Developer Productivity Engineering Tour: Washington DC

Gradle and the DC area local DevCommunity.org, GDG-DC, DCAndroid and DCiOS communities are sponsoring a 3 hour in-person Developer Productivity Engineering meetup at Convene in Arlington, with speakers from Airbnb, CapitalOne, and American Airlines, followed by a Networking, Socializing and Happy Hour.

**EXTERNAL RSVP IS REQUIRED FOR ENTRY**
RSVP HERE: https://dpe.org/dpe-washington-dc-tour/

AGENDA
- 3:00pm - 3:30pm - Networking and Socializing
- 3:30pm - 4:00pm - “Capital One’s Road to Productivity” Thomas Belk, Senior Manager of Mobile Platform, Capital One
- 4:00pm - 4:20pm - Break
- 4:20pm - 4:50pm - “AI + Engineering = Magic at Airbnb” Ben Schwennesan, Senior Software Engineer, Airbnb
- 4:50pm - 5:30pm - “DX Platform and Product Management: A Perfect Match” Ben Burbank, Sr Manager of DX Engineering, American Airlines and Timothy Haagenson, Developer Experience Product Manager, American Airlines
- 5:30pm - 7:30pm - Networking, Socializing and Happy Hour

Talk Details:
Capital One’s Road to Productivity
Thomas Belk (Capital One): Developer Productivity Engineering is a prioritized Product and Tech focus area as we continue on our mission to “Change Banking for Good.” Giving developers the tools they need to succeed is critical to creating an exceptional customer experience. We’re on a journey to bust myths by moving beyond the simple and getting to the complexity and nuance that drives developer productivity.
We will share how treating developer productivity as a product is the first and most crucial step to gaining empathy, depth, and clarity on how to approach DPE. You will hear how people, process, and technology played a role in shaping the developer productivity agenda at Capital One. We will share DPE challenges, how we solved for those, and the journey we’re still on to reduce cycle time and cognitive load for our developers.
“AI + Engineering = Magic at Airbnb”

Ben Schwennesan (Airbnb): Are you ready to unlock the full potential of AI for engineering? At Airbnb, we’ve been experimenting with AI-assisted tools that can revolutionize the way developers write, review, and troubleshoot code, as well as streamline documentation and productivity measurement. Our journey has been full of surprises, insights, and aha moments that we want to share with you. Join us for a fast-paced, fun-filled session where you’ll learn how to harness the power of AI to supercharge your workflow, impress your colleagues, and create catchy presentation abstracts like this one. Let’s make engineering great again with AI!

“DX Platform and Product Management: A Perfect Match”
Ben Burbank and Timothy Haagenson (American Airlines): American Airlines, the world’s largest airline, has been working on developer experience for many years to allow developers to work in more efficient ways through a delightful developer platform. In 2020, they made the decision to have Backstage be the foundation of “Runway,” their developer platform and have grown a large plugin ecosystem around their expansive platform to enable delivery faster and safer.
In this talk, they will discuss their initial hackathon strategy, engaging the Backstage community, UX flow, templates, improving feedback loops, and much more. By bringing together the pieces developers need to do their jobs, there is much less friction, developers spend more time writing code, and developer experience has improved.