Sarah Dutkiewicz at Stir Trek 2026

Wife, mom, techie - 100% me, unapologetically

About Sarah Dutkiewicz

Sadukie is a tech polyglot who brings code to life and helps others unlock their potential through teaching and mentorship. As a seasoned software architect with a sharp eye for user experience, she makes it easy for developers to pick up new tools and hit the ground running. When technical roadblocks pop up, she’s the one who clears the path—breaking down complex ideas and helping teams communicate more effectively. A natural connector and strong community advocate, Sadukie loves bringing people together across the tech world. Whether she’s mentoring, speaking, or juggling life as a full-time mom, her mission stays the same: to make tech more approachable and spark confidence in every coder’s journey.

Session: Decision Records: Understanding Why Those Decisions Were Made!

1 May 2026 03:00 PM | Ghostbusters - Theatre 17 (20)
Track: Architecture & Platform Engineering

Ever stared at a complex system and thought, “Wait, why was that decision made?!” We’ve all been there – lost in a maze of logic, struggling to track down the root cause of a problem. Decision Records offer a brilliant way to finally unlock that understanding. They’re like having a detailed, searchable log of every decision in your applications – from architectural style to authentication to service discovery and containerization. By capturing these decisions, you build more maintainable, auditable, and, frankly, less frustrating systems. In this session, you will learn how decision records solve problems and will be given ideas of templates that you can implement in your projects today! Let’s ditch the guesswork and start documenting the why – because truly understanding your systems is the key to unlocking its full potential!

Connect with Sarah

• LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/sadukie
• Blog: https://sadukie.com

Join Us at Stir Trek 2026

Stir Trek 2026 takes place on May 1st, 2026 in Columbus, OH. Don’t miss Sarah’s session — grab your ticket before they’re gone!

🎟️ Register now: https://events.humanitix.com/stir-trek-2026-edition

Amanda Lange at Stir Trek 2026

Senior Agile Delivery Lead, NetJets

About Amanda Lange

Scrum master/ Product Owner with a demonstrated history of working in the computer software industry. Skilled in negotiation, enablement, communication, evangelism, autonomy, leadership, management, networking and KINDNESS!

Session: AI in Agile: How to Leverage AI for Smarter Sprints & Roadmaps

1 May 2026 03:00 PM | The Last Starfighter - Theatre 14 (12,13)
Track: Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning

AI isn’t just disrupting industries; it’s redefining how Agile team’s work. From backlog grooming to sprint planning, modern tools like ChatGPT, Jira Assist, and GitHub Copilot are helping Agile leaders and teams move faster, think smarter, and focus more on value delivery than manual overhead.

In this forward-looking session, we’ll explore how AI is transforming the Agile lifecycle. You’ll see real-world examples and a live demo showing how AI can assist with generating user stories, refining acceptance criteria, summarizing retrospectives, and even forecasting roadmap scenarios.

Connect with Amanda

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-lange-scrummaster/

Join Us at Stir Trek 2026

Stir Trek 2026 takes place on May 1st, 2026 in Columbus, OH. Don’t miss Amanda’s session — grab your ticket before they’re gone!

🎟️ Register now: https://events.humanitix.com/stir-trek-2026-edition

Jamie Dicken at Stir Trek 2026

Builder and Protector

About Jamie Dicken

Jamie Dicken has worked across much of cybersecurity domain, including product security, AppSec, DevSecOps, security tooling and automation, and GRC. Prior to her transition into cybersecurity, she spent 8 years as a software engineer and technical manager at two Fortune 15 healthcare companies, where she focused on designing, building, and delivering new features to the market. Now Jamie focuses on protecting systems like the ones she used to build and transforming the ways that engineering teams and security professionals work together. Jamie is currently the Director of Security Platforms and Architecture at GitLab, leading Security Architecture, Security Research, and AppSec. She also freelances as a threat modeling instructor at Shostack + Associates.

Her professional passions include leading high-performing teams, executing on high-profile strategic initiatives, championing employee growth and development, and mentoring others. Outside of work, Jamie has lots of adventures with her two boys and husband. She enjoys crafting and spending time outdoors.

Session: A developer’s guide to making security reviews suck less

1 May 2026 02:00 PM | Inception - Theatre 28 (18,19)
Track: Security & Privacy Engineering

In many companies, security reviews suck. You’ve spent weeks or months grinding on a new feature and you’re finally ready to push to production, only to have a security review at the eleventh hour spark chaos. A security engineer raises a concern that might be valid or might be a total misunderstanding, but either way, it leads to urgent meetings, escalations, and complicated Go/No-Go decisions.

In this talk, we will dive into how to navigate these reviews without the drama. As an AppSec Director, I will help you understand exactly what security teams are looking for and why. I’ll show you anticipate their concerns and requirements so you aren’t surprised by scope creep right before code complete. We will explore how to effectively engage your security team, what specific information they need from you, and how to speak their language so you can accurately address concerns and get to the heart of their requirements.

