George Westwater
Senior Director, Engineering, Progress Chef
Kansas City, Kansas, United States
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George Westwater is a Senior Director of Software Engineering at Progress Chef. He has 25+ years of experience across all altitudes of an organization (developer, architect, manager, executive, …) at a wide range of organization sizes from small start-ups to FANG organizations. George has designed, built, supported, and deployed software across multiple verticals to on-prem datacenters, AWS, Azure, GCP, as shrink-wrap software, and on IoT/Edge devices. George’s passion for problem-solving and team dynamics is evident in his fast passed, interactive and engaging sessions.
Area of Expertise
Topics
Einstein and APIs: Thought Experiments for Exceptional Contracts
In the world of software development, creating robust and user-friendly APIs is a paramount task. The success of an API hinges on the clarity and effectiveness of its contract or interface, as it determines how end users interact with the underlying services while shielding them from intricate implementation details. Join us in this intermediate to advanced session, tailored for application architects and developers, as we delve into the architectural intricacies of crafting exemplary API contracts.
In this session we will describe how you can use techniques to exercise your APIs before you ever write a line of code. Just as Einstein used thought experiments to explore the theory of relativity, we'll show you how to use similar techniques to anticipate how users will interact with your APIs.. Moreover, we will highlight the critical role that good APIs play in enhancing the overall security of a system, safeguarding it against potential vulnerabilities. Our goal is to equip you with the expertise needed to elevate your API development skills, ensuring that your APIs are not only easy to consume but also contribute to the fortification of the systems they serve. Join us in unraveling the secrets behind exceptional API contracts, and take a significant step towards mastering the art of API development.
From Cloud Expenses to Savings: A FinOps Primer
Are your cloud costs out of control? Do you know how to figure out where the spend is? Do you know what a reserved instance is?
In today's dynamic cloud environment, managing costs is a paramount concern for technical professionals and architects. This presentation delves into the world of FinOps (Financial Operations), illuminating its significance in optimizing cloud utilization. We will unravel the concept of FinOps, exploring how it empowers organizations to strike the perfect balance between innovation and fiscal responsibility; and the jobs available in this specialty role.
Join us to discover practical strategies for developing FinOps skills within your team or as an individual. From cost allocation and budgeting to real-time monitoring and cost-saving techniques, we will provide actionable insights that can be implemented immediately. Learn how to navigate the complexities of cloud expenditure, making cost-efficiency not just a goal but a reality. Embrace the low-hanging fruit of FinOps and embark on a journey towards harnessing the true power of the cloud while keeping your budget in check.
AI Magic: Mixing Tech, Tastebuds, and Architecture
Audience: Developers, Technical Enthusiasts, and Architects
Workshop Description:
In the ever-evolving landscape of technology, harnessing the power of AI Language Models (LLMs) has become a game-changer for developers and architects. This workshop is tailored to provide developers and technical participants with a hands-on experience in effectively utilizing LLMs in their projects.
As a highlight of this workshop, experience the excitement of seeing if an AI through prompt engineering can predict your task in drinks and snacks. Will your personal AI be accurate?
Key Highlights:
AI Impact on Architecture: Explore how AI influences architectural decisions and learn practical strategies for integrating LLMs into your applications and systems.
Isolating AI Safely: Discover techniques to ensure the secure and reliable operation of AI components within your system while mitigating potential disruptions.
Legal & Compliance Considerations: Stay informed about changing laws and compliance factors that are crucial when working with AI architectures.
AI Prompt Engineering Demystified: Get a practical overview of AI prompt engineering without the need for an in-depth technical background. Witness how LLMs can enhance user experiences and provide personalized recommendations.
Interactive Session:
Join us for a dynamic whiteboarding session where we'll guide you through building system architectures that seamlessly incorporate AI models behind your interfaces and contracts. Learn to design systems that empower your applications with AI capabilities.
Taste-Driven AI Experiment:
Experience the excitement of training an AI model based on your unique taste preferences. Using LLM setups and carefully crafted questions, you'll train your personalized AI model. Then, put your model to the test as you taste real drinks and food, comparing its recommendations with your palate.
Who Should Attend:
This workshop is designed for developers, technical enthusiasts, and architects seeking hands-on experience in leveraging AI Language Models for real-world applications. Whether you're new to AI or looking to expand your AI integration skills, this workshop provides actionable knowledge and practical insights.
Don't miss this opportunity to unlock the potential of AI Language Models in your development projects. Join us to gain hands-on experience and embark on a journey to harness the true power of AI in system architecture.
