The State of Developer Experience in 2026
Nearly every engineering org has adopted AI, yet only 1 in 5 developers say their organization has a clear strategy for using it. Join our panel of industry experts to discover insights from the 2026 State of DevEx Report and learn how to move beyond AI adoption to operationalization.
Andrew Boyagi
Customer CTO, Atlassian
Kelsey Hightower
Author, Investor, and Open Source Contributor
Nathen Harvey
Principal Technologist, AWS
Jennifer Riggins
Technology Journalist
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AI is delivering meaningful local benefits: 87% of developers say it helps them ship work faster, and 80% say it helps them deliver more without working longer hours. Yet only 28% of developers report experiencing noticeably less friction than before AI.
Drawing on Atlassian’s 2026 State of Developer Experience Report, this panel explores the reality of why developers still lose time to finding information, context switching, reviewing code that misses requirements despite seeing local gains from AI tools.
Join moderator Andrew Boyagi (Customer CTO, Atlassian) alongside some of the industry’s most influential voices—Kelsey Hightower, Nathen Harvey, and Jennifer Riggins—as they share their reactions and actionable takeaways from the research.
In this session, you’ll learn:
The cost of the adoption-strategy gap: Why productivity gains are absorbed by organizational friction when there's no clear AI strategy.
Navigating the shift in the engineering role: How engineering is shifting toward judgment, code review, and quality validation over raw code generation.
Redefining productivity metrics: Why measuring AI usage alone is dangerous (and leads to performative AI), and how to focus on impact instead of activity.
Strategies for formalizing AI-native software delivery: Practical approaches to establishing clear AI strategies, leveraging persistent context across tools, and reducing delivery bottlenecks.
Can't make the live session? Register anyway and we’ll send the on-demand recording directly to your inbox.
More about the speakers
Andrew Boyagi
Customer CTO, Atlassian
Andrew Boyagi
Customer CTO, Atlassian
Andrew est le Customer CTO chez Atlassian. Il collabore avec des directeurs informatiques et des chefs d'entreprise du monde entier afin d'accélérer la transformation, d'améliorer les méthodes de travail et de rendre les organisations hautement performantes. Son travail a débuté avec les équipes d'ingénierie et de technologie. Il les a aidées à moderniser leurs processus de livraison, à renforcer leur culture et à améliorer l'expérience développeur. Depuis, il s'est attaché à façonner la manière dont l'ensemble des entreprises collaborent et fonctionnent. Fort de plus de 20 ans d'expérience à la tête d'équipes technologiques et de transformation, notamment à la Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Andrew possède une connaissance approfondie de la manière dont la culture, le leadership et la conception des systèmes génèrent des résultats commerciaux mesurables. Il est titulaire d'un MBA et intervient régulièrement auprès d'équipes technologiques internationales sur des sujets tels que le DevOps, l'expérience développeur et le leadership en ingénierie moderne.
Kelsey Hightower
Author, Investor, and Open Source Contributor
Kelsey Hightower
Author, Investor, and Open Source Contributor
Kelsey Hightower is an acclaimed technologist, speaker, and former Distinguished Engineer at Google Cloud. A prominent advocate and thought leader in the open source, Kubernetes, and cloud computing communities, Kelsey brings decades of experience navigating major technological shifts and helping software organizations scale modern engineering practices.
Nathen Harvey
Principal Technologist, AWS
Nathen Harvey
Principal Technologist, AWS
Nathen Harvey is a Principal Technologist on the Developer Experience team at AWS, focusing on software delivery performance, platform engineering, and AI enablement. He previously led DORA at Google Cloud, guiding the industry-standard framework for measuring engineering performance. As the lead author of multiple DORA reports and a former Vice President at Chef, Nathen brings deep expertise in shaping developer ecosystems. He is a frequent keynote speaker, a co-founder of regional DevOpsDays events, and a co-author of 97 Things Every Cloud Engineer Should Know.
Jennifer Riggins
Technology Journalist
Jennifer Riggins
Technology Journalist
Jennifer Riggins is a freelance technology journalist who specializes on the intersection of business, culture, and technology. An experienced writer, marketer, live event and podcast host, Jennifer seeks to translate the impact of the technology to those who need to understand it. Her primary areas of focus include the value and impact of AI on developer experience and productivity, as well as DevEx measurement and commentary. She has been a working writer since 2003 and is based in London.