With over 30 sessions, panels, and roundtables packed into one day, IDPCON 2025 is a choose-your-own-adventure experience for anyone working in engineering leadership, SREs, platform engineering, DevEx, and anyone who is solving for a better tomorrow in software engineering.
Here’s a quick guide to help you plan your day and make the most of your time at the world’s only conference on internal developer portals.
Don’t miss the keynote
9:25 AM – Main Stage
Start your day with a front-row seat to what’s next. Cortex co-founders Anish Dhar and Ganesh Datta will unveil what’s new in Cortex and deliver a bold vision for the future of developer portals. Whether you're just starting to explore IDPs or ready to rethink your platform strategy, you won’t want to miss the keynote.
Choose your track: By role
For engineering leaders:
10:10 AM – The Role of Platform Engineering in a Hypergrowth Company (Klaviyo)
Learn how Klaviyo scaled its platform team from unicorn to IPO.
10:45 AM – From Metrics to Movement: Engineering Intelligence that Drives Action
Get hands on with how Engineering Intelligence in Cortex makes it easy to connect metrics like cycle time, incident rate, and team throughput to the services, teams, and workflows you already manage in your IDP.
1:55 PM – How Canva Cultivates Operational Excellence
Scorecards, standards, and shifting culture toward prevention over firefighting.
4:15 PM – Beyond the Portal: Navigating the Human Challenges of IDP Adoption (Paxos)
One of the most tactical and honest talks of the day. Highly recommended.
For platform engineers and DevEx teams:
11:55 AM – Standardize, Automate, Empower (Blackstone)
A practical deep dive into automating CI/CD, infra, and templates—with governance that developers actually follow.
2:25 PM – Make It Repeatable Workshop (Cortex)
Hands-on workshop to learn how to automate common workflows and embed best practices directly into your IDP.
3:05 PM – Unifying Governance (Skyscanner)
Replace fragmented “excellence” programs with a unified framework tied to business priorities.
For SREs and reliability-focused roles:
1:20 PM – Ready for Primetime (Panel: Etsy, NBCUniversal, CLEAR)
Real-world lessons on staying reliable when it matters most.
3:40 PM – Banking on Velocity (Panel: Blackstone, Xero, Bank of America)
How the world’s most regulated orgs maintain both speed and safety.
Choose your track: By priority
While some sessions are geared more towards one role vs another, everyone (no matter your role) is welcome to attend any session. If you’d like to plan your day based on what you’re currently solving for, here’s a few tracks to consider:
Leverage AI for innovation, automation, and smarter decisions
AI is everywhere, but how are teams rolling it out? These sessions dive into real-world implementations, lessons learned, and how AI is being used to reduce toil, improve decisions, and spark new capabilities across engineering.
Check out:
[Roundtable] From Idea to Implementation: Rolling Out AI for Engineering Teams
[Roundtable] Making Operational Excellence Measurable and Actionable
[Panel Discussion] Spotlight on: Shaping the Wave: How Engineering Leaders Are Defining AI’s Role A closing panel where leaders share what’s working in AI adoption, how they’re measuring impact, and the changes they’re making to stay ahead in this new era.
Align technical strategy with business goals
Bridging the gap between engineering and the business? These sessions explore how to connect your internal tools and platforms to larger priorities like cost efficiency, customer experience, and innovation velocity.
Check out:
[Session] How Canva Cultivates Operational Excellence
[Session] Unifying Governance with a Lightweight Framework for Engineering Excellence
[Roundtables] From Dashboards to Decisions: Driving Outcomes with Engineering Metrics
Boost developer productivity and accelerate time to market
If your teams are moving too slowly or battling burnout, these sessions share proven tactics for streamlining workflows, reducing friction, and giving developers more time to focus on what matters.
Check out:
[Roundtable] Move Fast, Ship Smart: Boosting Engineering Velocity
[Session] Standardize, Automate, Empower: A Platform Approach to Developer Productivity
[Hands-on Workshop] Make It Repeatable: Scaling Best Practices with Workflows in Cortex
[Session] Spotlight on: Level Up Your Developer Experience with Smart Automation and InitiativesLearn how H&R Block uses smart automation and targeted platform initiatives to streamline workflows, reduce cognitive overhead, and free developers to focus on what matters most.
Strengthen security, threat prevention, and compliance
If security, compliance, or governance are high on your list this year, these sessions show how teams are embedding standards into everyday engineering work, without slowing down innovation.
Check out:
[Roundtable] Security Is Everyone’s Job: How to Make that True
[Roundtable] Deploy with Confidence: Using Scorecards to Gate Releases
[Panel Discussion] Banking on Velocity: How the World’s Leading Financial Institutions Confidently Move Fast
Trying to drive platform adoption?
