DevOpsDays Zurich 2026
Just back home after my first DevOpsDays Zurich. One quick geography note: the event actually takes place in Winterthur, 15 minutes by train from Zurich. Once you’re there, everything is within walking distance. Very convenient.
All started with the speaker dinner
The event started the evening before with a speaker dinner, a great way to meet people before the conference opens. Interesting conversations at the table with Limor Bergman Gross, Antonio Alvino, Gang Luo, Kristina Kondrashevich, Michele Brambilla, and Timo Böhm, and many more. Great people, nice restaurant, nice food, loved it.
The conference format
There were about 250 attendees, which made it a human-sized event, my favorite kind. All talks, both regular and ignite, happened in the same room. Sponsor booths were spread across several floors, which kept things from feeling crowded.
Exoscale was present on the VSHN booth, a long-time partner. It was great meeting Aarno Aukia and Tobias Brunner there, and to spend booth time alongside Gernot Horak, Marc Witmer, and Maxime Gerard. We had some genuinely interesting conversations with people curious about our solutions. The booth was right next to the entrance and the talk area, which meant I could watch every single talk without leaving. That rarely happens when you are on booth duty at larger events.
The talks
Keynotes were very engaging: on the first day Bertrand Delacretaz talked about ethics and values, on the second day Limor shared her personal story about leadership, honest and so interesting.
Many different topics during these 2 days, organizational, technical (with and without AI), also a very interesting presentation about neurodiversity by Vera Herzmann. Of course, AI came up in many talks, which is no surprise. We are in the AI era and embracing it is probably needed not to be left behind. Lena Fuhrimann’s talk about AI adoption about navigating different mindsets was very interesting.
Camille Nigon’s talk about the sovereign MaaS platform was a highlight. Using a coffee machine as an analogy to explain a complex infrastructure concept was fun and genuinely insightful.
Ignite talks
DevOpsDays has a format called ignite talks: 5 minutes, exactly 20 slides, advancing automatically every 15 seconds. The constraint forces precision and keeps the energy high. I plan to submit one next year.
Open Space
I also appreciated the Open Space section, where everyone could suggest a topic of their choice and discuss it in groups during some free time in the afternoon.
My workshop
I ran a Kubernetes Capture The Flag workshop on the second day. Participants were focused and serious about finding the flags hidden in Kubernetes resources. The feedback I received was encouraging, which means a lot. I already have a list of things to improve for the next time, as I usually do after each event.
The organizers
All of this would not be possible without special people! Nadine, Zoltan, and the whole organizing team were always present and always ready to help. Dirk was an excellent MC throughout the two days. Thank you all for your dedication and for making the event run so smoothly.
I probably forgot people and moments, but to sum it up: I loved this event. Hope to be back next year, with an ignite talk submitted, and probably a bit more grey hair.
Oh, and BTW, thank you very much for these very sweet Swiss chocolates.