Harden your Software Supply Chain and Standardizing Build Pipelines with Chef Habitat
In today's software landscape, building and maintaining a resilient software supply chain is crucial. Our CI/CD systems are under constant attack, and CVEs are constantly discovered in more software packages and 3rd party libraries. Join us in this dynamic talk as we explore the power of Chef Habitat in fortifying software supply chains and establishing standardized build pipelines.
In this session, we will delve into the capabilities of Chef Habitat, as a key component in your application security posture. Discover how Chef Habitat’s data can be used to explore application dependencies, and standardize the build process throughout the supply chain.
We will explore the advanced features of Chef Habitat that contribute to secure software supply chains, such as cryptographic signing, artifact provenance, and integration with vulnerability scanning tools. By leveraging these features, organizations can enhance the integrity and reliability of their build pipelines, guarding against potential vulnerabilities and ensuring the authenticity of deployed software.
Moreover, we will discuss best practices for integrating Chef Habitat into existing build pipelines, enabling seamless collaboration and standardization across development teams. Learn how Chef Habitat's automation capabilities enable the creation of reproducible builds, simplifying deployment across diverse platforms and environments.
Join us to gain practical insights, real-world examples, and valuable techniques for incorporating Chef Habitat into your organization's software supply chain. By the end of this session, you will be equipped with the knowledge and tools to strengthen your software delivery pipelines, establish robust security measures, and foster efficiency through the power of Chef Habitat.
Isolating volatility, reducing risk, and simplifying complex things
Does your existing application always have parts that need to be rewritten? Is your application impossible to test? Does it feel like you are constantly writing the same code repeatedly? Volatility and tight coupling are likely part of your problem.
In this session, we will discuss techniques to detect and isolate volatility in your software architecture (and requirements). By isolating volatility in your architecture, teams will be able to better decouple components, test the system and offer protection from changing requirements. We will also discuss how to apply these techniques to existing legacy applications and when designing new applications and/or services. In addition, the session will cover some guidelines and warning signs that you are over-designing/engineering your solution.
Whether you are new to being a software/solutions architect or have 20 years of experience, this session is sure to spark hot debate and engaging conversations. This session “may” touch on some controversial architectural concepts/ideas; we encourage you to be interactive and vocal!
Techniques to optimize team flow
Are you a project manager, scrum master, team lead or just generally interested in process improvement? Have you ever been asked to “go faster” or “reduce team blockers”? Then this is the session for you.
Don’t know what flow is, how to read a control chart, or what a Monte Carlo simulation is? No problem! In this session, we are going to start from the beginning and learn the most common, easily implemented techniques to detect and improve your team’s productivity.
And don’t worry if you are Waterfall, Kanban, Scrum, SAFe, XP, or any other process user; these techniques can be adapted rapidly to any team environment. We encourage you to bring your questions, your unique experience and be interactive!
Running applications on the Edge
Designing, deploying and managing applications running on IoT/Edge devices is challenging. You have a wide array of hardware, environmental conditions, network configurations, and varied user experience levels to consider among other challenges. Albert Einstein's description of quantum entanglement was “spooky action at a distance.” Have you ever wondered if he was also describing the problems of managing applications at the Edge?
In this session (using some common use cases we can all relate to), we will discuss techniques to address the unique problems of running applications on IoT/Edge devices through architecture and operations.
Whether you are building applications for the Edge today or are just looking to understand some of the unique technical and operational challenges to help improve your architecture and DevOps knowledge, stop in for a fun discussion on some of the things that go wrong (and right) when you are running applications on the Edge.
Breaking down and delivering “work”
Epics, Capabilities, Features, MVP, User Stories …. Oh my. Does work always seem to enter your backlog in all shapes and sizes? Have you ever wondered if this epic/story could be smaller or simpler? Does your MVP feel like it’s more of version 1.0 of the product? If this sounds like you, your team, or your company, let’s talk about normalizing work around value!
In this session, we will discuss techniques that can be used to break work into smaller milestones that still focus on delivering value. These techniques can be used for work to be delivered faster and improve the final quality of the application. Normalizing value in delivery allows your team to work with smaller atomic units with identified value and solvable acceptance criteria.
Bring your stories, experience, and examples; this is an interactive session where we can apply these common techniques to some of your experiences.
KCDC 2024 Sessionize Event
ChefConf.23 Germany Sessionize Event
ChefConf.23 USA Sessionize Event
Chef After Dark (U.S. 2023) Sessionize Event
KCDC 2023 Sessionize Event
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