Call for Speakers

Speak at Code Europe.

Poland’s leading tech conference attracting CEE’s engineers, architects, and tech leads building modern software in the age of AI. Each track curated by practitioners in that field.

Code Europe 2026 · Submissions close 30 June 2026, 23:59 CEST
Audience
Engineers, builders, architects, tech leads and tech managers
Tracks
AI · Cloud · Architecture
Language
English
The Audience

The room you’ll be speaking to.

Architects, engineers, and tech leads from CEE’s leading technology companies - people who ship systems for a living. When you present, you’re speaking to peers who’ll recognize the trade-offs without needing the basics explained.

1,892
paid attendees at the most recent edition
Last edition · 2025
81%
of attendees with 4+ years of professional experience
Last edition · 2025
62%
of attendees with 5+ years of professional experience
Last edition · 2025
38,615
total participants across 9 editions since 2016
Warsaw · Kraków · Tricity
Speaker History

The company you’d be keeping.

Past Code Europe editions have featured creators and core contributors to the languages and tools your audience uses every day - alongside practitioners from Google, Microsoft, Anthropic, AWS, CNCF, GitHub, Netflix, NVIDIA, and Harvard.

Speaker investment

We invest more in headline speakers each edition than the previous one. Most accepted speakers don’t fall in that bucket - but if your background and proposal fit, we’ll reach out directly.

Past headline speakers
Bjarne StroustrupCreator of C++
José ValimCreator of Elixir
Dr. Robert GentlemanCo-creator of R
Andrei AlexandrescuC++ / D authority
Hiroshi ShibataRuby core
Sébastien ChopinCreator of Nuxt
Holly CumminsRed Hat / Quarkus
Venkat SubramaniamAgile Developer
Kent C. DoddsEpic Web Dev
George Hotztinygrad / Comma.ai
The Program

Pick the audience you most want in the room.

Code Europe runs deep tracks with tight clusters. The bullets below each track are indicative - examples of what tends to land well, not a fixed list. If your talk genuinely fits more than one track, it’s probably too generic - pick the audience it serves best.

Track 01

AI Engineering & Data

For ML, AI, and data engineers shipping production systems.

Indicative · not a closed catalogue
AI-augmented development - coding agents, context engineering in dev workflows
LLM applications - RAG, structured outputs, cost & latency engineering
Agents, MCP, and orchestration in production
Evals, observability, and the AI ops layer
Track 02

Cloud, DevOps & Platform Engineering

For platform engineers, SREs, cloud architects.

Indicative · not a closed catalogue
Internal developer platforms - adoption stories with the failures included
Kubernetes and cloud-native at fleet scale
Observability, OpenTelemetry, eBPF in production
FinOps and AI workload infrastructure - GPU scheduling, model serving
Track 03

Software Architecture & Engineering Excellence

For staff+ engineers, tech leads, architects.

Indicative · not a closed catalogue
Distributed systems patterns - honest 2026 reviews of microservices, event sourcing
Modular monolith case studies, API design trade-offs
Language deep dives - Rust, Go, TypeScript, Java/Kotlin modernization
Performance and reliability engineering with production data
Engineering leadership for ICs - the staff+ playbook, architecture review as practice, strategy that gets read
Cybersecurity

Embedded across every track.

We don’t run a separate security track - security belongs where engineers and operators actually meet it. Each track owns a clear slice. Submit to the audience you most want in the room.

Track 01 owns

AI security

Prompt injection and realistic defense patterns. LLM output validation against PII leaks and exfiltration. Securing agents with tool access to production systems. AI supply chain - model provenance, dataset integrity.

Track 02 owns

Infrastructure security

Zero trust architecture in real adoptions. Secrets management at scale (Vault, cloud KMS, SOPS). Kubernetes security posture and runtime. CI/CD supply chain - Sigstore, SLSA, signed builds.

Track 03 owns

Developer-side security

Threat modeling engineers actually do. OWASP Top 10 for modern stacks - it’s different from 2017. Dependency security beyond npm audit. Secure-by-design API patterns.

Cross-cutting: Incident retrospectives and breach analyses (CrowdStrike, MOVEit, Okta-style patterns) fit any track - submit to the one that frames your takeaway best.
Practice & Careers

Engineering careers, trends, and personal practice.

Code Europe’s spine is hard technical content. These topics run alongside - talks attendees value between deep technical sessions. Submit to whichever track frames your takeaway best, or use the “doesn’t fit” option in the form.

Engineering careers

Where senior engineers go from here.

Staff+ trajectories. Engineering management transitions. Compensation realities at senior bands. Building reputation outside your employer through OSS, writing, and public work.

Industry trends

Where the field is going.

Where engineering teams are heading in 2026 and beyond. What AI assistants change about org structure and IC work. Honest retrospectives on the trends people called inevitable.

Learning & longevity

20-year engineering careers.

Learning practices that scale with seniority. Burnout patterns and what holds across decades. Specialization versus generalist bets. Mental models that hold up across stack rewrites.

Formats

Pick the format that fits what you have to say.

Five formats. Stage Talk and Workshop are what the program is built around. Online Talk, Panel, and Lightning Talk fill specific slots. Submit to the format that matches your material - not the one with the most prestige.

40 minOn-site

Stage Talk

The main format. Bring a system you shipped, a decision you defended, a result you measured. Stage Talk is for engineers who can carry a senior room for 40 minutes with substance - not slides, not war stories without a takeaway.

