Public Talks

Guiding You to Joyful, High-Quality Software Development

Improving the experience of developers and giving them the tools and processes to create high-quality software joyfully is my passion. My keynotes and presentations at developer conferences are vibrant journeys into the realm of developer experiences. Here, I unveil my research findings and share my expertise in enhancing code review practices.

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Topics I speak about

Code Reviews

At the heart of my work is improving code reviews. 

Code reviews can be either a soul-crushing bottleneck or a superpower that elevates teams to a new level of collaboration, learning, and high quality. The content of those talks covers code review best practices and research findings in the area of code reviews, and I share the knowledge I gained from training and coaching over one thousand developers over the last five years.

Developer Experience

During keynotes and tech talks, I also share the insights we gained from studies on developer experience. In particular, I talk about how to measure and improve developer experience and productivity and which impact developer experience has on a team’s performance, code quality, and developers’ happiness.

During those talk, I also give insights into how DevEx related to SPACE or Dora.

 

Recent Keynotes and Talks

Over the last ten years, I have given dozens of keynotes and talks, either at public conferences such as EclipseCon or at the International Conference on the Quality of Information and Communications Technology, as well as at internal events at companies such as Siemens, Vanguard, LinkedIn, or SLB/ Schlumberger. Let me show you some of the public footage.

From Bottleneck to Superpower – ACM Tech Talk watched live by several thousand people. Watch it on YouTube here.

Transforming Developer Experience: A Tale of Recovery and Innovation

At Goto Amsterdam, I presented our findings from a three-year study on developer experience (DevEx) and its statistically significant impact on developer productivity, technical debt, code quality, innovation, profitability, and retention. The audience gained a comprehensive understanding of the importance of DevEx and received practical steps for enhancing it within their teams. June, 2024

Improving the Developer Experience of Code Reviews

I had the pleasure of giving the keynote at SLB’s DORA day, an internal conference for software developers and architects to reflect upon their software engineering practices and processes. In this keynote, I presented the findings of our recent study on developer experience and gave concrete and actionable advice on how to improve code review practices and processes. November 2023

From Inspection to Collaboration

At Siemens, I gave the keynote at their annual Conference and showed how code reviews and software testing practices influence the developer experience. 2022

Code Reviews: From Bottleneck to Superpower

I had the pleasure to give the keynote at the Software Architecture Summit, April 2021 in Munich.

Bio

Michaela Greiler specializes in improving software engineering processes and practices for development teams. During her workshops and her talks, developers learn how to boost their productivity, improve their code reviews, and create an environment that helps increase developer experience and happiness. She is also the head of research at DX, the first platform for measuring and improving developer experience. Previously, she was a senior researcher at the University of Zurich and also worked at Microsoft Research, helping developers boost developer productivity using engineering data. She also runs a training and consulting company that specializes in improving software engineering processes and practices for teams.

Improving Developer Experience with Purposeful Code Reviews

At Vanguard’s internal and annual developer conference, I gave a keynote speech about how code review practices influence developers’ happiness and productivity. November, 2021

Rock Your Code Reviews

At NDC, I talked about my favorite topic: Code Review

Improving Developer Experience with Purposeful Code Reviews

At LinkedIn, I had the pleasure of talking about developer experience, productivity, and code reviews. 2022

Hurdles of Testing Large-Scale Software Systems

At TestBash, the Software Testing Conference from the largest software testing community, the Ministry of Testing, I talked about how we can reduce the time it takes to test large-scale systems. I showed common problems, such as tests that sometimes fail without reason, aka flaky tests, and explained which innovative ideas can help. 2020

Code Reviews from Bottleneck to Superpower

During the Developer Productivity conference by Manning, I spoke about how we can transform code reviews from bottleneck to a team’s super power.

Code Reviews from Bottleneck to Superpower

At the Detroit Tech Watch, I talked about how code reviews can be a bottleneck during software development, and which changes to the practice are needed for a smooth experience.

