I saw a handful of talks at LeadDev this year that stuck with me. This is a running list of the ones I'd recommend catching up on, along with a note about why each talk made the cut.
Why I included it: Performance work gets much harder when the slowest part of the request belongs to somebody else. I liked the focus on tracing latency across the whole time-to-first-token pipeline, setting realistic goals, and using observability to find the changes that are actually within your control.
Why I included it: It is a useful counterpoint to the idea that buying or rolling out AI tools is the main challenge. The interesting work is changing habits, building skills, and creating a learning loop that lets productivity improvements spread beyond a few early adopters.
Why I included it: This gives a concrete shape to the often vague advice that Staff Engineers should "work at a higher level." The progression from finding organisational open loops, through building conviction and alignment, to multiplying impact through others is a helpful model for systemic technical leadership.
Why I included it: High delivery volume is only impressive if the systems around it keep quality and reliability intact. The talk connects platform engineering practices such as continuous delivery, feature flags, observability, ownership, SLOs, and chaos engineering into the safety net that makes speed sustainable.
Why I included it: Senior engineering roles can become a trap if someone is known for only one kind of excellence. I included this for its practical reverse-engineering approach to career growth: look at the decisions made by the role you want, then deliberately build the missing range across people, technology, product, innovation, and business fit.
Why I included it: This is a sharp reminder that culture is revealed by what the system makes easy during an incident or deadline, not just by the principles written on the wall. The idea of treating principles like a product, then removing the friction that makes the wrong behaviour rational, feels especially useful for engineering leaders.