You have a great story and we want to hear from you!

Want other ideas for topics or feedback on your ideas? We're here to help! organizers@dcstateofthestack.org with CFP in the subject.

Guidelines

• Call for proposals opens Monday, March 16, 2026.
• Call for proposals closes Monday, June 8, 2026.
• Selected proposals will be announced on Monday, July 20, 2026.

Submit as many proposals as you like. Panels or multi-presenter proposals are fine. Speakers will receive free admission to the conference and an opportunity to address 300+ people interested in the current tech stack in our nation's capital. After the conference, we'll also add the video of each talk to our YouTube Channel.

Our criteria for selection include...

• We embrace diversity and encourage proposals from people whose voices we might not hear as often.
• LOCATION! LOCATION! LOCATION!: we prefer speakers who work within 100 miles of Washington, DC. 
• Original content: content not yet presented at other conferences, or a new angle to an existing problem
• New presenters: people who are new to the space and have insightful stuff to say; we want to hear everybody's voice
• No vendor pitches: we value vendors and sponsors, but this is not the right forum

Talk Types

We are accepting talks in both the ignite format and a more traditional 30-minute format. For those of you not familiar with the ignite format and would like to see a sample of some of the best, - here are some to view. Here's a Youtube search for previous DevOpsDays ignite talks.

The competition will be fierce, especially for the 30-minute slots; the organizer committee will vote on which presentations are selected. We understand if the talk isn't written yet, but we want enough details to understand what your time will be filled with and what people will learn from it.

One of the things that makes DC State of the Stack worth attending is the range of people in the room—engineers, operators, security professionals, product leaders, and practitioners from across the DC ecosystem. We actively work to reflect that diversity on stage. New voices are encouraged, and if you're part of a group whose perspectives we don't hear as often, we especially want to hear from you.

DC State of the Stack is for practitioners who want to go deeper, not just nod along. Be specific. "AI is transforming everything" isn't a talk—it's a headline. If you're pitching something like "AI in our incident response workflow," tell us what actually changed, what broke along the way, and what someone in the audience can take back to their team on Monday. Culture and organizational talks are welcome, but they need the same rigor: real context, honest tradeoffs, and something actionable. If the specifics aren't fully formed yet, an ignite talk is a great way to plant a flag on an idea without overcommitting to a 30-minute arc.

Demos are welcome but, of course, there's always that slim chance that wireless will give you trouble or other technical issues may come into play - just prep well and have a backup plan.

You can run your own laptop for full talk slots - again, have a backup plan (Dropbox, thumb drive, save in multiple formats - be paranoid). You'll be asked to provide ignite talks in PDF format and your keynote slides in any format by the weekend before the conference. Ignite talks will all be run by the ignite talk wrangler from their system on auto-advance.

Multiple Speakers for a Single Talk?

Got multiple speakers for a single talk? No problem, just click the "Add Speaker" button to add additional speakers.

Questions? Help?

Need help with or suggestions for your presentation? We've got lots of ideas and are happy to discuss your talk ideas before you submit them. Just reach out to us! organizers@dcstateofthestack.org with CFP in the subject.