Track host
About the track
When working with complex, distributed systems, the art of "connecting" is not a one-time feat but an ongoing journey. That journey covers everything from the essential role of APIs and protocols as the building blocks of connectivity, to the necessity of observability for understanding how a system behaves.
This track features a diverse array of perspectives and stories from experts that have built, maintained, and evolved the connections that weave together to become the fabric of distributed systems. As systems become more complex, we'll provide critical knowledge to help you master the art of connecting systems.
Sessions in this track
Monday 16 March. 6 sessions per track, chosen and introduced by the Track Host.
10:35 Whittle (3rd Fl.) Session architecture From Fan-Out to Fast: Sub-100ms API Design in Distributed Systems Saranya Vedagiri Senior Staff Engineer @eBay A “simple” API request rarely stays simple. In distributed systems, one call quickly turns into fan-out across gateways, services, caches, and databases — and your p99 becomes the sum of every hop and every flaky dependency. 11:45 Whittle (3rd Fl.) Session Observability Uncorking Queueing Bottlenecks with OpenTelemetry Julian Wreford, Oli Lane Queues are the backbone of scalable, asynchronous systems, but they can easily create a tangled web of complexity. When things slow down, the bottleneck could be anywhere, from producer lag to consumer exhaustion, and standard metrics often fail to show the full picture. 13:35 Whittle (3rd Fl.) Session Platform Engineering APIs for Agents: Rethinking API Programs in the MCP Era Jim Gough, Andreea Niculcea As API programs mature, a familiar gap emerges: some teams operate with strong standards, reusable platforms, and clear governance, while others rely on informal guidance and best-effort consistency. 14:45 Rutherford (4th Fl.) Unconference Unconference: Connecting Systems 15:55 Whittle (3rd Fl.) Session AI Enchant Your AI and APIs with eBPF Magic 🪄 Dan Finneran Principal Community Advocate at Isovalent @Cisco It is a common occurrence to see applications thrown over the fence, landing somewhere in production without a second thought about their lifecycle or how they may need maintaining in the future to connect to more efficient API endpoints. 17:05 Fleming (3rd Fl.) Session architecture Managing Asynchronous APIs at Scale Ian Cooper Senior Principal Engineer @Just Eat Takeaway When event-driven architectures are small, teams can reason about events through word-of-mouth. They know who publishes what, who consumes it, and how messages flow through the system. Teams manage their own infrastructure or raise tickets to request changes.QCon London 2026 is a three day conference for senior software engineers, architects and team leads. An international program committee of working engineers selects every session. Patterns and practices, not products and pitches.