes a track on hardware architectures, emphasizing the importance for engineers to be aware of hardware developments to optimize performance, especially with the increasing demands of large AI models. (27m0s)
• The conference features speakers from major CPU manufacturers like AMD and Intel, as well as companies like Geico, who have successfully optimized applications to run efficiently on current hardware architectures. (28m9s)
• A keynote at the conference will discuss the use of newer hardware types in terrestrial computing and space missions, highlighting the shift from traditional, specialized space hardware to more innovative architectures, as seen in NASA's latest missions. (28m46s)
• The keynote will also address the theme of taking risks with new hardware technologies and the scientific advancements that result from such endeavors. (29m46s)
• The conference aims to provide thought-provoking insights into hardware and software challenges, encouraging attendees to relate these insights to their own work and decision-making processes. (29m53s)

Additional Tracks and Keynotes

• The QCon San Francisco 2024 conference will feature various tracks, including one on architectures that attendees have always wondered about, which is expected to be a fascinating and educational experience for software engineers (31m13s).
• The conference will also include a track on Rust in production, which has some really interesting talks, and another on socio-technical resilience, which is an area where attendees can broaden their horizons and learn more about (32m9s).
• The QCon San Francisco 2024 program committee is excited about the conference, which will cover key software trends, including AI, and will feature talks from engineers working on software who will share their experiences and solutions to complex problems (31m2s).
• One of the talks that is expected to be interesting is about GitHub's networking stack and how they make their IDE super performant, even when running in the cloud (30m28s).
• The conference will also feature a keynote on novel and complex problems in interesting contexts, which will provide attendees with insights into how these problems were approached and solved (31m31s).
• The QCon San Francisco 2024 conference is expected to be a great learning experience for software engineers, with many interesting talks and sessions to choose from, and registration is now open (32m58s).