Yorkshire DevOps

Hello and welcome to our next Platform Engineering Leaders event.

This event brings together Heads of Platform, senior engineering leaders, principal and staff engineers, SRE leaders, and technical decision-makers responsible for shaping platform strategy, capability, and organisational adoption.

Our meetups are friendly, thoughtful, and discussion-driven — designed to create a space where leaders can share real-world experience, learn from peers, and explore the challenges and opportunities of building platform organisations at scale.

This session will include leadership talks, guided discussion, Q&A, and time for networking with fellow platform leaders.

We run:
• Bi-monthly in-person leadership meetups in London
• Bi-monthly online sessions for our wider leadership community

So please keep an eye on our Meetup page for future events. Food and refreshments will be provided for in-person events where a host venue is supporting.

We are delighted to host this event online on the 20th of April.

Speakers and Sessions:
Speaker: David Sandilands, Staff Solutions Architect - LaunchDarkly
Session Title: The Evolution of Delivery: From Deterministic Code to AI Probabilities
Description: For two decades, software delivery and change management have focused on a single goal: eliminating variance. We moved from manual Linux builds to standardized scripts, declarative infrastructure, and eventually to the "Golden Paths" of Platform Engineering. Each era was a necessary stepping stone designed to turn software into a predictable, industrial pipeline.

However, the arrival of AI has introduced a fundamental shift. We are moving from a Deterministic Era—where logic is binary and predictable—to a Probabilistic Era, where systems are inherently non-deterministic. This transition challenges every traditional governance model.

This session explores how software delivery has evolved and why modern change management must move from "Gatekeeping" to "Continuous Observation." We will examine how to leverage the lessons of the past—standardization, platform engineering, and feature flags—to build a control plane capable of governing the unpredictable nature of AI without sacrificing speed or financial oversight.

The Outcomes
Strategic Maturity: Understand how each era of DevOps (Artisanal, Scripted, Declarative, and Platform) serves as a prerequisite for managing AI. Mastery of the "Deterministic" is the only way to safely navigate the "Probabilistic."

Risk Mitigation via Decoupling: Learn how to use Feature Flags and Platform Engineering to decouple deployment from release. This allows for "Live but not Active" code, reducing the blast radius of changes in high-stakes finance environments.

Evolving Governance: Shift from manual change approvals to Continuous Evaluation. In an AI world, governance must be based on real-time observability of model drift, sentiment, and accuracy rather than static checklists.

The FinOps of AI: Identify the new cost and satisfaction metrics required for AI delivery. Understand how a change in a prompt or model affects the "Unit Economics" of your software and why change management must now integrate directly with financial oversight.

Leadership in Complexity: Gain a framework for leading teams through the "Decline of Determinism." Move beyond seeking "Success/Fail" binaries and start building systems optimised for constant iteration and rapid rollback.

Speaker: TBC
Session Title: TBC
Description: TBC

Agenda (GMT / UK):
18:00 — Welcome and introduction - Ethan Sumner
18:05 — Speaker 1
18:40 — Break
18:50 — Speaker 2
19:30 — Close and networking

We are always keen to hear from:
• Speakers — leadership case studies, strategic insights, transformation stories
• Hosts — organisations able to support future roundtables and meetups
• Sponsors — support with venue access, refreshments, recording or accessibility