PyCon UK 2025

Aastha is a Software Engineer at Bloomberg in London, where she works on scalable search systems for the company’s AI-powered research platform, Document Search (or DS ). She has been using Python for over six years and loves applying it to real-world problems. Outside of work, you’ll find her playing badminton, running, or exploring hiking trails.

I'm a Software Development Engineer II at Adobe with a deep passion for building impactful software and exploring the boundaries of what Python can do. My work spans systems design, automation, AI, and hardcore development. Outside of my day job, I enjoy experimenting with creative tech projects, speaking at events, and helping others learn through hands-on, practical sessions. I believe in making technology approachable, useful, and—whenever possible—a little fun.

Aivars Kalvāns is a FinTech developer, software architect, and consultant. He spent more than 18 years developing and architecting payment card software for acquiring and issuing, accounting and utility payments through mobile phones, ATMs, and POS terminals. At the moment he is a contractor for Ebury exploring the Foreign Exchange area of the FinTech landscape.

I'm a Systems Engineering student from Nigeria, passionate about empowering the next generation through tech. As a proud African woman in STEM, I enjoy making coding fun, creative, and accessible—especially for kids and beginners. I’ve taught Python in workshops, earned tech scholarships, and love blending innovation with storytelling to inspire young minds.

Amanda is an 8-year-old in Year 3 at the Anglo-Portuguese School of London. She has supported her mum since she was less than one year old in conferences in Brazil, Ukraine and the United Kingdom. She loves cycling, music and maths.

Anna Wake is a student and the co-founder of Mission Encodeable: a not-for-profit website that aims to inspire future computer scientists, through providing free Python coding tutorials.

Anthony Harrison has been developing and delivering mission-critical applications for over 40 years where he held various roles in software, systems and cyber engineering.

He is the Founder and Director of APH10, and co-founder of SBOM Europe, and is a leading source of expertise in Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) and has been developing open source software actively for many years, particularly related to securing the software supply chain.

He is a mentor for the Google Summer of Code for the Python Software Foundation and Manchester CoderDojo teaching students Python.

Bernhard Merkle works as a Software Specialist and Technology Scout for Gen AI, AI, ML, Cloud, XOps related technologies in the central Research & Development Department at SICK AG, one of the world’s leading producers of sensors and sensor solutions. He loves Python and serves as internal consultant for new Software Development Technologies. In his spare time he gives a lecture about development with Models and AI. He writes technical articles and also gives sessions at various conferences (e.g. ACCU, Codegeneration, , QCon, OOPSLA, EclipseCon and OOP).

Christian Heitzmann, MSc ETH CSE, is the founder and owner of SimplexaCode AG, based in Lucerne, Switzerland. He is a certified software developer in Java and Python, holding teaching diplomas in both Computer Science and Mathematics, as well as a CAS in Machine Learning. With over 20 years of experience in software development and 12 years of teaching Java, Python, mathematics, and algorithms, Christian is also a regular contributor to IT journals, sharing his expertise in the field.

CJ is a software developer and game designer from Nottingham, England. They have worked across the industry in publishing, advertising, security and retail, and have specific interests in cybersecurity and history. They are also a published game designer and miniature sculptor, using python to test miniatures wargames.

I am a Director of Engineering at Canonical, where I lead documentation practice. I enjoy helping organise community conferences for Python and Django. That includes multiple editions of DjangoCon Europe, as well as the first editions of PyCon Africa and DjangoCon Africa.

I also enjoy helping people and open-source projects improve their documentation.

Who me? I'm a Python/Django developer with ten years of experience and a degree in Literature. I've coached people in Python, and have written more lines of software than poetry. I currently live and work in Berlin.

David is a "data generalist"; currently a freelance data consultant and educator with a background in software and web development. He co-hosts the Half Stack Data Science podcast about data science in the real world and is the author of The Well-Grounded Data Analyst (Manning, 2025); a book about the data skills that aspiring analysts actually need in their jobs.

David Seddon works in London at Kraken Tech, the technology tentacle of Octopus Energy. There, he works on a very large Django monolith consisting of tens of thousands of Python modules. He’s also a member of the Django Software Foundation.

He loves thinking about and teaching software design, in particular domain modelling and application architecture.

He is the creator of Import Linter, an open-source tool to check your Python project is following a set of architectural rules you define.

He blogs at https://seddonym.me.