By the end of this session, you will have a straightforward strategy to streamline your next security review and build a more collaborative relationship with your security partners. You will walk away with the tools to reduce the friction that leads to pre-launch panic, helping your team ship with significantly fewer headaches.

Connect with Jamie

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jdicken/
• Blog: https://medium.com/@jamie_dicken

Join Us at Stir Trek 2026

Stir Trek 2026 takes place on May 1st, 2026 in Columbus, OH. Don’t miss Jamie’s session — grab your ticket before they’re gone!

🎟️ Register now: https://events.humanitix.com/stir-trek-2026-edition

David Giard at Stir Trek 2026

Microsoft Partner Solution Architect

About David Giard

David Giard is a former accountant and a former biochemist, who has been developing solutions using Microsoft technologies for over three decades. Currently, David helps companies solve hard technical problems in his role as a Microsoft Partner Solution Architect. David has been very active in the developer community, speaking at numerous major conferences, code camps, and user groups around the world; helping to lead user groups; and helping to organize conferences and other geek events. He is the host and producer of the mildly popular online TV shows “Technology and Friends” and “GCast”. He is the co-author of the Wrox book Real World .NET, C#, and Silverlight. You can read his latest thoughts at davidgiard.com. His hobbies include video, photography, sports, and embarrassing his sons.

Session: Automating User Interface Tests with Playwright

1 May 2026 02:00 PM | Interstellar - Theatre 4 (5,6,7,8,9)
Track: Software Quality & Delivery

Testing a user interface is an important part of the development life cycle. However this testing is often done manually, which is expensive, time-consuming, and often inconsistent. Automating this process can make UI testing far more effective and efficient.

Azure Playwright is an open source node.js project that provides a way to automate user interface testing.

By the end of this session, you’ll know how to:

• Automate repetitive coding tasks with Playwright
• Record user actions and use the rich object model to automate your tests
• Integrate Copilot into your CI/CD pipeline
• Reduce test development time.

Connect with David

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidgiard/
• Twitter/X: @davidgiard
• Website: https://microsoft.com
• Blog: http://davidgiard.com/

Join Us at Stir Trek 2026

Stir Trek 2026 takes place on May 1st, 2026 in Columbus, OH. Don’t miss David’s session — grab your ticket before they’re gone!

🎟️ Register now: https://events.humanitix.com/stir-trek-2026-edition

Burton Smith at Stir Trek 2026

Technical Lead at Microsoft

About Burton Smith

I am a technical lead at Microsoft working with design systems and web components.

I am also the creator of various open-source projects like Kickstand UI (a design system built with web components - kickstand-ui.com) and Clarion (a style framework for managing design systems - projectclarion.com).

In my free time, I love spending time with my wife and three daughters, practicing martial arts, jamming on my ukulele, and learning new things (usually about software engineering).

Session: The 5 Fundamentals of UX Everyone Should Know

1 May 2026 11:30 AM | Galaxy Quest - Theatre 27 (23,24,25,26)
Track: Product Design & User Experience

If you are building something (website, API, developer tools, presentation, email, etc.), you are creating a UX (user experience). How do you make that a good user experience?

In this session, we will discuss 5 fundamental questions you can use as a framework to put you on the path to creating products your users will love.

Connect with Burton

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/burton-smith-48132a34/
• Twitter/X: @stuffbreaker
• Website: https://www.microsoft.com/
• Blog: https://dev.to/stuffbreaker

Join Us at Stir Trek 2026

Stir Trek 2026 takes place on May 1st, 2026 in Columbus, OH. Don’t miss Burton’s session — grab your ticket before they’re gone!

🎟️ Register now: https://events.humanitix.com/stir-trek-2026-edition

Matt “Kelly” Williams at Stir Trek 2026

Sustainable IT Innovator Championing Agile Sustainability & Green Tech | | CEO of Sustainable IT Manifesto Foundation | International Speaker | Advisory Board Member

About Matt “Kelly” Williams

Matt “Kelly” Williams is the founder of Making Software Greener, the CEO of the Sustainable IT Manifesto Foundation, advisory board member for the Green Computing Foundation, and a speaker and mentor on IT practices including DevOps, Cloud Computing, and mental health advocacy. He has always wanted to be a Renaissance person; perhaps one day he will be. In the meantime, he explores IT Sustainability, is learning photography, designs tabletop games, reads, weaves, cooks, hacks, and explores the mountains near Loveland, Colorado.

Session: From Power to Supply Chains: Sustainability is Security

1 May 2026 11:30 AM | Inception - Theatre 28 (18,19)
Track: Security & Privacy Engineering

Technology is moving fast, and so are the environmental challenges we face. Security sits right in the middle of these pressures. It’s no longer just about defending systems—our choices around power, hardware, and supply chains also shape how secure those systems really are.

