A long while back, I created a list of technical conferences that might be of interest to those working with the Microsoft stack. Since then, a lot has changed. Microsoft has shuttered some conferences and adjusted others either in name or in definition. My career path has opened up somewhat to include some other areas of development as well, not limited to strictly a Microsoft stack anymore. I recently found myself doing some research to identify some of the options available for conferences these days and I figured it would be a good opportunity to gather the results of that research together into this list so it is all in one place.

Name Description Duration When Where Link
QCon New York 18 editorial tracks across 3 days, 140+ practitioner speakers from places like Uber, Google, Dropbox, Slack, Twitter, and more…, 11 to 1 attendee to speaker ratio 3 days + 2 days workshop Jun 26 - 28 New York https://qconnewyork.com/
QCon San Francisco 18 editorial tracks across 3 days, 140+ practitioner speakers from places like Uber, Google, Dropbox, Slack, Twitter, and more…, 11 to 1 attendee to speaker ratio 3 days + 2 day workshops Nov 13 - 15 San Francisco https://qconsf.com/
Advanced Distributed Systems Design course on modern architecture design practices for distributed systems with Service-Oriented Architecture that will change the way you think about designing software systems 5 days various Dallas, Los Angeles https://particular.net/adsd
goto; conference GOTO Chicago is about learning, networking and meeting the best in our communities 2 days May 1 - 2 Chicago https://gotochgo.com/
FITC Web Unleashed front end dev focus 2 days + 1 day workshop Sept 25 - 26 Toronto http://fitc.ca/event/webu17/
Anglebrackets Anglebrackets brings together open source collaborators on Angular, HTML 5, ASP.net, bootstrap, Node.js and more 4 days May 21 - 24 Orlando https://anglebrackets.org/#!/
aws re:Invent AWS re:Invent is designed to bring together AWS users of all skill levels to connect, engage, and learn more about AWS. 5 days Nov 27 - Dec 1 Las Vegas https://reinvent.awsevents.com/
Dev Connections 5 tech tracks 4 days Oct 23 - 26 San Francisco http://www.devconnections.com/dc17/Public/enter.aspx
MS Ignite very MS product focused 5 days Sept 25 - 29 Orlando https://ignite.microsoft.com/
DeveloperWeek DeveloperWeek 2017 is the world’s largest developer expo and conference series with over 50 week-long events including the DeveloperWeek 2017 Conference & Expo (8,000 attendees) 3 days + 2 day hackathon Feb 11 - 15 San Francisco http://www.developerweek.com/
Agile Alliance Tech Here we focus on the doing, the building, and the creating 3 days Apr 19 - 21 Boston https://www.agilealliance.org/agile-alliance-technical-conference-2017/
Dockercon DockerCon is the community and container industry conference for makers and operators of next generation distributed apps built with containers. 3 days Apr 17 - 20 Austin http://2017.dockercon.com
ForwardJS Javascript focus with events in San Francisco and Ottawa 2 days + 8 days workshops July 26 - 27 San Francisco https://forwardjs.com/
DEV Intersection Microsoft tech focus with events twice a year, providing sessions on what is new with product releases. 7 conferences in 1, co-located with AngleBrackets. 4 days + workshops May 21 - 24 Orlando https://www.devintersection.com/
DEV Intersection Microsoft tech focus with events twice a year, providing sessions on what is new with product releases. 7 conferences in 1, co-located with AngleBrackets. 4 days + workshops Oct 30 - Nov 2 Las Vegas https://www.devintersection.com/

Personally, I’ve been to a few of these in the past and I’ll mention a few quick impressions:

QCon San Francisco

A great conference, lots of skilled presenters representing some of the largest, well known companies. Smaller than some of the Microsoft conferences, but that provides a more intimate feel and can make it easier to connect with people.

FITC Web Unleashed

This is a good conference because it is one of the few I can attend in my area, helping to reduce travel costs. The speakers have been getting better each year, offering a mix of local talent and some heavy hitters from afar. Relatively small in size, the opportunity to network and socialize with peers is great. The sessions are relatively short (~45 mins) meaning you don’t get seriously in depth into any one topic. You do get a quick overview that can be good to get you caught up on what is happening in the industry and provide lots of takeaways for later research and tinkering.

Advanced Distributed Systems Design

Ok, this is not so much a conference, as it is a week long, intensive training course. I attended in 2010 and I highly recommend this course. It will challenge the way you think about software development and help to rethink and redefine many of the ‘best practices’ that you may have gotten used to. This was a real eye opener for me and I am very glad that I attended. The instructor, Udi Dahan, is an extremely effective teacher and while he is the author of NServiceBus and the founder of Particular Software, there is a lot of great knowledge to be gained from this that is technology agnostic. If you work in the .NET stack and could benefit from trying NServiceBus, then even better, but I think the course could still be quite valuable to non-Microsofties as well.