If you’re building a platform that developers will actually use, look for content on Platform Strategies, DevEx, and IDP Adoption. These sessions share lessons learned and ideas for treating your platform like a product.
Check out:
[Roundtable] Treat Your Developer Platform Like a Product
[Session] Beyond the Portal: Navigating the Human Challenges of IDP Adoption
[Session] Turning IDPs into Engines of Accountability
Focused on readiness and reliability?
Get insights into how top teams prepare for big moments and reduce risk across the board. Look for sessions tagged with Readiness, Reliability, or Engineering Excellence.
Check out:
[Session] How Canva Cultivates Operational Excellence
[Panel Discussion] Ready for Primetime: How the World’s Leading Companies Prepare for Highstakes Events
[Session] Unifying Governance with a Lightweight Framework for Engineering Excellence
Roundtables: For the candid convos you can’t find anywhere else
If you want unfiltered stories, battle-tested strategies, and conversations that go off-script in the best way, don’t skip the roundtables.
These 40-minute, small-group discussions are led by experienced practitioners from organizations like Skyscanner, H&R Block, EarnIn, and Xero. No slide decks… just real people (including you!) sharing what worked, what didn’t, and what they wish they’d known earlier.
Want to hear how teams actually use scorecards in production? Try Making Operational Excellence Measurable (and Actionable) or Deploy with Confidence.
Curious about AI rollouts that go beyond experimentation? Join From Idea to Implementation.
Struggling with platform adoption? Check out Treat Your Developer Platform Like a Product or You Built the Dashboard: Now What?
Roundtables were the breakout hit of last year’s IDPCON—attendees consistently called them their favorite sessions, thanks to the honest conversations and peer insights you can’t get anywhere else. Just a heads-up: they fill up fast, so make sure you register ASAP.
Many roundtables repeat in the afternoon, so you’ll have a second shot if you miss one in the morning.
Workshops: Get hands-on
Looking to move from theory to action? The workshops at IDPCON are designed to give you practical, hands-on experience with the tools and strategies teams are using to drive real change. These sessions are interactive, focused, and built to help you walk away with something tangible.
[AM Workshop] From Metrics to Movement: Engineering Intelligence that Drives Action
Engineering metrics shouldn’t just report what happened. They should help teams spot problems early, understand trends, and drive continuous improvement. In this workshop, you'll get hands-on with Cortex’s Engineering Intelligence tools and learn how to connect metrics like cycle time, incident rate, and throughput to real services, teams, and workflows in your IDP.
[PM Workshop] Make It Repeatable: Scaling Best Practices with Workflows in Cortex
Best practices don’t scale on their own. This workshop will show you how Cortex Workflows can be used to standardize and automate key parts of the development lifecycle—from repo setup to service configuration and approvals. You’ll learn how to reduce handoffs, remove friction, and embed consistent practices right into your developer workflows.
Workshops are a great opportunity to get into the weeds with experts and leave with strategies you can apply back at your org. Spots are limited, so be sure to sign up early.
Demos and 1-1 time with Cortex experts
All day in Hall 1, you’ll find live demos and the opportunity to chat with Cortex experts.
Swing by between sessions to see Cortex in action.
Wrap up with a drink and good convo
Rounding out the day, the Engineering Excellence Awards kicks off at 5:25pm.
The Engineering Excellence Awards celebrated emerging leaders and individual contributors that are taking their organizations to the next level of velocity and innovation. Past honorees include Hari Babu from H&R Block for exemplifying what great engineering leadership looks like, and Nick Raccioppi from Earnin for championing scalable platform practices.
These recognitions highlight the often behind-the-scenes work that drives real improvement and to encourage others to keep pushing in that direction.
And last but certainly not least, the reception kicks off right after the awards. It's a great time to connect with peers, swap notes from the day, and meet the people behind your favorite talks. And, enjoy some drinks and snacks.
TL;DR agenda planning tips
Start in Hall 2 for the keynote and major sessions.
Pick 1–2 themes you care most about (AI, velocity, reliability, DevEx).
Don’t skip the roundtables, they’re where most attendees say they got the most value.
Leave room for demos, hallway chats, and lunch conversations.
Recharge, reflect, and celebrate at the evening reception.
Let’s build what’s next, together
Whether you're focused on improving developer experience, tightening up reliability, rolling out AI, or just figuring out where to start, IDPCON brings together the people and ideas that are shaping the future of engineering.
This is your chance to learn from teams who’ve been in the trenches, swap ideas with peers facing similar challenges, and walk away with practical strategies you can put to work right away.
If you haven’t registered yet, now’s the time. Get your pass and join us for a day packed with stories, honest conversations, and a whole lot of momentum.
We’d love to see you there.