In this talk, I’ll explore why sustainability belongs in the security conversation. We’ll look at practical steps—like energy-efficient tools, leaner software, greener data centers, and responsible hardware lifecycles—that cut waste and costs while strengthening defenses. Just as importantly, we’ll examine how unstable supply chains, poor sourcing, or unreliable power can become security risks in themselves.

We’ll also connect this to risk and compliance: how building sustainability into security reduces exposure, steadies supply chains, and keeps organizations ahead of changing expectations. With real-world examples, you’ll walk away with a clear sense of how sustainability and security reinforce each other, and how to apply that thinking in your own work.

Connect with Matt

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattkwilliams/
• Twitter/X: @matt_k_williams
• Website: https://makingsoftwaregreener.com
• Blog: http://matthewkwilliams.com

Join Us at Stir Trek 2026

Stir Trek 2026 takes place on May 1st, 2026 in Columbus, OH. Don’t miss Matt’s session — grab your ticket before they’re gone!

🎟️ Register now: https://events.humanitix.com/stir-trek-2026-edition

Bob Fornal at Stir Trek 2026

Microsoft MVP | Senior Developer with a passion for learning, testing, mentoring, speaking and personal growth. Blessed husband and proud father of two.

About Bob Fornal

Microsoft MVP with focus is on Web Development: JavaScript, TypeScript, CSS, SVG, Angular, React, React-Native, Vue, and Ionic. I commonly speak about Cloud CI/CD, Quality Engineering, Best Practices, and Front-End Technologies.

• Owner of Code Squid, LLC.
• Senior Solutions Developer II (Front-End) at Leading EDJE, Inc.

“Learning from my mistakes over the decades, I feel that I have become a solid programmer.” – Me

Session: TypeScript You MIGHT Like

1 May 2026 11:30 AM | The Goonies - Theatre 16 (21)
Track: Architecture & Platform Engineering

TypeScript isn’t just a stricter JavaScript, it’s a toolkit for writing clearer, safer, and more maintainable code. Many developers simply use it minimally after encountering verbose types, confusing errors, or patterns that feel academic.

This talk takes a different route: dozens practical, real‑world TypeScript examples you can use today without over‑engineering, or over-hauling, your codebase. Through dozens of bite‑sized examples drawn from actual projects, we’ll cover patterns that reduce bugs, tips that keep types manageable, and features you might be overlooking.

Whether you’re a JavaScript developer TypeScript‑curious, or an experienced user looking for new tricks, you’ll leave with ideas you can drop straight into your editor; and a new appreciation for TypeScript that you MIGHT actually like.

Connect with Bob

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rfornal/
• Twitter/X: @rfornal
• Website: https://www.leadingedje.com/home
• Blog: https://dev.to/rfornal

Join Us at Stir Trek 2026

Stir Trek 2026 takes place on May 1st, 2026 in Columbus, OH. Don’t miss Bob’s session — grab your ticket before they’re gone!

🎟️ Register now: https://events.humanitix.com/stir-trek-2026-edition

Cameron Presley at Stir Trek 2026

Owner of Small Batch Solutions - Professional Problem Solver

About Cameron Presley

Cameron Presley is owner of Small Batch Solutions (https://smallbatchsolutions.io/), a speaker, and a Microsoft MVP in Developer Technologies.

Based out of Charlotte, North Carolina, Cameron has ten years of experience working with start-ups and large enterprise both publicly and privately held to architect solutions, implement solutions, and training developers to be better today than what they were yesterday!

In his spare time, Cameron can be found hanging out with his family, playing board games, jamming on the bass guitar, and reading books.

Session: Cutting Through the Hype: Building High Performing Teams

1 May 2026 11:30 AM | Interstellar - Theatre 4 (5,6,7,8,9)
Track: Professional Growth & Leadership

Whether you’re a leader or an individual contributor, you rely on teams to get meaningful work done. We’ve been working in teams forever, yet some groups move fast and deliver consistently while others seem permanently stuck in the slow lane.

It’s not because one team has mythical “10x engineers” or the latest AI tools. Those things can amplify performance, but they don’t create it. High‑performing teams are built on a foundation of strong people practices and clear, healthy standards.

Designed for new leaders or anyone seeking a fresh perspective, this session breaks down a practical approach to building great teams by focusing on people and standards—and the way the two reinforce each other. By the end of this session, not only will you have ideas on how to improve your team, but also a concrete roadmap you can apply immediately.

Connect with Cameron

• LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/pcameronpresley
• Twitter/X: @pcameronpresley
• Website: https://smallbatchsolutions.io
• Blog: https://blog.thesoftwarementor.com

Join Us at Stir Trek 2026

Stir Trek 2026 takes place on May 1st, 2026 in Columbus, OH. Don’t miss Cameron’s session — grab your ticket before they’re gone!

