Conference Description
Key Takeaways
- Three-day conference for senior software engineers, architects and technical leaders focused on production-grade systems
- Covers applied AI, distributed systems, platform engineering and Staff+ engineering skills
- Features 12 curated tracks and 60+ practitioner speakers from companies including Amazon, Meta, Netflix and Google
- Emphasizes real-world implementation patterns and operational trade-offs rather than product marketing
- Optional two-day hands-on training workshops follow the main conference
About the Event
QCon San Francisco is an international software conference running November 16 to 18, 2026, with optional training workshops on November 19 and 20. The event takes place at the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco and targets practitioners from innovator and early adopter companies who are building complex, large-scale software systems.
The conference prioritizes sessions selected by practitioners rather than sponsors, with speakers sharing experiences from shipping and operating systems in production. Attendees receive 12 months of video access, and a video-only pass is available for those unable to attend in person.
Technical Focus Areas
The program spans AI system architecture, agent orchestration, evaluations and guardrails, and platform engineering for AI workloads. Specific technologies referenced include Model Context Protocol (MCP), LangOps, LLMOps, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), AutoML and vector databases.
Beyond AI, tracks address distributed systems resilience, modern API design, data platforms, observability and developer experience. Sessions also cover organizational topics including Staff+ engineering skills, technical leadership and expanding coding roles beyond traditional engineering functions.
Who Should Attend
The conference serves senior software engineers, staff and principal engineers, software architects, CTOs, VPs of Engineering and engineering managers. It is relevant to teams in engineering, architecture, DevOps, platform, AI/ML and site reliability engineering across technology, finance, e-commerce, media and cloud sectors. Unconference sessions provide peer problem-solving opportunities alongside the structured program.