90 minOnline

Workshop

Hands-on. Attendees leave having built something, not just heard about it. Workshop submissions need a clear flow, prerequisites, and a description of what people will have working by the end.

Also accepting

Online Talk

40 min · Online

Same depth as Stage Talk, no travel. Available live and on-demand. Right format if your audience is global and your story doesn’t need a room.

Panel

45 min · On-site

Facilitated conversation between 3–4 practitioners. Submit with a panel theme and your co-panelists already on board. We help finalize the lineup.

Lightning Talk

10 min · On-site

One sharp insight, one production lesson, one tightly-bounded story. The format for engineers who’d rather make one point land than cover three loosely.

On format assignment

What you request isn’t always what we assign. We sometimes propose a different format because your material is stronger at a different length - that’s a conversation, and you’re welcome to push back.

How We Review

Reviewed by engineers, on engineering merit.

Every submission is read by senior engineers and architects from the Code Europe program. We rate on technical depth, originality, and audience fit, and respond to every submission - accept or decline.

01

You submit through the form

Takes 15–20 minutes. Limit of 3 submissions per speaker - we de-duplicate manually after the deadline.

02

First-pass filter

Submissions are filtered on the title and abstract alone - anything that signals the wrong audience is removed before deeper review. Hype framing, vendor demos, and beginner content don’t make it past this step.

03

Track-level review

Senior practitioners from each track rate submissions on depth, originality, and audience fit. Borderline cases are evaluated against past speaking experience - links and recordings help.

04

Program shape

We balance across clusters within each track to avoid topic-clustering. A strong talk can be declined if four other strong talks already cover the same ground.

05

Decision by email

Accepts include the assigned format and slot. Declines include a one-line reason - typically the cluster was full or the framing didn’t land.

Submission Guidance
What helps your submission

Signal the result, point at a system.

  • A concrete first paragraph that signals the result you’ll deliver.
  • A system or measurable outcome you can point at.
  • Links to past talks or recordings, especially for borderline submissions.
  • Specific numbers over general claims.
  • A single track that genuinely fits - focused beats scattered.
Read: Your title is doing more work than you think →
Before you hit submit

Focused beats polished.

  • Pick the track whose audience you most want in the room.
  • First paragraph promises something specific; the rest delivers detail.
  • If you’ve given a version of this talk before, link the recording.
  • 15–20 minutes of focused time is enough - we don’t need polished prose.
Accepted Speakers

What you get if you’re in.

Code Europe covers travel, accommodation, and event fees for every accepted speaker. The benefits below apply to everyone in the program.

01

Travel covered

Economy flights, up to 3 nights international, 2 nights domestic. Booked through our travel desk after acceptance.

02

Accommodation covered

Hotel near the venue, arranged by us. You don’t book anything.

03

Full event access

Event fee waived. Full access to both conference days, including the partner zone, sessions across all tracks, and the afterparty.

04

Speaker dinner

The night before the on-site day. Speakers and program team only. The conversation you came for happens here.

05

Recording & distribution

Your talk is published on the Code Europe YouTube channel after the event. Reach extends well past the conference room.

06

Direct contact with sponsors

Speakers get the kind of access to engineering teams at our partner companies that attendees don’t - useful if you’re hiring, looking, or building.

FAQ

Common questions before submitting.

If your question isn’t here, write to [email protected]. We respond within a few days.

01What language are talks delivered in?+
English. We don’t expect international speakers to speak Polish, and Polish speakers shouldn’t switch to Polish for accessibility reasons - the audience is comfortable in English.
02Can I submit more than one talk?+
Up to 3 sessions per speaker. We de-duplicate manually after the deadline. Submit your strongest talks - quantity doesn’t increase your chances of acceptance.
03Can I co-present with other speakers?+
Yes. Up to 4 speakers per session. Each co-speaker must consent through the form - we’ll contact them separately after your submission to confirm.
04Do you accept pre-recorded talks?+
No. All talks are live - in-person for Day 2 formats, live online for Day 1 formats. Pre-recorded content doesn’t match the program standard.
05When is the submission deadline?+
Each edition has its own CFP cycle. Check the current cycle announcement or the submission form for the current deadline. Submissions sent after the deadline are held for the next cycle, not the current one.
06When will I hear back?+
Decisions come by email after the CFP cycle closes. Notification timelines are stated in the submission form for the current cycle. We respond to every submission - accept or decline.
07Do you pay speaker fees?+
Travel, accommodation, and event fees are covered for accepted speakers. Headline speaker arrangements are handled separately - if your background fits, we’ll reach out directly. Most accepted speakers don’t fall in that bucket, and that’s the norm at most senior-engineering conferences.
08What if my talk doesn’t fit any of the tracks?+
The form has a “doesn’t fit” option in the topic list - use it when none of the tracks genuinely lands, and we’ll review case-by-case. If you’d rather talk it through first, write to [email protected] before submitting.
09Will my talk be recorded?+
Yes, talks are published on the Code Europe YouTube channel after the event. Past editions’ recordings are linked from the submission form for reference.
// Submit

Submit your talk.

The submission form takes 15–20 minutes. We respond to every submission - accept or decline. If you’re not sure your talk fits, write to [email protected] first.

Limit 3 submissions per speaker