Tech Trends for Tech Leaders

Thursday, 5:30 PM EST

There are certain tech trends people at least know about such as Moore's Law even if they don't really understand them. But there are other forces at play in and around our industry that are unknown or ignored by the ever diminishing tech journalism profession. They help explain and predict the pressures and influences we are seeing now or soon will.

In this talk, I will identify a variety of trends that are happening at various paces in intertwined ways at the technological, scientific, cultural, biological, and geopolitical levels and why Tech Leaders should know about them. Being aware of the visible and invisible forces that surround you can help you work with them, rather than against them. You will also be more likely to make good choices and thrive rather than being buffeted uncontrollably.

Shifting Security Left: Empowering Developers to Build Secure Systems

Friday, 1:30 PM EST

As a tech leader, how can you help your developers take ownership of security without slowing down innovation? Developers are incentivized to prove that systems work as expected—but how often do we ensure they don’t do what they shouldn’t?Security isn’t just a checklist; it’s a mindset. But can your team define what security truly means? How do you measure enough security? More importantly, how do you drive meaningful, incremental improvements in your organization’s security posture without overwhelming your developers?

This session will provide you with a practical, actionable framework to embed security into your development process. You’ll walk away with concrete strategies to help your teams proactively design security in—without sacrificing velocity.

Empowering Generalists

Friday, 3:00 PM EST

Since the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions, there has been more to know every day. No individual can know it all and we have seen the entrenchment of the specialist for the past hundred or so years. When all of this tacit knowledge was locked in our heads, the specialist was rewarded for knowing details.

In our industry we have seen professionals gravitate to specific languages, specific tiers in the architecture (e.g. front-end vs backend), and specific libraries or frameworks. Sometimes they will even go so far as to list specific versions of specific technologies on their resume.

All of this specialization can be beneficial when you need resources that are deep within narrow confines. The ubiquitous glut of available information no longer requires us to know topics to this level of detail. Market realities are also such that nobody has the budget to employ only specialists any more. Developers have needed to learn to become designers, testers, data-experts, security-aware, AI-cognizant, and capable of communicating with various stakeholders.

When your industry epitomizes unfettered change, you need to rely on generalists, not specialists; synthesizers, not knowledge keepers. How can you attract, hire, and benefit from technologists who identify as problem solving value adders rather than programmers of a specific language? How can you encourage their growth and measure success? Even more, how do you lead them yourself?

In this talk we will discuss the rise of the generalist knowledge worker who creates value even in the face of information overflow and AI.