{{ QCon San Francisco 2026 }}
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International software conference and certification for professional developers
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What's next in AI.
What's next in software.
From the teams already doing it.
60+ senior practitioners share what's working across AI, architecture, leadership, and culture so you can make better decisions for your team.
November 16-20, 2026
Hyatt Regency, San Francisco
Trusted by senior engineering teams for 20+ years
What you’ll learn
Real-world patterns from senior developers at the leading edge
Architectures You've Always Wondered About
Driving Reliability Through Modern Platform Engineering and Dev Enablement
Polyglot Platforms: Strategies & Practices to Enable Innovation
Effective Engineering and Practices in Early Stage Startups
Navigating Major Architecture Migrations
AI Engineering that Delivers: Blueprint to Impact
The Path to Senior Engineering Leadership
Innovations in Front-End
Architecting for Efficiency: Performance, Cost, and Maintainability
The Stories Behind the Incidents
Empowering Teams with AI: Productivity and the Future of Software Development
High-Performance Languages in Modern Development
Need to convince your boss? Use our templates.
Why attend QCon San Francisco
Validate your approach. Move forward with conviction.
Technology decisions are getting harder. You don't need another hidden product pitch.
You need senior practitioners who've been where you are.
QCon connects you with senior practitioners who've already navigated similar trade-offs.
Need to convince your boss? Use our template.
Validate your strategy
Benchmark your approach against teams who've faced similar challenges
Real production patterns
Learn from systems at scale, not proof-of-concepts
Honest lessons
Hear what failed, not just what worked
No hidden product pitches
Sessions selected by practitioners, not sponsors
Career-defining skills
Technical and leadership practices that differentiate you
Senior practitioners helping senior practitioners.
No hidden product pitches. Just peers sharing what works.
The breadth of topics and the quality of speakers is incredible.
QCon puts more emphasis on the human connections between the sessions.
Speakers from all around the world, at the forefront of their field.
QCon puts more emphasis on the human connections between the sessions.
Unconferences are a space for everyone to share best practices.
Eye-opening! I can't wait to implement what I've learnt.
You don't see big pressure on selling you stuff. It’s all about learning and helping you grow.
Unconference sessions— they turn out to be a really beneficial feature of the conference.
Curation sets QCon apart. Tracks are curated by track hosts that know that field well.
Connections. Everyone here is passionate about what they do and how they grow.
It's one of the most innovative conferences I've been to.
QCon gives us the opportunity to zoom out and look at our reality from a different perspective.
Practical takeaways. New perspectives.
The QCon experience
Deep technical sessions. Peer conversations that change how you think.
Conference experience
12 curated tracks
60+ peer-selected international speakers
Deep technical dives
Hear what failed, not just what worked
Extended networking
Conversations, peer sharing and social events.
Video access
12 months of on-demand recordings
Optional experiences
Understand what’s coming next
QCon speakers are at the leading edge adopting emerging technologies in
production before they're proven. Learn from their experience to reduce your
risk.
- Model Context Protocol (MCP)
- Multimodal AI
- Agentic AI / Orchestration
- Physical AI
- Reasoning Models
- AI DevOps
- AI-powered hardware
- AI in Robotics aka Embodied AI
- LangOps or LLMOps
- Knowledge Graphs
- Brain-Computer Interfaces
- Robotics
- Edge inference and model training
-
Large-scale distributed
deep-learning
- Small Language Models (SLMs)
- Explainable AI
- Automated Machine Learning (AutoML)
- Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG)
-
Generative AI/Large
Language Models (LLMs) - Cloud agnostic computing for AI
- Data Contracts
- Data Observability
- Virtual Reality e.g. VR/AR/MR/XR
- Cognitive Services
- Graph Data Analytics
- IoT Platforms
- Synthetic data generation
- MLOps
- Vector Databases
- AI coding assistants
-
Image Recognition
(Computer Vision) - Natural Language Processing
- Deep Learning
- Open Table Formats (OTFs)
- Data Mesh
- Digital Assistants
- Apache Beam
Source: InfoQ AI, ML and Data Engineering Trends Report - 2025
Your team at QCon
Bring your colleagues for faster results
Engineering Leaders & CTOs
Validate multi-year technology strategy. Understand which emerging practices are ready for enterprise adoption.
Software Architects & Principal Engineers
Get architectural patterns from teams who've scaled systems you're planning to build. Learn their tradeoffs.
Senior Developers & Staff+ Engineers
Develop technical judgment for complex decisions. See how leading teams solve problems similar to yours.
Need to convince your boss?
Use our pre-written templates.
Get three days of practical insights from 60+ senior
software practitioners. Use these takeaways to:
Reduce project risk
Learn from real-world failures to avoid costly mistakes
Benchmark your approach
Understand how leading teams tackle problems you're facing
Accelerate delivery
Apply architectural and operational patterns that work at scale
Validate technology bets
Learn from engineers who adopted first to reduce your risk
Build team capability
Equip yourself and your team with durable, relevant skills
Stay ahead of the curve
Understand emerging trends before they become table stakes
A safe and inclusive environment
The QCon 'We Care' experience
Enforced Code of Conduct
All-Gender restroom
Prayer room
Lactation room
Quiet areas
Sessions feedback for constant improvement
Badge optimized for peer-sharing
Accessible event space
Variety of food options (vegetarian, vegan, gluten free, special diet meals)
Detailed food labels
Diversity scholarships
Community events
DEI guidelines for track hosts and speakers
All-day coffee
Flexible online experience
On-demand access for 12 months
QCon San Francisco venue
Hyatt Regency - San Francisco
Hyatt Regency - San Francisco
The hotel is located right on the Embarcadero waterfront with stunning views all around and close to popular attractions, events, and shopping. The conference venue is at the same location as the hotel.
To learn more and reserve your hotel room, please visit the venue page .
Explore past QCon talks
Who attends QCon
Technical leaders, senior engineers, and software architects making technical decisions
34%
TECHNICAL TEAM LEADS AND HIGHER,
SOFTWARE ARCHITECTS
23%
SENIOR DEVELOPER / LEAD ENGINEER
24%
SOFTWARE DEVELOPER
Trusted by senior engineering teams for 20+ years
QCon and InfoQ have guided software teams through every shift: cloud, containers, microservices, and now AI.
Sessions are selected by an international program committee for depth, relevance, and real-world value. No hidden product pitches.
Real teams. Real stories. Real results.
20 years
Helping senior dev teams adopt the right patterns and practices
550k per month
Global senior software developers relying on the InfoQ community to stay ahead
4,500+ per year
Senior developers learning emerging trends and practices at our QCon international software development conferences
Unable to make it to QCon San Francisco?
Take a look at:
QCon London 2026
When: March 16-19, 2026
Where: The Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, London
QCon AI Boston 2026
When: June 1-2, 2026
Where: Boston University, George Sherman Union, Boston, MA