November 2023 - Is SRE a Sociotechnical Problem? & Generative AI: Beyond ChatGPT

Join us for another edition of the Waterford Tech Meetup on Thursday, 9th of November at 7pm at the Waterford Treasures Museum (X91 K10E). Engage with our industry-leading speakers as they share their expertise, explore cutting-edge concepts, and chart the future of technology. Enjoy an evening filled with enlightening discussions, accompanied by food, drinks, and chances to win spot prizes.

Speaker 1: Ken Walsh from Adobe

Ken Walsh, the Senior Engineering Manager of SRE at Adobe, is an experienced figure in the realm of Site Reliability Engineering. With a track record of successfully scaling engineering organizations and laying out strategic technical roadmaps, Ken's analytical approach to problem-solving is second to none. His depth of expertise spans Operations Management, DevOps, cloud technologies like AWS/Azure, and Data Center management. Ken's dynamic leadership has consistently made a mark in the information technology sector.

Tech Talk: Is SRE a Sociotechnical Problem?

In this Tech Talk, Ken will explore why achieving reliability is so challenging. Is it purely a technical problem, or is there a human element involved? Despite the availability of numerous advanced tools and systems, why do outages continue to occur? Why haven't we been able to permanently resolve these issues? We'll reflect on the evolution of software development and the changes it has undergone. We'll also discuss the runtime environment and why, in theory, it should function seamlessly.

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Speaker 2: Cian Clarke from ServisBOT

As the co-founder and VP of Engineering at ServisBOT, Cian Clarke is at the helm of teams dedicated to Frontend Engineering, AI, DevOps, and serverless AWS stacks. Before embarking on the ServisBOT journey, Cian played a pivotal role at FeedHenry, leading developer evangelism efforts and contributing to the company's successful exit to Red Hat in 2014. An avid open-source advocate, Cian has both authored and contributed to numerous projects in the domain.

Tech Talk: Generative AI: Beyond ChatGPT

Cian's session promises a deep dive into the vast ocean of Generative AI. Moving past the buzz around ChatGPT, Cian will shed light on the immense potential Generative AI holds for developers keen on harnessing Large Language Models. The talk will feature:

• Techniques for advanced prompt engineering.
• Alternative LLMs to OpenAI
• OSS projects and resources.
• An introduction to autonomous GPT agents.