Coder, Coach, Catalyst - using questions to make people grow

Asking the right questions is more powerful than having the right answers. As technologists, we quickly jump into solution mode and try to help by offering solutions and sometimes even taking on other people's problems as our own.

This is not our fault; we've been trained this way. However, computer problems and people's problems are often very different, and solving or taking on somebody else's problem not only burdens us but also robs them of an opportunity to grow.

If you feel like every problem in your organization or team constantly gravitates towards you, if you wonder why people just don't "learn this stuff," or if you are looking to become better at helping others grow, this talk is for you!

In this talk, we will go over basic coaching skills to help you help others - everything from properly listening to asking the right questions. We'll cover different formats from impromptu coaching to more formal coaching and how to use coaching skills to coach up and sideways in your organization.

Come to this talk if you are interested in making the people around you grow and excel and, in the process, create more time to work on your problems, not theirs.

7 Things Technical Leaders can Learn from Disney Princesses

When does learning really happen? Is it at work? In the classroom? At the conference?

Yes! And everywhere else. We can't shut off learning, and we can't stop ourselves from seeing the connection in everyday things.

Learning and inspiration can come from any place, so why not look at the unsung heroes - Disney Princesses and see what we can learn about leading tech teams from them?

Whether it is Raya's quest to create a united Kumandra or Rapunzle's wish to start something, there are lessons for us technical leaders hidden in the depths of the Disney movie tomb.

Join Martin for a fun and entertaining session about what I learned from watching movies, listening to songs, and role-playing princess with my daughter over the last few years.

You will get seven memorable lessons about leadership accompanied by songs (not sung by Martin) to help you remember them.

This presentation contains audio and video that takes advantage of "fair use"; however some automatic algorithms have removed it from YouTube for copyright violations .

The target audience is pretty broad but more specifically it's gauged towards people that are leading teams or have the ambition to one day do so.

The Empowered Software Engineer - unlocking engineering potential

If you or your team spend most of their time writing code, you are most likely a feature factory. The chances are that you are not using the full potential that exists in your team, and the users, are paying the price.

The best teams in the world have known for a long time that great software is not only about great code; it's also about solving the users' problem in a great way.

Becoming an empowered team or an empowered engineer means solving problems rather than shipping features. It means caring about the product, user, and strategy. And it might mean that you and your team need to learn a few new skills. It might also mean you need to rethink what your job is about.

The engineer's future is not only about code and architecture but also about design, leadership, sales, and marketing. It's about using technology to create products users love.

In this talk, we look into the mindset change and skills required to create teams of empowered software engineers.

Leading Tech Teams in Uncertain Times

In this talk, we'll examine the global effects that force us to reason differently about how we organize and lead people; we'll go through a series of valuable skills for leaders in this new climate, especially product & tech leaders.

As we launch into 2026, we face endless possibilities to build for a new reality while simultaneously experiencing global uncertainty and volatility. With shifting political and economic dynamics in the US creating continued uncertainty for European markets, how do we take the initiative and thrive rather than just survive?

The answer might be closer than we think. 2026 can be the year tech truly moves from a support function to a strategic advantage for our business. However, as AI shifts the foundations of how product teams operate, the human factor becomes more critical than ever. To realize the full potential of our teams amidst this, we first need to reshape leadership.

This means building trust, leading with context, and moving from output-driven to outcome-driven work. The real change is in the team culture and how we view work, focusing on the unique human ingenuity needed to create products our customers love.

To thrive in 2026, we need to maximize our chances of building the right things, which means working, thinking, and leading differently; by doing this, we can realize the full potential of our teams and create better products with the people at hand.

Beyond Guns for Hire – Reclaiming the Art of Consulting

This talk is not just for consultants! It's for anyone anyone worried that simply producing code is no longer enough to create value.

Being a consultant has less to do with your job title and more to do with how you show up. Whether you’re a freelancer or the internal "fixer" called in when things get messy, you will learn how to drive change when "just writing code" is no longer enough.

For years, software consultants haven’t truly been consulting. We’ve been brought in to fill vacancies companies couldn’t recruit for; we onboard, get an email account, and quietly become part of the furniture. While this "body-shopping" model was once profitable, things have changed.

With AI now able to churn out code faster than any human "gun for hire," the value we need to provide is different. If you are only there to provide extra hands, you are replaceable. If you are there to provide clarity, guidance, and challenge, you are essential.

Consulting is a craft, not a gap-fill. In this session, we will explore the skills AI cannot replicate: managing stakeholders, influencing without authority, and knowing how to move on once the work is done.

Learn practical strategies to become the catalyst your organization actually needs when code is slowly becoming commodity.

We’ve Been Here Before - Lessons from History for the AI Era

Is this the end of the software developer as we know it, or just another day in the history of computing?

Whenever a new abstraction or a "game-changing" tool arrives, we tend to react with a blend of excitement and existential anxiety. We feel as though this moment is entirely unique; that the rules of the game have been permanently deleted.

But here is a secret: we’ve been here before.

The introduction of AI coding agents is changing not only how we write code but also how we work and organize. While it is still early and impossible to predict exactly where the "AI revolution" will take us, history has left behind a breadcrumb trail of lessons on how to navigate industry pivots.

In this session, we will explore five lessons from the history of technology (and perhaps a few surprises from outside the world of software) to help us understand our new reality. We will look at how our roles have evolved, how our structures have broken and reformed, and what skills actually matter when the "how" of our work changes.

Let’s look in the rearview mirror to get a clearer view of the road ahead. You’ll leave with a historical perspective on the current AI shift and, hopefully, a few good ideas on how to face the change.

(Mis)using Claude Code to Organize 15+ Years of Existential Dread and Good Intentions

How far out of its own comfort zone can you push a coding agent? Is it possible to turn them into a filing assistant that can work through 15 years of digital clutter and handwritten notes?

In this talk, I’ll take you on a wild ride from a basic CLAUDE.md into a system that helped me sort and migrate a long-neglected personal archive. We’ll walk through different ways of configuring Claude Code - including building memory, creating specialized tools, attempting to add guardrails, and much more. Along the way, I’ll cover what worked, what broke, and how to keep work efficient without burning a small rainforest of tokens.

While this is a talk about a specific Claude Code use case that was not advertised on the metaphorical box, the message is about something deeper. It’s about more than a note cleanup; it’s about how we can use coding agents in non-obvious ways, how technical leaders can fit them into their workflows (beyond code), and why the structure of our personal and institutional knowledge may need to change for the AI era.

You’ll get both practical tips on how to (mis)use Claude Code and a chance to challenge yourself to find good (and bad) use cases for the latest hyped technology.