(5) My (hypothetical) SRECon26 keynote
March 12, 2026
Which means it was almost a year ago that Fred Hebert and I were up on stage, delivering the closing keynote1 at SRECon25.
We argued that SREs should get involved and skill up on generative AI tools and techniques, instead of being naysayers and peanut gallerians. You can get a feel for the overall vibe from the description:
What I do know is that one year ago, I still thought of generative AI as one more really big integration or use case we had to support, whether we liked it or not. Like AI was a slop-happy toddler gone mad in our codebase, and our sworn duty as SREs was to corral and control it, while trying not be a total dick about it.
I don’t know when exactly that bit flipped in my head, I only know that it did. And as soon as it did, I felt like the last person on earth to catch on. I can barely connect with my own views from eleven months ago.
So no, I don’t think it was obvious in early 2025 that AI generated code would soon grow out of its slop phase. Skepticism was reasonable for a time, and then it was not. I know a lot of technologists who flipped the same bit at some point in 2025.
If I was giving the keynote at SRECon 2026, I would ditch the begrudging stance. I would start by acknowledging that AI is radically changing the way we build software. It’s here, it’s happening, and it is coming for us all.
It is very, very hard to adjust to change that is being forced on you. So please don’t wait for it to be forced on you. Swim out to meet it. Find your way in, find something to get excited about.
Charity Majors is a genuine giant in the field of software engineering. One of the originators of modern observability, founder of Honeycomb, author, highly respected speaker.
Here she reflects on her transformation over the last 12 months when it comes to thinking about AI and software engineering. She captures a path that I think many software engineers have trod over the last year. And I think this should be required reading. Whether a year ago you were very optimistic and positive about AI and software engineering, or like charity, far more sceptical.
this hits different. the skepticism phase was real and kinda necessary, but yeah theres that moment where resisting becomes exhausting. i think the key is what you said at the end—dont wait for it to be forced. the people who moved early got to shape how they use it instead of just reacting. how did your own shift actually happen?