A high-quality local development environment is critical for enabling developers to deliver features efficiently. Containers, when implemented effectively, simplify the maintenance of local environments and eliminate the dreaded "it works on my machine" problem. Join me for an insightful session as I share years of experience and hard-earned lessons from leveraging tools like Podman to create consistent, hassle-free development environments. We’ll explore what containers are and when to use them, how they reshape development accountabilities between teams, the architecture behind efficient local environments that support smooth pipelines and production deployment, and unveil valuable tips and real-world examples to optimize container-based workflows for maximum productivity.