🎟️ Register now: https://events.humanitix.com/stir-trek-2026-edition

Victor Frye at Stir Trek 2026

Your friendly neighborhood developer

About Victor Frye

Victor Frye is a developer who thrives at the intersection of technical problem-solving and creative innovation. As a Senior Software Engineer and DevOps specialist at Leading EDJE, he specializes in .NET application development, Azure cloud infrastructure, and DevOps automation, with a focus on modernization and developer productivity. The self-proclaimed number one Clippy fan, he brings a playful yet efficient approach to his work. Beyond the keyboard, Victor is an active member of the Grand Rapids developer community, always eager to share insights and explore emerging technologies. During his free time, he can be found exploring fantasy worlds—in pages or pixels—or spending quality time with his wife and two dogs. Fueled by coffee and curiosity, Victor is always ready for the next challenge.

Session: The DevOops Handbook: A satirical guide to slow software delivery

1 May 2026 11:30 AM | Back to the Future - Theatre 3 (1,2)
Track: Software Quality & Delivery

In the quest for rapid software delivery, DevOps principles are misapplied or skipped entirely, leading to a “DevOops culture.” In this talk we’ll explore DevOps missteps through a satirical narrative where missteps and bad practices are presented as the path forward.

To start, we’ll discuss deploying code the way of the masochist. This will include a convincing argument for detail-oriented change requests and late-night deployments to prevent any witnesses to our misdeeds. Following this, we will outline our project mismanagement philosophy for maintaining constant chaos: embracing siloes and eliminating feedback loops. Finally, we’ll present why quality assurance is overrated and unnecessary. Instead, we’ll present the benefits of zero testing and disabling quality and security tools – they are just like that “check engine” light in the car: useless and annoying.

Together we’ll see how easy it is to establish the worst DevOps culture for modern software delivery: a DevOops culture!

Or not. While this talk is tongue in cheek, we will see how to overcome these all-to-real mindsets. By the time we are done, we’ll have navigated the treacherous waters of software misadventures with a wink and a smile so we can march forward, turning our ‘oopses’ into opportunities and our code catastrophes into triumphs.

Connect with Victor

• LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/victorfrye
• Website: https://leadingedje.com/
• Blog: https://victorfrye.com/blog

Join Us at Stir Trek 2026

Stir Trek 2026 takes place on May 1st, 2026 in Columbus, OH. Don’t miss Victor’s session — grab your ticket before they’re gone!

🎟️ Register now: https://events.humanitix.com/stir-trek-2026-edition

Ed Charbeneau at Stir Trek 2026

Ed is a Microsoft MVP and an international speaker, writer, online influencer, a Developer Advocate for Progress.

About Ed Charbeneau

Ed is a Microsoft MVP and an international speaker, writer, online influencer, a Developer Advocate for Progress, and expert on all things web development. Ed enjoys geeking out to cool new tech, brainstorming about future technology, and admiring great design.

Ed has shared his insights, experiences, and advice around collaboration, knowledge management, social computing, and training at many industry events around the United States. Highly ethical and engaging with an uncanny business acumen, he is a creative community builder and outside the box thinker. Long term business relationships throughout the world within internal communications, employee engagement and marketing as well as IT. Focusing on Financial, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Agency and Professional Services. He has defined, architected, implemented line of business solutions with a touch of style and UX best practices.

Session: An intro to Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG)

1 May 2026 11:30 AM | The Last Starfighter - Theatre 14 (12,13)
Track: Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning

Learn to deliver AI search and Generative Answers on top of your unstructured data. RAG is easy to prototype but hard to run in production. In this session we’ll start with retrieval augmented generation basics by building a simple proof of concept. Then, we’ll compare solutions meant for scale with Agentic RAG, RAG Graph, and Entity Recognition. Throughout we’ll see examples of how RAG applies to modern app development.

Connect with Ed

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edcharbeneau/
• Twitter/X: @edcharbeneau
• Website: https://www.telerik.com/
• Blog: https://www.telerik.com/blogs

Join Us at Stir Trek 2026

Stir Trek 2026 takes place on May 1st, 2026 in Columbus, OH. Don’t miss Ed’s session — grab your ticket before they’re gone!

🎟️ Register now: https://events.humanitix.com/stir-trek-2026-edition

Kate Holterhoff at Stir Trek 2026

RedMonk

About Kate Holterhoff

Kate Holterhoff, an industry analyst with RedMonk, has a background in frontend engineering, academic research, and technical communication. Kate comes to RedMonk from the digital marketing sector and brings with her expertise in frontend engineering, QA, accessibility, and scrum best practices.

Before pursuing a career in the tech industry Kate taught writing and communication courses at several East Coast universities. She earned a PhD from Carnegie Mellon in 2016 and was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship (2016-2018) at Georgia Tech, where she is currently an affiliated researcher.

