I’ve been to nor(DEV):con, East Anglia’s Largest Developer Conference, most years since its inception as syncConf in 2013. 2026 has been by far my favorite year, and not just because I had the opportunity to speak to a packed conference room with standing room only!
Learning Go by becoming a drone pilot - Andrew Haine
When Andrew first posted about his keynote at nor(DEV):con, it was just too easy to tease him he’d be droning on about Go! Fortunately for me, he saw the funny side! In reality the talk was interesting, and expertly and charismatically delivered. Especially considering that there’d been a fairly major technology failure just before Andrew started. So he couldn’t share his laptop on the main screen. However, we did see him control a small drone hovering just above the stage and even saw it take a picture, all through code.
Learning Python to buy shoes: A tale of studying, selectors and sneakers - Isaac Oldwood
Isaac is one of the up and coming stars of the Eastanglian tech scene. Although this was his first time speaking at nor(DEV):con - a conference his father is a veteran of - Isaac is already making significant contributions to the community as one of the organisers of Software Crafters Cambridge.
Of course he’d been telling us he was nervous. If he was, it didn't show. Isaac engaged the audience and took us on a fun journey of Python discovery and trainer buying. There was even Pokemon, which pleased my fourteen year old son no end. I’m not sure I’ll ever understand the appeal of fancy trainers though.
Modular Monoliths and Other Facepalms - Kevlin Henney
Having spoken about service design, and mentioned Modular Monoliths, during my talk earlier in the day, I was anxious to find out if what I had said would align with what Kevlin was talking about. Fortunately it did.
It was reassuring to hear Kevlin emphasising the enduring principles of good software design: abstraction, the clear contract a module or service offers to its clients; cohesion, the deliberate grouping of related responsibilities; and loose coupling, the ability for components to evolve independently.
These fundamentals seem to be overlooked by many younger engineers today, despite being well established since the 1960s. They are lessons learnt as long ago as the 1960s and they should be part of every software engineer's toolkit.
Debugging your imposter syndrome - Vickie Allen-Collier
I’ve known Vickie since she was a young engineer in her first role - we were both a lot younger then and I even had hair I could sit on. I’ve seen Vickie progress to become a senior engineer, and found the hugely successful DevelopHer Awards. The suggestion that she might have imposter syndrome might seem absurd, but it’s not. Many of us have it.
If she was nervous, or feeling imposter syndrome today, it didn’t show. With flawless delivery, Vickie debugged imposter syndrome. She looked at what it is, what the symptoms are and offered actions for fixing them, ending with a challenge to the audience to take away just one action and put it into practice.
As the talk was a keynote, Vickie was addressing all the conference delegates together. That’s more than 250 people. There were questions at the end and I was delighted to hear one from “Long time suffer, first time caller” Matt Miller, who got the laugh that line deserved!
Project Managers, what are they good for? - Emily Delva
With a provocative title like “Project Managers, what are they good for?” how could I miss Emily’s talk? I wasn’t disappointed. Emily’ dry humour with her straightforward, no nonsense approach to the topic made the delivery very enjoyable, without losing the message that project managers are vital for software engineers. They help engineers add value and get on with the job of engineering. A lot like Lead Engineers in a lot of ways….
nor(DEV):con will be in new hands next year. I can’t wait to see where it goes.
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