Software Engineering Radio

I was invited as a podcast guest on the Software Engineering Radio, where I shared best practices and pitfalls that come along with code reviews.

Secrets to high-quaity code

Liran Haimovitch and I talked about the secrets to high-quality code. 

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List of Many More Presentations And Talks

Over the last 15 years, I have presented my work and research at many International Conferences. This is an incomplete list, but it should give you a good picture of the presentation and speaking experience I gained over the years. I grouped the talks into two topics: Code Reviews and Software Testing.

Code Reviews

Data-Driven Software Engineering 

I gave this keynote at the International Conference on the Quality of Information and Communications Technology in Portugal, Giumares, 2016. Read more…

On to Code Reviews

I gave this keynote at the International Conference on the Quality of Information and Communications Technology in Portugal, Giumares, 2014.

How the Current Code Review Best Practice Slows Us Down

I gave several technical talks at Microsoft and Microsoft Research about Code Review. Which best practices to use, how code reviews can not find bugs, and how to increase productivity and the usefulness and value of the practice.

Publications: How the Current Code Review Best Practice Slows Us Down

Oh no, I’m the slowest code reviewer on the team. In this talk, I explain which impact code review speed has on thoroughness, throughput, and the overall productivity and happiness of software development teams,

OpenTechTable, Klagenfurt, 2019

 

Software Testing

The Art of Testing Less without Sacrificing Quality

I have given this talk several times at Microsoft Seattle, US, and Microsoft Research in Cambridge, UK, and at TestBash, the Testing conference of the Ministry of Testing. The topic is about how to reduce test suites without sacrificing quality. This topic is especially relevant for companies that have large test suites that take a long time to run. Reducing such a test suite (safely) can lead to tremendous reductions in terms of time and costs.

Related Publication: The Art of Testing Less without Sacrificing Quality

Automated Detection of Test Fixture Strategies and Smells

I gave a technical talk about testing best practices at the International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation in 
Luxembourg, March 2013.

Realted Publication: Automated Detection of Test Fixture Strategies and Smells

Test Confessions: A Study of Testing Practices for Plug-in Systems

In Zurich (Switzerland) I talked about testing best practices for plug-in systems at the International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE). 2012, Switzerland. 

Realted Publication: Test Confessions: A Study of Testing Practices for Plug-in Systems

Test Confessions: A Study of Testing Practices for Plug-in Systems

At EclipseCon in Santa Clara California (USA), I spoke to an audience of over 500 people about how to test plug-in systems.

Evaluation of Online Testing for Services

How service oriented software systems can be tested at runtime was the topic of the technical talk I gave at the Workshop on Principles of Engineering Service Oriented Systems (PESOS) in CapeTown, SouthAfrica. May 2-8 2010.

Publication: Evaluation of Online Testing for Services – A Case Study

I talked about testing service-oriented systems at the International Conference on Service Oriented Computing in Sweden (Stockholm)., 2009, Publication: Online Testing of Service-Oriented Architectures to detect State-based Faults

How to test service oriented systems was the topic of my talk at the Testing: Academic & Industrial Conference in Windsor, UK, September 2009
Related Publication:  Runtime Integration and Testing for Highly Dynamic Service Oriented Systems

At the International Conference on Objects, Models, Components, Patterns (TOOLS) I talked about test case similarity and how that can help to understand large test suites Prague, Czech Republic, May-June 2012.

Publication: Measuring Test Case Similarity to Support Test Suite Understanding

At the Working Conference on Reverse Engineering (WCRE) in Boston, USA I talked about testing plug-in systems. October 2010.
Publication: Understanding Plug-in Test Suites from an Extensibility Perspective

In this talk, I presented how to securely share resources in an ad hoc network at the International Conference on Security and Management in Las Vegas, USA in 2008.
Publication: Secure Resource Sharing in Ad hoc Networks