Developer Day
Designing in-person experiences that connect engineers, spark learning, and build community through interaction and shared experience
Role: Experience Strategy & Design Lead
Scope: Global · 7 locations · 2.1K+ attendees
Overview
Developer Day is a one-day, in-person experience designed to break down silos and create meaningful connection across engineering teams.
As teams became more distributed, engineers had fewer opportunities to connect outside their immediate teams, and existing gatherings were often passive or siloed.
Impact
The program began as a pilot in San Jose, where I tested core experience formats and interaction patterns. As those formats proved successful, it scaled to six additional global locations, evolving into a repeatable experience system.
2.1K+ attendees
6 global locations (San Jose, Lehi, New York City, Bucharest, San Francisco, Noida)
Reaching 44% of our developers
166+ showcases and breakouts
95% reported increased connection
Designing the Experience
Developer Day was designed to prioritize interaction, connection, and shared experience over passive content consumption.
Designed for interaction, not passive listening
Creates opportunities for cross-team connection
Balances structure with flexibility
Celebrates real work and people
Leaves participants feeling more connected than when they arrived
Experience Flow
The experience was structured as a series of intentional moments:
Arrival & Welcome
Sets tone and reduces friction
Keynote
Creates shared context and energy
Technical Showcases
Peer-led learning and visibility
Social Connection
“Birds of a Feather” lunches for
interest-based informal interaction
Breakouts & Sessions
Deeper exploration
Closing + Social Time
Reflection and continued connection
Piloting the Experience
I approached Developer Day as an initial pilot in San Jose to test experience formats in a real-world setting and understand if this was a valuable experience for developers.
By observing how people interacted, what drove engagement, and where connection naturally happened, I iterated on formats across locations, refining the experience over time.
Scaling the Experience
As formats proved successful, I translated them into playbooks, toolkits, and repeatable experience formats for developer volunteer teams to scale this globally.
This allowed teams to run Developer Day across locations while maintaining consistency and quality, scaling from a single pilot to a global program.
What Participants Said
““You get to learn directly from peers, see how different teams approach similar challenges, and build connections that carry on well beyond the event. It’s the kind of experience that leaves you both inspired and more connected to the broader engineering community
”
“The Birds of a Feather lunch was my favorite activity! Such an amazing way to meet new people and hear new perspectives as someone who is introverted.”
“Knowledge sharing between so many teams. In the end we realized we really need to work together as a community and build our future joining forces”
What Makes a Great Developer Day
The most impactful moments weren’t the most structured, but the ones that created space for people to connect, share, and learn from each other.
This work shifted my focus from designing events to designing systems that enable connection at scale.
Defining what makes a great experience, and enabling others to deliver it, became more important than designing any single event.