Farm to Table Software Delivery - DevOps to Platform Engineering

The way we build, deliver, and operate software has undergone a massive transformation over the past decade. What started as a DevOps-centric approach—focused on automation, CI/CD, and infrastructure as code—has now evolved into a Platform Engineering paradigm. This shift prioritizes self-service, developer experience, and scalable platform abstractions to enable high-velocity software delivery. In this session, we will explore how organizations are modernizing their software delivery pipelines, infrastructure, and operational models to drive agility, efficiency, and reliability.

Drawing from real-world experience as a DevOps consultant and platform engineer, I will take attendees through the journey of software delivery evolution—from early configuration management days to the current Platform Engineering movement. We will discuss the critical role of self-service platforms in empowering developers while ensuring governance, security, and operational excellence at scale.

- Cloud-native and DevOps cultural shifts Configuration Management -> Platform Engineering,
- From bare metal to managed services - *aaS
- The impact of the 12/15-factor app principles on modern application design
- The transition from traditional CI/CD to platform-centric delivery models
- Choosing the right "welding point" between applications and cloud providers
- Architectural patterns for Kubernetes-based software delivery

Declarative vs. Imperative IaC: What You Don’t Know Until You Know

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) lies at the heart of modern DevOps and platform engineering, but choosing between declarative and imperative approaches is often more complex than it seems. In this session, I’ll share my five-year journey navigating both paradigms, from reinventing the wheel with the open-source version of Pulumi to embracing Terraform and its wrappers, such as Terragrunt and Python integrations.

Through these experiences, I uncovered a critical but often overlooked aspect of IaC: how declarative and imperative styles influence CI/CD workflows. What started as running Terraform locally evolved into building full-fledged applications (in Go and Python) to manage infrastructure dynamically.

This talk dives into the hurdles, lessons learned, and practical insights that I’ve gained as a DevOps consultant working daily with cloud-native technologies. Whether you’re debating which approach to use or looking to refine your existing workflows, this session offers a behind-the-scenes perspective on making informed decisions and navigating the nuances of IaC effectively.

I will be using practical examples emphasizing the TCO of running a declarative vs imperative approach which is something I am also blogging about on medium.

Building a Cloud Native Platform Brick by Brick

The overwhelming growth of technologies in the cloud native foundation overtook our toolbox and completely changed (well, really enhanced) the developer experience.

In this talk, I will share my personal journey from the "operator's to developer's chair" and the practices which helped me along my journey as a cloud-native developer.

Zerotrust in Cloud Native Environments (CNE)

In the rapidly evolving landscape of cloud-native applications, security is no longer an afterthought—it's a critical design imperative. Our session seeks to explore the intricate security challenges faced by modern microservice architectures, diving deep into the vulnerabilities and best practices that can make or break an organization's digital infrastructure.

Cover trivial to complex security aspects - prevention detention and remediation.
Target audience is - Developers / DevOps engineers which need to provide secure software and infrastructure.

From SaaS to Cloud Native with 15 factors

The landscape of application development has shifted dramatically, moving from monolithic applications to cloud-native microservices. This session will explore the evolution of application design principles, starting with the widely adopted 12factor.net methodology, designed initially for SaaS platforms like Heroku. We will delve deeper, examining the 15 Factors, an extended set of principles that incorporate the lessons learned from real-world cloud deployments and embrace modern practices. These 15 factors build upon the original 12, offering a framework that makes your application truly cloud-native, working across any cloud provider. This talk will cover topics such as API-First, Telemetry, Security and the evolution of concepts like Dev/Prod parity, stateless process and more. If you're looking to build, evolve, or migrate applications to the cloud, this session will provide you with a blueprint for success.

This session will provide actionable insights, practical strategies and modern concepts to help attendees build applications that are not just "in the cloud," but truly of the cloud. Attendees will understand what it means to build truly cloud-native applications, what trade-offs exist when it comes to pragmatic approaches over idealistic approaches, and what it takes to move existing applications from legacy ways to modern cloud-native ways.