Session: The Vibe Analyst’s Guide to AI Coding: From Autocomplete to Agent Orchestration

1 May 2026 10:30 AM | The Last Starfighter - Theatre 14 (12,13)
Track: Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning

Whether you’re experimenting with AI coding assistants or managing teams that use them, understanding “vibe coding” is essential to navigating software development in 2026. This talk decodes the shift from autocomplete to autonomous agents, examining how developers went from tab completion to directing parallel AI workers overnight. You’ll gain a clear framework for the 10 key capabilities developers now demand—from background agents and persistent memory to multi-agent orchestration and rollback systems—along with practical insights into which tools deliver and which fall short based on real practitioner feedback.

Beyond the hype, you’ll learn to navigate the defining tension shaping the market: the battle between human-in-loop control (audit trails, permissions, safety) and vibe coding’s “trust the output, not the process” philosophy. Through examples like Ralph Wiggum’s contextual pressure cooker, Gas Town’s agent orchestration, and emerging patterns in spec-driven development, you’ll understand where the ecosystem is headed and how to make informed decisions about adopting, managing, or building AI-assisted development tools. Whether you’re a hands-on developer, engineering leader, or product strategist, you’ll leave with a pragmatic understanding of what actually matters in this rapidly evolving space—and what’s just noise.

Connect with Kate

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kateholterhoff/
• Twitter/X: @KateHolterhoff
• Website: https://redmonk.com/
• Blog: https://redmonk.com/kholterhoff/

Join Us at Stir Trek 2026

Stir Trek 2026 takes place on May 1st, 2026 in Columbus, OH. Don’t miss Kate’s session — grab your ticket before they’re gone!

🎟️ Register now: https://events.humanitix.com/stir-trek-2026-edition

Jay Harris at Stir Trek 2026

Problem Solver at Arana Software

About Jay Harris

Jay is a speaker, software consultant, and owner of Arana Software. He has been developing on the web since 1995, when the Blink tag lured him away from Visual Basic 3, and has been awarded as a Microsoft Regional Director, ASPInsider, and Microsoft MVP. Recognizing that the greatest application performance bottleneck is a developer’s time, Jay’s continuing quest is for frameworks, modules, tools, and practices that make developers stronger, fitter, happier, and more productive.

Jay resides in Las Vegas, USA. Follow him on Twitter at @jayharris.

Session 1: Relevance by Design: A Sustainable Learning System for Senior Devs

1 May 2026 10:30 AM | The Goonies - Theatre 16 (21)
Track: Professional Growth & Leadership

Senior developers don’t struggle with learning. They struggle with the endless list of things they could learn, and the quiet feeling that they are always behind.

This session is a practical system for staying relevant on purpose: define what “relevant” means for your role, triage what to learn now vs. later vs. never, and run a weekly cadence that fits in 1–2 hours without leaking into nights and weekends. We’ll replace vanity metrics with a few signals that reflect real progress, and we’ll turn what you learn into skill you can use.

You’ll leave with a framework you can run for a month, a quarter, or a year without turning your spare time into homework.

Session 2: Increasing Productivity by Doing Nothing

1 May 2026 02:00 PM | Galaxy Quest - Theatre 27 (23,24,25,26)
Track: Professional Growth & Leadership

It is easy to mistake “busy” for “productive.” We fill every gap—messages, meetings, side tasks, even our “breaks”—and then wonder why our focus, creativity, and decision-making keep getting worse.

This talk is about doing nothing on purpose. Not as a productivity hack, but as a practical way to restore your mind, body, relationships, and clarity. You’ll leave with a simple approach you can use immediately, plus a one-week experiment to reclaim slack in your day—because the deviation from the deadline will be far worse if you run out of gas.

Connect with Jay

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonharris/
• Twitter/X: @jayharris
• Website: https://www.aranasoft.com

Join Us at Stir Trek 2026

Stir Trek 2026 takes place on May 1st, 2026 in Columbus, OH. With 2 sessions on the schedule, Jay is bringing serious value to Stir Trek 2026 — don’t miss it!

🎟️ Register now: https://events.humanitix.com/stir-trek-2026-edition

Andrew May at Stir Trek 2026

Senior Solutions Architect, Cloud/DevOps specialist at Leading EDJE

About Andrew May

Andrew has been consulting as an architect for Leading EDJE for 18 years, and has specialized in Cloud Platforms and Cloud-Native architecture for the last 10 years. He’s a stickler for detail, and a fierce code reviewer. Originally from the UK, Andrew’s accent has settled somewhere in the mid-Atlantic.

