SF Meetup: The State of Apache Airflow® 2026

Join fellow Airflow enthusiasts and leaders at The Box SF for an evening of engaging talks, great food and drinks, and exclusive swag!

We'll start you off with a deep dive into the Airflow 2026 survey results, and finish off with a community member presentation on combining big geo data with scalable Airflow workflows.

PRESENTATIONS

Talk #1: The State of Apache Airflow® 2026

• Speaker: Steven Hillion, SVP of Data & AI, Astronomer

Apache Airflow® continues to thrive as the world’s leading open-source data orchestration platform, with 30M downloads per month and over 3k contributors. 2025 marked a major milestone with the release of Airflow 3, which introduced DAG versioning, enhanced security and task isolation, assets, and more. These changes have reshaped how data teams build, operate, and govern their pipelines.

In this session, our speaker will share insights from the State of Airflow 2026 report, including:

• Latest trends in how teams are using Airflow today
• What’s next for the project and ecosystem
• A discussion of emerging best practices and evolving use cases

Join us to hear directly from a leader in the community and discover how to get the most out of Airflow in the year ahead.

Talk #2: Precision Meteorological Forecasting at Global Scale: Combining Big Geo Data with Scalable Airflow Workflows

• Speaker: Eduardo Galindo, Senior Data Engineer, ClimateAI

As demand for high-resolution weather intelligence grows, data teams are pushing the limits of scale, accuracy, and reliability in geospatial processing. Modern forecasting systems must ingest massive volumes of global model output and satellite data, then transform them into localized, actionable insights.
In this session, our speaker will share how Apache Airflow is used to orchestrate large-scale meteorological pipelines that downscale global weather forecasts to 1 km resolution. You’ll learn how Airflow coordinates high-throughput ingestion of satellite imagery, manages complex geospatial transformations, and delivers downstream products reliably and at scale.
The talk will cover:

• How Airflow enables scalable, fault-tolerant geospatial workflows
• Design patterns for combining global forecast models with high-resolution satellite data
• Lessons learned operating precision forecasting pipelines in production

Join us to see how Airflow can power precision meteorological forecasting and other data-intensive geospatial workloads at global scale.

AGENDA

• 5:30-6 PM: Arrivals, networking, food & drinks
• 6-7PM: Presentations
• 7-8PM: Networking