Good morning everyone. Good [music]

morning San Francisco.

This is pretty wild because I still

remember how all of this started and I

never had anything like this in my in my

mind. Eight years ago, I became an

engineering manager at Uber and and I

was an engineering man. We had an

apprentice management program which was

really cool. They gave me a bunch of

training. I connected with like fellow

folks who had no clue what engineering

management is. But then I got a new

manager, Shaolin, and she told me and I

told on our first one-on-one, she said,

"How can I support you?" And I said,

"Look, Shaolin, I'll be real with you.

Uh, Uber is new to me. Working inside a

Silicon Valley company that is growing

faster than any company in the history

that was back back Uber. This is all new

to me and I need support. Uh, I would

like to learn from the best." and she

said like of course you know I'll

connect you with folks but but she said

but why don't you get a subscription get

the best possible subscription that

money can buy for any magazine you know

do your research and do that and so I

did uh and the best I could find was

Harvard Business Review at the time you

know they write really cool stuff about

management some people are nodding but

it didn't feel that it was talking about

what I was doing inside tech leading a

team working with technology things it

the the the articles felt very generic

Eric. And so I did what made most sense.

I wrote them an email saying, "Hey, I'd

write for you about injury management,

what was like inside of Uber. Are you

interested?" And I never received a

response.

Man, someone's kicking themselves up

there.

And you know, I kind of went on. I I I

got a lot of mentors. I I I grew. I

learned a lot about these things. And

then the next thing that happened is I

became a manager of managers. I had my

first manager under me and I asked a

meeting with my skip level uh an

engineer who was like very stare eye

very new to Uber and he said like oh

Gerge I feel a bit stuck like I've I've

been trying to read the whole code base

I don't understand it's so different at

my old company we used to be given jura

tickets now people are telling me I need

to create my own like fabricator tickets

it's it's confusing how can I get better

and more importantly how can I become

one day that senior engineer because I

was hired as a as an two I used super

principal engineer kind of pissed So

there's a lot to unpack there, but but I

was like, I've done this before. I could

close my eyes at by that point in my

team, everyone who was on my team was

promoted at at least once. Uh I I knew

how to mentor people. I knew how to help

them. But for this person, I figured

this is not my place. They've got a

manager. I I shouldn't be the one

spending, you know, like it it's kind of

uncool to my manager to do this. And I

figured, would it not be nice to have a

book that I could give to them just with

my two cents that I've seen work? And,

you know, you can you can take it or

leave it. And so I started writing this

book at Uber. I work with a publisher

but but the book never got ready. And

then and then just so happens co

happened. Without CO none of this might

have happened. Uber had layoffs. It was

a tough time. Our business was

collapsing. Quarter of our team was let

go. Uh the the rest of my team I had to

reallocate elsewhere because our our our

mission and vision did not make sense.

Uh building this wallet for for drivers

and others. And I got demotivated. And

at that point I decided, you know what?

let me just leave Uber a little bit and

finish this book that I've been that

I've been writing. Uh which later turned

out to a software engineer guide book.

As with any any good project, I thought

it would take six months, but it's

always six months ahead. Funny how that

is, right? Software engineering writing

a book. And nine months into this like

self-imposed like fun employment, uh I

was like what what am I doing right now?

Like I my plan was finish a book, raise

some money, do a startup, something

something platform engineering, control

C controlV for an internal Uber project

and turn it into a startup. By the way,

so many successful startups have done

this like it's it's incredible and and

that's that's the moment that I saw

there's an opportunity to maybe just

like write a newsletter like carry on on

my book. And at that point it all

clicked. I was like let me write this

newsletter that I could never buy that

there was not out there. Uh and that's

that's that's what the pragmatic

engineer is. I just started to write the

advice, the insights, the open secrets

that were clear to me and clear to some

of you who are already working in here.

