Around the Globe in 48 Hours: Goldman Sachs Engineering Learning Conference

06 MAY 2021

Goldman Sachs hosted its first-ever 48-hour global Engineering Learning Conference recently to internally showcase the technologies our engineers are using on their projects.

With 66 sessions across six thematic tracks, the event featured Goldman Sachs engineers as well as external thought leaders who discussed larger trends in the industry. Aimed at driving the organization’s seven strategic themes for 2021, the conference saw over 3,000 individuals registered across 51 cities.

One hundred and thirty-one engineers gave talks covering six tracks – Innovation, Mobile, Developer Experience, Working Backwards, Community, and Fundamentals. Participants and presenters joined from all over the globe. The conference also welcomed thought leaders from the industry, including Marty Cagan, founder and product partner at Silicon Valley Group; Ethan Marcotte, who coined the term “responsive web design”; Aditya Sivanand, a researcher in Machine Learning and Data Science at FinancialEdge; and Jonathan Rugg, a qualified chartered management accountant at FinancialEdge.

Highlights from the talks included technical conversations around creating efficient product development teams, best practices to deploy and manage cloud-based applications, using responsive design to help solve challenges encountered in today’s technological world, learning about automated migration tooling, utilizing technologies such as blockchain to improve data flow, and more. Other sessions provided access to speed networking, discussed the ins and outs of social media best practices, explained how engineers support the firm’s various philanthropic efforts, and shed light on other community initiatives.

Despite the all-virtual nature of the conference, engineers from around the globe chimed in on the impact of the various sessions – by asking presenters questions in Zoom rooms, engaging with internal blogging tools, or reaching out to conference organizers with qualitative feedback. Geri, an attendee from New York noted that the conference “presented an exquisite forum for an exchange of ideas. So many questions were posed that led to people taking conversations offline,” which helped keep these discussions going beyond the event, further fostering the culture of learning across our organization. Shruthi, who tuned in from Bengaluru said, “The lineup of sessions for this conference was great – I learned a ton about financial advisory, asset management, private wealth and infrastructure technology, and look forward to carrying on these conversations with my colleagues.” The next Engineering Learning Conference will take place this summer, with a fresh slate of technological topics and speakers!

Learn more about Engineering at Goldman Sachs.