Session: Microsoft Fabric for Developers

1 May 2026 10:30 AM | Ghostbusters - Theatre 17 (20)
Track: Data Engineering & Analytics

Does your operational database contain staging and reporting data? Is it bloated and struggling under the load? As companies grow, its common to reach a tipping point where you can’t just put everything into your shared OLTP database and keep scaling it up. That’s when it’s time to start thinking seriously about data and how best to manage it.
Traditionally, data warehousing and ETL have required different skill sets and operated independently from application development, but with platforms like Microsoft Fabric, the skillsets aren’t so different anymore, especially if you know a bit of Python.
This session will talk about some of the many services that make up Fabric, and how to use it coming from a development background.

Connect with Andrew

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-may-0554b3173
• Twitter/X: @leadingedje
• Website: https://www.leadingedje.com

Join Us at Stir Trek 2026

Stir Trek 2026 takes place on May 1st, 2026 in Columbus, OH. Don’t miss Andrew’s session — grab your ticket before they’re gone!

🎟️ Register now: https://events.humanitix.com/stir-trek-2026-edition

Guy Royse at Stir Trek 2026

Developer Advocate at Redis

About Guy Royse

Guy works for Redis as a Developer Advocate. Combining his decades of experience in writing software with a passion for learning—and for sharing what he has learned—Guy explores interesting topics and spreads the knowledge he has gained around developer communities worldwide.

Teaching and community have long been a focus for Guy. He ran a local JavaScript meetup in Ohio for more than a decade and has served on the selection committees of numerous conferences. He’ll happily speak anywhere that will have him and has even has helped teach programming at a prison in Central Ohio.

In his personal life, Guy is a hard-boiled geek interested in role-playing games, science fiction, and technology. He also has a slightly less geeky interest in history and linguistics. He has an entire wall of role-playing games and science fiction books, speaks Spanish like a two-year old, and is a ham radio operator—callsign W8GUY.

Guy lives in Ohio with his wife. His three sons are adults now and are all moved out. He is immensely proud of the men they have become.

Session: Agents & Arbiters - An Adventurer’s Guide to Multi-Agent Collaboration with LangGraph.js

1 May 2026 10:30 AM | Interstellar - Theatre 4 (5,6,7,8,9)
Track: Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning

Building interactive systems with conventional coding means trying to anticipate every possible user action and writing the right response. This quickly becomes nigh impossible. You end up lost in a maze of recursion, fragility, and nested if statements. The more interactive you make your system, the more complex your code gets, until debugging feels like being eaten by a grue—you know something’s wrong, but you’re just fumbling around in the dark.

There’s a better way. Instead of scripting every interaction, we can give some of the elements in our system their own intelligence. Multi-agent collaboration lets us create systems where entities can become autonomous agents with their own perspectives and voices. Imagine a text-based adventure game where the brass lantern, the white house, and even the mailbox have something to say when responding to the player. Or consider a help desk system where agents from billing, technical support, and account management each weigh in to determine the best solution for a customer.

In this session, we’ll explore multi-agent collaboration through a live demo of a text-based adventure system. You’ll meet the orchestration workflow—router, classifier, agents, arbiter, and committer—and discover how LangGraph.js coordinates the chaos when multiple agents want to respond. We’ll shine our brass lantern over the code to see how it uses Redis and LangGraph.js to make it all work. Then, we’ll explore how this same approach solves real-world problems beyond gaming.

When the adventure’s over, you’ll understand how to coordinate agents to handle complex interactions and know when this is a good approach. You’ll have a working example you can adapt for your own adventures—be they exploring the Great Underground Empire, customer service platforms, or content management systems. And, you’ll never look at building interactive systems the same way again.

Connect with Guy

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/groyse
• Twitter/X: @guyroyse
• Website: https://redis.com/
• Blog: http://guyroyse.com/

Join Us at Stir Trek 2026

Stir Trek 2026 takes place on May 1st, 2026 in Columbus, OH. Don’t miss Guy’s session — grab your ticket before they’re gone!

🎟️ Register now: https://events.humanitix.com/stir-trek-2026-edition

Bill Sempf at Stir Trek 2026

Application Security Architect

About Bill Sempf

Bill Sempf is a software security architect. His breadth of experience includes business and technical analysis, software design, development, testing, server management and maintenance, and security. In his 20 years of professional experience he has participated in the creation of well over 200 applications for large and small companies, managed the software infrastructure of two Internet service providers, coded complex software happily in every environment imaginable, tested the security of all natures of applications and APs, and made mainframes talk to cell phones. He is the author of C# 5 All in One for Dummies and Windows 8 Programming with HTML5 For Dummies; a coauthor of Effective Visual Studio.NET and many other books, a frequent contributor to industry magazines; and has recently been an invited speaker for the ACM and IEEE, BlackHat, CodeMash, DerbyCon, BSides, DevEssentials, the International XML Web Services Expo and the Association of Information Technology Professionals. Bill also serves on the board of the Columbus branch of the Open Web Application Security Project, and is the Administrative Director of Locksport International.

