26
202026 Edition
QCon SF 2026
Architecting for Agents: Beneath the Loop
Five days with senior engineers on AI systems, platforms, distributed systems, and the Staff+ craft. Curated by practitioners, not sponsors. Registration is open — numbers below are projections based on current pace and previous years.
Nov 16-20·Hyatt Regency SF·Talks TBA·Registration open
Program
Mon · Nov 16
8:00 AM
BreakRegistration & Breakfast
9:00 AMKeynote
Architecting for Agents: What Turns a Demo into a System You Would Stake a Business On
Mira Halvorsen
Co-Founder & CTO, Westgate
10:15 AM
BreakMorning Coffee & Expo Hall Opens
10:45 AM
TalkHow We Scaled Our Agent Platform to 10M Requests/Day
Joanna Pereira · Senior AI Infra Consultant
10:45 AM
TalkBuilding Guardrails That Actually Catch Bad Outputs
Tanya Riley · Principal Engineer, Northwind
10:45 AM
TalkAPI Design Patterns for Agent-to-API Communication
Krystal Flores-Bay · Staff SWE, Lumen Labs
11:45 AM
TalkInside Westgate's Agent Orchestration Layer
Mira Halvorsen · Co-Founder & CTO, Westgate
11:45 AM
TalkEvaluation Pipelines at Scale: Lessons from 50M+ Evals
Tanya Riley · Principal Engineer, Northwind
11:45 AM
TalkSchema Evolution for Agent-Consumed APIs
Krystal Flores-Bay · Staff SWE, Lumen Labs
12:45 PM
BreakLunch Break & Birds-of-a-Feather Tables
1:45 PM
TalkDistributed Systems Lessons from Scaling an AI Inference Fleet
Vikram Anand · Tech Lead, Data Platform, Stripe
1:45 PM
TalkStaff+ Engineering in the Age of AI: Your Role Is Changing
Javier Mendoza · Staff SWE, 24+ years
2:45 PM
BreakAfternoon Coffee & Expo Hall
3:15 PM
TalkRate Limiting, Queuing, and Backpressure for Agent Workloads
Vikram Anand · Tech Lead, Data Platform, Stripe
3:15 PM
TalkInfluence Without Authority: The Staff+ Engineer's AI Strategy Playbook
Javier Mendoza · Staff SWE, 24+ years
4:15 PM
TalkReal-Time Agent Monitoring: The Dashboard We Wish We Had
Joanna Pereira · Senior AI Infra Consultant
5:15 PM
SocialWelcome Reception & AI Systems Showcase
Drinks, appetizers, and live agent demos from production systems.
Tue · Nov 17
9:00 AM
TalkConsensus at the Edge: Distributing Agent Decisions Across Regions
Vikram Anand · Tech Lead, Data Platform, Stripe
9:00 AM
TalkCareer Ladders for AI-Native Engineers
Javier Mendoza · Staff SWE, 24+ years
10:00 AM
TalkEvent Sourcing for Agent State: Why We Ditched the Database
Vikram Anand · Tech Lead, Data Platform, Stripe
10:00 AM
TalkOrganizational Design Patterns for AI Teams
Javier Mendoza · Staff SWE, 24+ years
11:00 AM
BreakMorning Coffee & Sponsor Expo
11:30 AM
TalkSharding Agent Workloads: Partitioning Strategies for Inference
Vikram Anand · Tech Lead, Data Platform, Stripe
11:30 AM
TalkThe Tech Lead's Guide to AI Project Estimation
David Patterson · Distinguished Engineer, Stripe
12:30 PM
BreakLunch Break & Unconference Sessions
1:30 PM
TalkAgent-to-Agent Authentication and Authorization Patterns
Joanna Pereira · Senior AI Infra Consultant
2:30 PM
BreakAfternoon Coffee & Hallway Track
3:00 PM
TalkBuilding an AI-Native On-Call Rotation
Sepehr Khorram · ML Platform Engineer, Cruise
3:00 PM
TalkWhen Agents Disagree: Conflict Resolution in Multi-Agent Systems
Joanna Pereira · Senior AI Infra Consultant
4:00 PM
WorkshopDesigning Agent System Architecture: A Collaborative Session
Mira Halvorsen · Co-Founder & CTO, Westgate
Wed · Nov 18
9:00 AM
TrainingBuilding AI Agents: A Framework for Picking the Right SDK
Hien Lu · Sr. Engineering Manager
1:00 PM
TrainingAI-Assisted Coding Master Class: Build Your Mission Control
Sepehr Khorram · ML Platform Engineer
9:00 AM
TrainingAI for Java Developers
Daniel Vargas · Java Champion
12:00 PM
BreakLunch Break
1:00 PM
TrainingEffective AI-Native Development on Real Codebases
Zhi Xiong · Head of AIOps
Full-day workshop on applying AI coding tools to legacy codebases with real-world constraints.
1:00 PM
PanelClosing Panel: Architecting for Agents — What We Got Right and What We Got Wrong
Mira Halvorsen, Joanna Pereira, Vikram Anand, Krystal Flores-Bay · QCon SF 2026 Track Hosts
2:30 PM
BreakConference Close & Farewell
Tracks
Nov 16
Architectures You Have Always Wondered About
Deep dives into real systems — the trade-offs and the decisions behind them.
Mira HalvorsenCo-Founder & CTO, Westgate
Nov 18
Architecting for Agents: Beneath the Loop
Every layer with practitioners shipping agents to production.
Joanna PereiraSenior AI Infra Consultant
Nov 17
Distributed Systems in Practice
Shipping features, firefighting incidents, pushing scale.
Vikram AnandTech Lead, Data Platform
Nov 17
Staff+ Engineering Skills
Navigating change, setting up the next wave.
Javier MendozaStaff SWE, 24+ years
Nov 16
Guardrails & Evals
Evaluation systems and safety nets for AI-powered software.
Tanya RileyPrincipal Engineer, Northwind
Nov 16
Modern API Design
Usability, evolvability, and real-world constraints.
Krystal Flores-BayStaff SWE, Lumen Labs
Training Sessions
Half day·Thu Nov 19 · 9:00 AM
Building AI Agents: Picking the Right SDK
A practical framework for choosing among Agents SDK, LangGraph, Pydantic AI, and Claude SDK.
Hien LuSr. Engineering Manager
Half day·Thu Nov 19 · 1:00 PM
AI-Assisted Coding Master Class
Spend an afternoon building your mission control for AI coding agents.
Sepehr KhorramML Platform Engineer
Full day·Fri Nov 20 · 9:00 AM
Effective AI-Native Development on Real Codebases
Legacy code, mixed frameworks, and the conventions nobody can explain.
Zhi XiongHead of AIOps
Half day·Thu Nov 19 · 9:00 AM
AI for Java Developers
A pragmatic on-ramp for Java teams joining the AI shift.
Daniel VargasJava Champion