But a lot of people didn't know or even

the people who did know, they didn't see

it written down as as clearly. This

newsletter immediately got massive

traction. There was no advertisement

involved, no nothing. And it just just

grew. It became first the top selling

technology news on Substack. It then

four years later crossed 1 million uh

subscribers in in total who are

subscribing again without any

advertisement. And

during that that path I realized like

this is this is something special. Uh I

started to do a podcast because I did a

lot of interviews with people and I

always felt it was a shame that we had

some really good conversations with

folks you know really animated it was

never captured. So so the and the

podcast also became just really really

successful. And the last part that was

missing that I always thought about but

I never thought it could happen is this

is us coming together people who care

about the tech industry the software

engineering we don't like the hype but

we want to know what is actually

happening and and get together. So so

this this this is this is this is how it

all came together. So hands up if you

work either as a software engineer or as

an engineing leader in in the tech

industry. Uh, hands up if you're based

here in in San Francisco,

if you're in California, if you're in

the US, and if you travel from outside

of the US. Wow. Like you you can see

there there's folks from all over the

place. And I talked with someone who

came all the way from from Singapore,

from Brazil. Thank you for for all of

you.

This is why this event is is so special.

We are all working in in tech mostly in

the software engineering field that is

now turning into a little bit AI

engineering as well not a little bit a

lot honestly

and there's all of us from from across

the world like these ideas are are are

bringing us together.

The other thing that makes this this

event very very special is the speakers.

I I was joking that it's almost like the

pragmatic engineer cinematic universe

because all the speakers are people who

have been either on my podcast on the

pragmatic engineering podcast or they

did a deep dive with me and I think 70%

of the speakers I I met in person before

this event. Some people are messaging me

how can I be a speaker and I was like

well I mean just you know like first

first get in touch but this I realized

this is very special. So it doesn't

really happen that you're either

listening to a podcast with like some

amazing world-class people and and you

can also meet them at the conference and

this was a crazy idea when we started

but but we made it happen thanks to

these speakers. They're not only uh on

on the podcast are writing deep dives

but a lot of them are outstanding

authors. You can get their books uh down

on on the fourth floor and you can also

walk up to them and and ask uh for them

to sign those books as well. Another

thing that makes it really, really

special, and this is turning into event

I've never seen before, is the

organizing team. Statsig is a company

known for their experimentation, their

advanced experimentation systems and and

feature flagging and many, many more

things. But turns out they're Moonlight

as the Bay Area single best event

organizer. So, let's give them a huge

round of applause for this event.

>> [applause]

>> you'll you'll see a lot of a lot of

delightful surprises throughout the day

from from building architecture with

Legos downstairs to a lot of thoughtful

things scattered across the event. And

finally, the thing that makes this thing

the most special and the reason this

only works is is you. It's all the

attendees. When we did this event, we

turned everything upside down. This is

not event where we wanted to make a

profit on. we're we're actually just

break even with with the tickets and and

and on and those costs. We had closer to

2,000 people apply to attend and we're

very careful in selecting folks who we

think are builders are experienced

professionals are people who are

optimistic about the future of

technology and also just curious to

figure out how am I going to figure this

out and and this is this is all of you.

I having looked through both the the

list of attendees and also talking to

you today just just before I haven't

really seen an event where everyone is

just here for that one thing to to to

move together and move together faster.

So let's give a round of applause to all

of you who who showed up here today.

Thank you. [applause]

My goal today is to make this the single

best day that you can spend in a

professional setting. a place where you

will soak in new ideas, where you can

talk with the with the speakers

afterwards as well and you know get

their tastes connect with them but more

importantly connect with each other. I

was joking yesterday when uh when when I

when I was talk when we were doing doing

the the dry runs here that I bet that

today there will be a friendship formed

or a connection made that will lead to

an incredible startup and potentially a

massive tech company in two to three

years. And I I was kind of joking about

it. The more I thought about it, I'm

pretty sure there will be not just one,

there will be more. So throughout the

day, I encourage you to not only come

and say hi to the speakers and connect

with them and and and also not only to

take in the ideas, but talk to fellow

professionals, exchange contact

information. Everyone one of you here is

is here for a reason. And let's make

this count.

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