Deb Nicholson is the Executive Director at the Python Software Foundation, the non-profit steward of the Python programming language. She has previously served the open source ecosystem through her work at the Open Source Initiative, Software Freedom Conservancy, and the Open Invention Network. She lives with her husband and her lucky black cat in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Dialid is a mathematician and a developer with 9 years of experience as a Quant, currently working in the Front Office Quant team at Bank of America. Her expertise lies in building mathematical models for pricing and risk management, primarily in Python and C++.

She holds a PhD in Statistics from the University of Warwick, where she focused on non-linear stochastic processes, as well as an MSc and BSc in Applied Mathematics from Mexico.

Outside of work, Dialid enjoys creating open-source projects and writing about financial mathematics, programming, statistics, and data visualisation.

Dom Weldon is an independent contractor based in Central London, currently working in Platform Engineering at a large investment company in the City of London, having previously worked in a role specialising in AI/ML products across a variety of sectors.

He studied Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge and Computational Geography at King's College London, and is particularly interested in the application of Graph Databases and Graph Theory in real world applications.

Outside work, Dom is interested in languages and travelling, and has a voluntary statutory role monitoring conditions for prisoners inside a challenging North London jail.

I lead the Engineering function at Tasman Analytics, a boutique data consultancy. We act as an interim/fractional data team and are passionate about helping clients leverage the power of their data.

Personally, I have a background of mechanical engineering and have worked across a range of sectors including sustainability, energy, property, construction and architecture. I am an engineer at heart and perennially look to hone the craft of engineering.

Felienne is a professor of Computer Science Education at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She also works as a high-school CS teacher one day a week at Open Schoolgemeenschap Bijlmer.

Felienne is the creator of the Hedy programming language, a gradual and multi-lingual programming language designed for teaching.

She is the author of “The Programmer’s Brain“, a book that helps programmers understand how their brain works and how to use it more effectively. In 2021, Felienne was awarded the Dutch Prize for ICT research. She also has a weekly column on BNR, a Dutch radio station.

Frances Buontempo is currently editor of the ACCU’s Overload magazine, has written a book on Genetic Algorithms and Machine Learning, and a C++ book to help you catch up since C++11. She has worked as a programmer at various companies, mostly in London with a focus on finance. She enjoys testing and deleting code and tries to keep on learning.

I'm a software engineer, video editor, developer advocate and General Tech Person based in Leeds. In my spare time I love playing board-games, eating cheesecake and automating things around the house with my Raspberry Pi.

After an idyllic childhood spent playing with BASIC on French 8-bit computers whose keys go "boop" when you press them, Harry spent a few years in the wilderness of Economics and Powerpoint, before rediscovering his true geek nature in the late aughts. He was lucky enough to fall in with a bunch of XP fanatics, working on the pioneering but sadly defunct Resolver One python-spreadsheet. Since then he has since written two books, one on TDD and one on software architecture patterns. He currently works at Kraken Technologies, an offshot of green energy retailer Octopus Energy.

Harry Wake is a student and the co-founder of Mission Encodeable: a not-for-profit website that aims to inspire future computer scientists, through providing free Python coding tutorials.

Hi, I'm Hugh.

I'm an experienced developer advocate and community manager with a particular interest in data and AI. I have been working in IT for over 5 years, working on large scale software projects and cloud infrastructure.

Out of office hours I organise AI and Deep Learning for Enterprise (aidle.uk) , a Meetup group which hosts talks on real world applications of AI.

I'm a former apprentice and an advocate for vocational learning as a pathway into an IT career.

Hynek Schlawack is a lead infrastructure and software engineer from Berlin/Germany, PSF fellow, blogger, YouTuber, and maintainer of way too many open source projects.

He’s been using Python since 2009 and has seen it all.

I am a CPython Core Developer, working at Microsoft on the faster cpython team.

Insurtech Software Engineer
Software Crafters Cambridge Event Organiser
Lover of Cardiff Tiny Rebel

Hello,

I'm a software engineer and long time community manager. There's a lot to experience in life and I'd like everyone possible to be able to do so.

Currently developing software to assist students with accessibility needs and created a still-thriving LGBT+ community at the University of Portsmouth.

