Raptors Conference · Online · 23 September 2026

Production-grade lessons from the real world

A free, online conference from Hackathon Raptors — a global community of senior engineers. Battle-tested talks from the people who actually run production at scale: the failures they learned from, the systems they scaled, the tradeoffs they'd defend. Peer-reviewed, selected on merit, broadcast in a single day with live Q&A.

Submit a talk Attend free

When: 23 September 2026
Where: Online
Format: Peer-reviewed talks
Attendance: Free

01 About

Real lessons from real production, not slideware.

Any stack welcome — frontend, backend, DevOps, ML, data, security — as long as it's a real, hard-won production lesson. Every talk is reviewed by a panel of senior engineers and selected on merit. A room for people who've shipped, not pitched.

Hackathon Raptors runs serious, high-signal events — System Collapse, Port Mortem, Code Resurrection, Slop Scan, Code Olympics — for a global community of senior and distinguished engineers. The conference is where that community puts what it has learned, shipping software under real pressure, on the record.

Every submission is reviewed by our panel and selected on merit — nothing else gets you on the bill. The chosen talks are broadcast across a single day with live Q&A, then captioned and archived, so the best speakers worldwide can take part regardless of timezone. Submitting is free. Attending is free.

Free: To attend
Online: Join worldwide
Senior+: Talk level
Merit: Selection only

The community

You'll be in serious company.

Raptors Conference is run by Hackathon Raptors — a 2,000-strong global community that ships real software under real constraints, judged by engineers who do this for a living. The conference is where that bar goes on the record.

30+: Hackathons run
200+: Judges
300+: Projects shipped
1,500+: Builders
30+: Countries
$35k+: Awarded in prizes

Built and judged by engineers from

Microsoft
AWS
Adobe
PayPal
Oracle
Meta
Twilio
Cisco
Okta
Epic Games
Sonos
ServiceNow

You're here to start a new conference era

Raptors Conference 2026 — Production-Grade

02 Speakers

The lineup is being selected right now.

Speakers are chosen from the open call for papers — on merit, by our review panel — alongside a handful of invited keynotes. The first names are announced in early September.

Speakers announced soon

Your name belongs here.

The first edition's speakers come straight from the CFP. If you've got a production-grade lesson worth a senior engineer's time, submit a talk — selection is free and strictly on merit.

Submit a talk

03 Topics

Any stack. One bar, and it's high.

We don't sort by technology — we sort by depth. Bring a failure you learned from, a system you scaled, or a tradeoff you'd defend. Every talk is pitched for serious engineers: Mid+, Senior, and Staff / Principal.

FE 01

Frontend

Where the users actually are.

Performance under real load, rendering at scale, the framework migration that hurt, accessibility you can't fake.

BE 02

Backend

The part that pages you at 3am.

APIs, queues, consistency, the database decision you'd make differently, the outage you'll never forget.

Ops 03

DevOps & Infra

Keeping it up.

CI/CD, observability, incident response, cost, and the migration that looked simple on the whiteboard.

ML 04

ML & Data

Beyond the demo.

Shipping, evaluating and maintaining ML and data systems in production — including when the model changes under you.

Sec 05

Security

Assume breach.

Supply chains, auth, secrets, and the threat models that should keep you up at night but probably don't.

Arch 06

Architecture & Scale

Decisions you live with.

The tradeoff you'd defend, the rewrite that paid off (or didn't), and what scale actually taught you.

04 How it works

From call for papers to broadcast day.

One open call, one review panel, one broadcast day. Here's the path from submission to a published, archived talk.

Open now
Call for papers

Submit a talk on any production-grade topic. Free to apply, open to speakers worldwide.
28 Aug 2026
CFP closes

Last day to submit your talk for the first edition.
4 Sep 2026
Speakers selected

Our panel reviews every submission and selects talks on merit. Everyone hears back.
14 Sep 2026
Final talks due

Selected speakers finalize their talks with our simple guidelines.
23 Sep 2026
Broadcast day

All selected talks broadcast across a single day, with live Q&A on Discord.
Early Oct 2026
Proceedings published

Abstracts published with a Crossref DOI; talks captioned and archived on raptors.dev.

The talks that change how you build aren't the ones with the cleanest slides — they're the ones with the scar tissue.

— Hackathon Raptors

05 Proceedings

Talks that get published, not just streamed.

Selected talks become part of the Proceedings of the Raptors Conference — a citable, archived record of the work presented, not a video that disappears into a feed.

Crossref DOI

Talks can be published as an abstract with a permanent Crossref DOI — citable, discoverable, and part of the scholarly record.

Captioned & archived

Every talk is captioned and hosted on raptors.dev, so the work lives on long after broadcast day.

Public & verifiable

A public proceedings page with abstracts, DOIs and speaker pages — externally verifiable, by design.

Call for papers closes in Deadline · 28 August 2026

-- Days -- Hours -- Minutes -- Seconds

06 Call for papers

Got a hard-won production lesson? Submit a talk.

We're looking for the strongest speakers worldwide to share deep, battle-tested engineering content with our community. Any stack — as long as it's a real lesson from real work. Submitting is free, and so is attending.

Submit your talk

Format: 15, 30 or 45-minute talks — pick what your story needs
Scope: Any stack: frontend, backend, DevOps, ML, data or security
Audience: Pitched for Mid+, Senior and Staff / Principal engineers
Selection: Reviewed by a panel and chosen on merit — no fee, ever
Afterlife: Published in the Proceedings and archived on raptors.dev

07 FAQ

Questions, answered.

Is it online or in person?

Fully online. All selected talks are broadcast across a single day — 23 September 2026 — with live Q&A on Discord, so you can take part from anywhere.

How much does it cost to attend?

Attendance is free. Join our Discord and RSVP to the conference event — you'll get the reminder there and watch from inside Discord when it goes live. Not in the community yet? Joining takes a minute.

Do I have to pay to speak?

No. Talks are selected on merit and speaking is free — there's no fee to apply or to present. Just submit a great talk.

What kind of talks are you looking for?

Real, hard-won production lessons on any stack — frontend, backend, DevOps, ML, data, security. A failure you learned from, a system you scaled, a tradeoff you'd defend. Talks are pitched for serious engineers: Mid+, Senior, and Staff / Principal.

How long are the talks?

You can submit a 15, 30 or 45-minute talk. Pick the length that fits your story.

How are talks selected?

Every submission is reviewed by our panel and selected on merit. Everyone who submits hears back — selected speakers get the details and next steps.

What are the Proceedings?

Selected talks become part of the Proceedings of the Raptors Conference. Featured speakers publish an abstract with a permanent Crossref DOI, and every talk is captioned and archived on raptors.dev.

Do I need prior speaking experience?

It helps. This is a senior room, and prior talks or recordings strengthen your submission. But what the panel weighs most is the substance of the work — a genuinely strong production lesson beats a long speaking résumé. If you've got the former, submit it and let the panel review.

When does the call for papers close?

The CFP for the first edition closes 28 August 2026. Speakers are notified in early September, ahead of the 23 September broadcast.