Session: Making and Baking an Application Security Department

1 May 2026 10:30 AM | Inception - Theatre 28 (18,19)
Track: Security & Privacy Engineering

Houston, we have a problem: we need more application security professionals. There is a lack of talented folks that can test, document and train developers on how to fix web and mobile applications for security vulnerabilities. Verizon’s estimates of 86% of 2017 breaches are caused by an application security component. This is a problem we must solve.

Bill and his team have been researching and experimenting on ways to solve the application security talent shortage. During this session, Bill will explain what they learned by teaching students of different experience levels. He will answer questions like: “Who should I start with?” and “What do they need to know to be effective?” as well as what tools are most appropriate for them to learn.

Connect with Bill

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billsempf/
• Website: https://www.pointweb.net
• Blog: https://sempf.net/

Join Us at Stir Trek 2026

Stir Trek 2026 takes place on May 1st, 2026 in Columbus, OH. Don’t miss Bill’s session — grab your ticket before they’re gone!

🎟️ Register now: https://events.humanitix.com/stir-trek-2026-edition

Matthew-Hope Eland at Stir Trek 2026

Wizard at Leading EDJE

About Matthew-Hope Eland

An AI Specialist and Wizard at Leading EDJE who is known to teach software engineering, AI, and data science concepts in the most ridiculous ways possible. Matt has used machine learning to settle debates over whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie, reinforcement learning to drive the behavior of digital squirrels, data analytics to suggest improvements to his favorite TV show, and AI agents to play board games and create an AI agent with the personality of a dog. Matt is the author of “Data Science in .NET with Polyglot Notebooks” and “Refactoring with C#” as well as several LinkedIn Learning courses. Matt helps organize the Central Ohio .NET Developer Group, runs several blogs and a YouTube channel, has a Master’s of Science in Data Analytics, and is a current Microsoft MVP in AI and .NET.

Session: Ensuring Software Quality in the world of AI Developers

1 May 2026 10:30 AM | The Matrix - Theatre 15 (10, 11)
Track: Software Quality & Delivery

Like it or not, AI agents are now capable of turning a quickly written paragraph of requirements into a pull request that is ready to be integrated into real-world production applications and it’s now our responsibility to make sure AI doesn’t go rogue and take down prod - or corrupt our data by misunderstanding the requirements or our existing schemas.

In this session we’ll explore strategies to protect our codebases through unit and integration testing, documentation, and code review along with additional ways of providing context and guard rails to our AI agents as they carry out the work we’ve assigned them to do.

By the time we’re done, you’ll have a firm grasp of the problem and understand some helpful options for protecting your codebase from vibe coding mishaps getting YOLOed into prod.

Connect with Matthew-Hope

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matteland/
• Twitter/X: @IntegerMan
• Website: https://LeadingEDJE.com
• Blog: https://MattOnML.NET

Join Us at Stir Trek 2026

Stir Trek 2026 takes place on May 1st, 2026 in Columbus, OH. Don’t miss Matthew-Hope’s session — grab your ticket before they’re gone!

🎟️ Register now: https://events.humanitix.com/stir-trek-2026-edition

Vitaliy Matiyash at Stir Trek 2026

Staff Software Engineer, Builder, Problem Solver.

About Vitaliy Matiyash

Vitaliy Matiyash is Software Engineer from Columbus, Ohio, working on both front end and back end technologies with focus on web accessibility, Java and microservices. In his spare time he enjoys working on various DIY projects, biking, hiking Central Ohio trails and cooking from scratch.

Session 1: Dark UX Patterns

1 May 2026 10:30 AM | Galaxy Quest - Theatre 27 (23,24,25,26)
Track: Product Design & User Experience

Congratulations! You are the 1,000,000th visitor to our website. Click here to redeem your prize! Just provide your date of birth and phone number to get started.

Learn about Dark UX Patterns, how they work, how they trick you and what companies are the worst offenders. Roach Motel, Privacy Zuckering? Let’s visit Dark Patterns Hall of Shame and see who joined the dark side!

This talk will break down the most popular dark patterns using real life examples from websites and apps you use every day. If you are a designer, a developer or a product manager, you will learn what to avoid when building your product and how to integrate digital well-being and safety features into your service. If you are an end user, we will teach you how to respond to dark patterns in order to stay safe online, protect your privacy, save your money and keep your sanity.

Session 2: Java Anti-Patterns

1 May 2026 02:00 PM | Back to the Future - Theatre 3 (1,2)
Track: Application Development

God object, spaghetti code, magic numbers? Anti-patterns are traps that developers encounter frequently due to lack of time, carelessness, inexperience, or pressure from project managers. Rushing can lead to big problems for applications in future, so you need to know how to avoid potential errors.

Come learn about Java Anti-Patterns. In this session beginner Java developers can learn to identify common rookie developer mistakes. Experienced developers can cry or laugh together as we look at real-life examples of Java code. You will leave this session knowing how to avoid these anti-patterns and write elegant, maintainable, and (dare we say it?) fun to work with code. Finally, you will find better ways to implement solutions using Java.