• Senior Systems Engineer @ Torchbox
• Core & Security Team @ Wagtail
• Security Team @ Django & DSF Member
• Avid self-hoster
• Frequent blogger

Social:
- Mastodon: @jake@theorangeone.net
- Bluesky: @theorangeone.net

Jesse Carnaxide is a full-stack developer with more than ten years of experience. He holds a BEng and MEng in computer engineering from SUNY Binghamton and works as a Senior Software Engineer at Bloomberg in New York City. He has contributed across Bloomberg’s technology stack and is currently part of the Enterprise Portfolio Management Engineering team. Jesse leads Bloomberg’s Python Guild, an internal community focused on training and skill development. He is passionate about teaching and mentoring, and values Python’s readability for its impact on maintainability, accessibility, and fostering a strong developer community.

Joe is Head of Animation at Doodledo and has been animating since his first short in 1989 - never looking back. Since joining doodledo in 2019, Joe has led the animation team through 2D, 3D, stop-motion and live-action work for truly impactful campaigns at Doidledo’s home in Manchester. As well as animating, Joe makes sure everyone else in the animation team is able to succeed, from pairing our animation team with projects that suit them to leading team feedback sessions to collaborate and learn from each other.

Justin Lee is a software engineer at Notion, where he builds AI and data infrastructure. He’s worked across startups and larger companies designing scalable systems, and teaches infrastructure and system architecture through several Udacity nanodegree programs. He enjoys mentoring engineers, consulting for companies on system architecture, and exploring better ways to deploy and maintain Python in production.

Kane Swartz is a Software Develop who specializes in Machine Learning Development Operations.

Kane's driven by creating human value with technology and helping others empower and express themselves in the digital realm.

Katie is a Junior Software Engineer at the Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science at the University of Oxford and a member of the PyCon UK organising committee.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-bickford-7a9958aa/

Kevlin Henney is an independent consultant, speaker, writer and trainer. He is co-author of A Pattern Language for Distributed Computing and On Patterns and Pattern Languages, two volumes in the Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture series. He is also editor of 97 Things Every Programmer Should Know and co-editor of 97 Things Every Java Programmer Should Know.

Kolen Cheung is a Research Software Engineer with a PhD in Physics (UC Berkeley) specializing in CMB data analysis with a designated emphasis ("graduate minor") in Computational & Data Science & Engineering. Dr. Cheung has contributed to multiple CMB collaborations including POLARBEAR, LiteBIRD, CMB-S4, and served as Software Deployment Lead at Simons Observatory. His current work spans gravitational lensing, quantum biological modeling, and HPC systems, combining theoretical physics with advanced computational methods.

I am a senior DevOps engineer with over six years of experience managing high-stakes workloads across hundreds of clusters. In my daily work, I focus on ensuring system uptime, solving tough performance issues, and fine-tuning deployments. Through these real-world challenges, I have discovered just how critical observability is for catching and fixing problems quickly, as well as for planning better infrastructure strategies.

Currently working on Pyrefly @ Meta, focusing on the IDE/LSP.

Marie is a researcher, data scientist and educator with over eight years experience teaching Python to middle- and high-school students, teachers and professionals in Norway. As part of her work as a researcher at the Norwegian Language Bank at the National Library of Norway, Marie has first-hand experience dealing with the intricacies of Unicode. Marie is also a co-founder and organiser of PyLadies Oslo.

I'm a software engineer, consultant, and a writer focused on solving problems caused by having too much data.

Nataly Merezhuk is a frontend software engineer at ClickHouse with a past life as a jazz violinist. Initially a self-taught developer, she’s passionate about making coding accessible to everyone.

Nataly lives in Washington D.C. with her cat Nina and loves coffee, board games, and rock climbing!

With over 10 years of experience in the Python and open-source communities, I’ve contributed both as a developer and an organiser. I’m a founding member of Python Namibia and have co-founded PyCon Africa and DjangoCon Africa, bringing developers together from across the continent. I’ve spoken at open-source events globally, introducing Python to new communities and discussing the value of open-source collaboration. I also contribute to various open-source projects, focusing on improving community content and engagement.

I am currently a PhD student at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge. My dissertation focuses on the digitalization of Shang oracle bones stored at Cambridge University Library. In my leisure, I am also a computer science enthusiast and avid coder proficient in python, C/C++, and full-stack web technologies.

I am a software engineer based in London and the CTO of Curaleaf International, and Python Software Foundation Fellow. At present I contribute to open source in Python on projects relating to web development, specifically I am a maintainer of Flask, Werkzeug, Quart, and Hypercorn.

Rashan is a Senior Software Engineer with 8+ years of experience. Her career journey started as a backend and middleware Java Developer, and has evolved to full stack cloud native application development consulting, spanning Javascript/Typescript and Python tech stacks. In her free time she enjoys travelling and trying new sports, most recently boxing and padel.

