CONFERENCE DAY TWO

Session Available For Sponsorship

Noud Donders

Former Head of Platform
Ex-Maersk

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Join Hasith Kalpage, a Cloud Native Technology specialist at Cisco, as he shares how the team is integrating intelligent tooling and upgraded AI interfaces to unlock smoother developer experiences and reduce bottlenecks across the enterprise. Through a live case study, explore:

• Redefining platform sustainability by tackling bottlenecks through agentic engineering models.
• Transforming AI capabilities that streamline workflows and eliminate friction.
• Demonstrating adaptive platform onboarding by leveraging AI to personalise user experiences and accelerate adoption.
• Driving open-source AI initiatives to drive broader community adoption and innovation.

Hasith Kalpage

Director, Platform Engineering & CISO
Cisco

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When it comes to platform engineering, success doesn’t end at delivery. In this session, Andrew Platonov - a product integration and developer experience specialist from Pandora - shares a candid look at the challenges encountered post-launch in integrating their platform, revealing how they work to avoid and navigate common pitfalls by:

• Identifying integration as a critical phase where unforeseen complexity often emerges post-platform build.
• Learning from early missteps to build more resilient and scalable integration pipelines.
• Establishing robust cross-team collaboration to surface platform blind spots and adoption blockers.
• Applying a product mindset to integration workflows to better align with developer needs and evolving system goals.

Andrew Platonov

Product Director, Enabling Platforms
Pandora

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This session explores Nike’s pragmatic approach to platform composability—building loosely coupled capabilities for incremental adoption without disruptive migrations. It introduces an economic model for build-vs-buy decisions, highlighting hidden costs of vendor sprawl like context switching and integration maintenance. The talk details the creation of NO-OP (Nike’s Open-source Observability Platform), which replaced six monitoring tools, cut total cost of ownership by 4x, improved uNPS by 30%, and saved $15M annually. Key strategies include leveraging OpenTelemetry as a universal language, enabling self-service onboarding (weeks to hours), and implementing team-level cost transparency. Attendees will learn a quantifiable cost framework, composable architecture patterns for gradual migration, and battle-proven tactics that drove 100% platform adoption in 18 months—plus lessons learned from cultural resistance, bottling high-heat events plus challenges related to working with and on open-source.

Panos Tsilopoulos

Director, Observability Platform Engineering
Nike

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In this session, Stephen Burrows shares real-world insights from over 15 years in FinTech, unpacking the challenges enterprises face when balancing developer autonomy with operational standardisation. Through a practical use-case, learn additional ways to assess your organisation’s strengths and weaknesses while empowering your developers and avoiding some of the pitfalls by:

• Assessing organisational context to map autonomy and standardisation trade-offs.
• Leveraging data insights to guide DevOps decisions and tooling adoption.
• Avoiding the extremes of rigid control or unchecked autonomy through flexible frameworks.
• Aligning platform strategies with business value through structured governance.

Stephen Burrows

Head of DevOps Engineering
Msci Inc

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True developer experience transformation isn’t just about tools or processes—it’s a cultural movement. Leaders must shift mindsets, inspire engineers, and communicate value in a way that resonates. This session explores how to build momentum that drives real, lasting change.

• Using storytelling to demonstrate and sell the value of developer experience.
• Shifting mindsets toward continuous improvement and growth.
• Empowering engineers to think bigger, take ownership, and innovate.
• Embedding culture as the foundation for lasting DX transformation.

John Knowles

Senior Software Engineering Manager
Capital One

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Implementing Enabling Teams isn't always a straightforward process. Join Felix Rothballer as he recounts ProSiebenSat.1's journey building an Enabling Team to support their cloud migration. He'll share the unexpected challenges they encountered, the adaptations they made to stay on course, and the key insights they gained about the importance of clear communication, trust, and continuous improvement.

• How enabling teams support developers through mentorship, knowledge transfer, and technical guidance.
• Strategies to identify knowledge gaps and remove blockers without taking ownership away from delivery teams.
• Embedding feedback loops to ensure enabling teams stay aligned with developer pain points and evolving needs.
• Enabling faster adoption of complex technologies while improving developer self-service and autonomy.
• Real-world examples of how enabling teams drive better collaboration, faster delivery, and stronger engineering culture.

Felix Rothballer

Head of Platform Engineering and Operations
ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE

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Standardised tooling, strong support models, and measurable impact combined can evolve both platform architecture and the developer experience. Join Ionut Craciunescu, both a strategy and engineering leader as well as Head of Engineering at Utility Warehouse, as he shares how a newly formed Dev Enablement team supercharged developer productivity and navigated a complex migration from self-hosted Kafka to AWS MSK by:

• Blending DevEx and platform engineering to create cohesive developer experiences.
• Providing paved paths and libraries (e.g., franz-go) that support safe, scalable migrations.
• Building trust through ownership, support, and clear communication.
• Measuring ROI through engineering time saved and increased option value.

Ionut Craciunescu

Head of Engineering
Utility Warehouse

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Platforms may not generate revenue directly, but they hold the keys to efficiency, scalability, and long-term growth. In this session, Lobo Olsson, Director of Engineering at HelloFresh, explores how platform teams can shift the narrative by demonstrating economic impact through smarter operations and product alignment. Learn how building targeted “mini-platforms” and becoming internal allies can help embed platforms into the value chain and unlock continued investment. Dive into:

•  Leveraging platform ownership of major contracts to drive operational efficiency.
•  Building tailored solutions that connect platform capabilities to end-customer value.
•  Positioning platform teams as strategic partners across the organisation.

Lobo Olsson

Director of Engineering - Platform
HelloFresh

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