I’m finally coming up for air after a whirlwind week. It started with an offsite, and that was immediately followed up by attending LeadDev NYC 2025 yesterday. Having been to LeadDev Berlin last year, I have to say, the NYC venue was huge and brought in a lot more people!

The All-Encompassing AI Wave

The biggest takeaway from the day? Almost every single talk had some aspect of AI woven into it. It made me wonder if, by next year, it’ll be nearly impossible to give a talk at a leadership conference without dropping the AI buzzword.

Still, the AI-focused sessions I attended were genuinely valuable, moving past the hype and into the practical. I always follow Addy Osmani’s work, and his talk on leading engineering teams in the GenAI era was excellent. Similarly, I really enjoyed Angie Jones’s session on how engineering led their company-wide AI adoption. Both gave concrete insights into how to actually drive the AI revolution, not just talk about it.

It was also great to catch Justin Reock’s talk on AI metrics from a Developer Experience (DX) perspective. While I try to stay up-to-date with what DX publishes, hearing it directly from Justin was a sharp, clear reminder of the key takeaways.

Knowledge and Wisdom Beyond the Buzzword

Thankfully, the final session of the day offered a much-needed break from the AI buzzword, yet was packed with incredible knowledge and wisdom from Kevin Goldsmith and Anil Dash.

I work with Kevin, but I’m not being biased when I say his talk was fantastic, it was genuinely well-received. And then there was Anil Dash’s talk on power dynamics. It was witty, insightful, and gave me a lot to reflect on regarding power and privilege within the industry.

A Spark for the Next Chapter

As I was sitting there, listening to these incredible speakers, it reminded me of my own speaking journey. The younger me, who was super excited to present my JavaScript experiments, which actually landed me international travels, felt a similar jolt of energy. The AI era excites me similarly.

I’ve been on a steady writing streak lately, which feels like a great precursor. After a much-needed speaking break and having balanced my professional career for a while, I’m hoping to have a couple of speaking slots lined up for next year. Here’s hoping to be back on stage soon!