Connect with Vitaliy

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/VitaliyMatiyash/
• Twitter/X: @vitaliymatiyash
• Blog: http://vitaliymatiyash.com/

Join Us at Stir Trek 2026

Stir Trek 2026 takes place on May 1st, 2026 in Columbus, OH. With 2 sessions on the schedule, Vitaliy is bringing serious value to Stir Trek 2026 — don’t miss it!

🎟️ Register now: https://events.humanitix.com/stir-trek-2026-edition

Samuel Gomez at Stir Trek 2026

Microsoft MVP and Head of AI at Geneca

About Samuel Gomez

I’ve worked in software development for 15+ years (mostly Microsoft technologies) and love the problem solving aspect of the work. In recent years I have become very passionate about AI and machine learning technologies and how they can be applied to different aspects of our lives. When not coding I enjoy spending time with my family, soccer (watching, playing, and coaching), playing videogames and watching movies.

Session: Mission: AI Possible – Taming your AI agent swarms

1 May 2026 09:30 AM | The Last Starfighter - Theatre 14 (12,13)
Track: Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning

As organizations implement AI systems, they often encounter tasks too complex for a single agent—making multi-agent architectures vital. For example, hospitals rely on specialized agents for medical imaging, scheduling, and insurance coordination; travel platforms use agents to book flights, find hotels, and suggest activities; retailers automate inventory, supply chain, and CRM through multiple integrated agents; and software teams decompose projects across coding, testing, and documentation agents. In these scenarios, successful orchestration ensures agents communicate, delegate, and collaborate effectively, always staying aligned with organizational goals.

In this talk, we will explore how Microsoft Agent Framework provides a robust foundation for building and orchestrating multiagent systems that are secure, extensible, and production ready. We will review the best practices and architecture patterns required to implement different orchestration workflows (for example: Sequential, concurrent and handoff) as well as the unique challenges presented by each of them.

By the end of the session, participants will understand how to apply different orchestration workflows to build scalable, collaborative AI systems that leverage multiple agents to deliver higher accuracy, resilience, and automation across different scenarios.

Connect with Samuel

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samueljgomez/
• Twitter/X: @thesoccerdev
• Website: https://geneca.com/
• Blog: https://www.thesoccerdev.com/

Join Us at Stir Trek 2026

Stir Trek 2026 takes place on May 1st, 2026 in Columbus, OH. Don’t miss Samuel’s session — grab your ticket before they’re gone!

🎟️ Register now: https://events.humanitix.com/stir-trek-2026-edition

Valarie Regas at Stir Trek 2026

DevOps, Advocacy, and Human Interest

About Valarie Regas

Valarie Regas is a DevOps fanatic, a Georgia Tech coding bootcamp graduate, and a veteran mommy. She holds a BA in Psychology and currently works in Computer Science education. After years being a stay-at-home mom, she decided to change her life by entering tech, and has learned a lot along the way. Outside of work, she enjoys mixed martial arts fighting, table-top role playing games, public speaking, creating tiny humans, and activism of all sorts.

Session: Productivity Theater: When ‘Just Use AI’ Becomes a Management Strategy

1 May 2026 10:30 AM | Back to the Future - Theatre 3 (1,2)
Track: Professional Growth & Leadership

We’re living through a strange era of work: leaders are told AI enables “10×” or “100×” productivity, while engineers are quietly fixing AI-introduced bugs, validating hallucinated outputs, and absorbing the mental load of tools that are powerful, but deeply imperfect.

This talk is about surviving that reality.

We’ll examine what actually happens when AI enters real developer workflows: where trust is partial, verification is mandatory, and speed often comes at the cost of focus and creativity. We’ll talk candidly about productivity theater, unrealistic expectations, and the quiet burnout that happens when “just use AI” becomes a substitute for good leadership and sustainable engineering practices.

Drawing from real conversations with engineers and teams, this session offers practical ways to:
• Push back (constructively) against impossible productivity narratives
• Use AI without surrendering judgment, craft, or accountability
• Protect mental energy in environments obsessed with output metrics
• Re-anchor DevOps values around humans, not hype cycles

This isn’t a talk about how to get more done. It’s a talk about how to keep doing good work, and maintain health and stability, in a world that thinks software engineers should be machines.

Connect with Valarie

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/valarieregas/
• Twitter/X: @ValarieRegas
• Website: https://valarieregas.com
• Blog: https://medium.com/@valarieregas

Join Us at Stir Trek 2026

Stir Trek 2026 takes place on May 1st, 2026 in Columbus, OH. Don’t miss Valarie’s session — grab your ticket before they’re gone!

🎟️ Register now: https://events.humanitix.com/stir-trek-2026-edition