Richard is a full-stack developer at Lincoln Loop, specializing in Python and Django for the past 16 years. He started as a freelancer in 2004 and has previously been a team lead and CTO at a UK-based Django agency. He enjoys working on open-source projects and maintains several interesting libraries.

Richard is an enthusiastic carpenter and maker, but sadly his skills rarely meet his ambitions. His other passion is traveling, although a young family means most adventures these days are near his home in the Cotwolds.

Dr Russell Keith-Magee is the founder of the BeeWare project, a project developing GUI tools and libraries to support the development of Python software on desktop and mobile platforms. He joined the Django core team in 2006, and was the President of the Django Software Foundation for 5 years. He joined the CPython core team in 2024. He is a frequent speaker at Python and Django conferences around the globe, sharing his experience as a FLOSS developer and (unsuccessful) startup founder. In his day job, he is a Principal Engineer at Anaconda, working on BeeWare in the OSS team.

In 2019, I participated in Google Summer of Code with Django, during which I implemented the cross-database JSONField that became available in Django 3.1. Now, I work as a Developer at Torchbox, building new features and improvements to the Django-based Wagtail CMS and its ecosystem.

Outside of the Django world, I maintain my project giscus, a comment system powered by GitHub Discussions. You can find me @laymonage on GitHub, Fosstodon, and other sites.

I run coding/computing/technology/making workshops at Science Oxford, an education charity, working with young people, family groups, community groups and teachers.

I'm not a Python expert, but I love teaching it as it's an extremely accessible programming language!

Outside of work, my main obsessions are tea, fighting robots, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

Sasha is an independent developer and community organiser with over a decade of Python experience. A former Django core developer and co-organiser of several Django conferences, they now work mostly on open source software related to internet infrastructure, network engineering, and internet standards. They've also been part of the Write the Docs conference team since 2018 and enjoy side projects like the Less Obvious Conference Checklist and Happiness Packets, which focus on improving the tech community in small but meaningful ways.

Shahar Polak is Head of Engineering at ImagenAI, where his team edits hundreds of millions of photos a year - without losing their minds. He was a founding engineer at BreezoMeter, later acquired by Google, and has nearly 20 years of building things that (mostly) don’t break. He also lectures at the Technion and Reichman about leadership, scaling teams, and surviving startup chaos.

I started off working as a software engineer and technical leader across multiple startups. I then spent 5+ years in tech education.

Over the last half decade I have had the opportunity to work in the non-profit space and build alternative education systems from the ground up. The measure of success was employment - 95%+ of the students got good jobs, kept them, and got promoted. Getting this right meant understanding the hiring landscape.

I since founded Prelude.tech. Here I distill everything I have learned about teaching well. Prelude primarily focuses on advanced Python applications and critical soft-skills.

I am a infrastructure focussed developer from Leeds, UK, and a PyCon UK regular, having been coming since 2008,

I been using python since around 2003, initially in an academic context, for my PhD in AI Scheduling, and then commercially for various companies. I worked for Canonical on Ubuntu for 9 years, and currently work at the Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science at the University of Oxford, on the OpenSAFELY project.

I am particularly interested in all the fun and hard things about running complex production software - security, scalability, testing, user experience, developer experience, and observability.

Tatiana is a Principal Software Engineer at Astronomer and builds open-source tools to improve Apache Airflow. Since graduating in Computer Engineering at Unicamp, Brazil, she has worked on multiple projects and contributed to various open-source projects. Before working at Astronomer, she worked for the Brazilian Ministry of Science and Technology, Globo, Education First, and the BBC.

After being a programmer for a good few years, I changed career in 2022 to become a Developer Educator at Aiven (https://aiven.io/tibs). My favourite programming language is Python, my favourite markup language is reStructuredText (although I'm fascinated by Typst), my favourite storage technologies are SQLite, PostgreSQL and Valkey, and I’m rather enthusiastic about Apache Kafka as a messaging system. Find out more about my past at https://www.tonyibbs.co.uk/

Travis Ralph-Donaldson is an Innovation Discovery Manager in Software and AI at the University of Manchester Innovation Factory. He is a serial tech entrepreneur and has founded several bootstrapped and venture backed startups across AI, gaming, and EdTech. His most recent project “Speacher” is a gamified AI pronunciation training app for French and Spanish which is currently being piloted in UK primary and secondary schools. Travis worked previously as a software

Yash is a software engineer and researcher with a deep interest in distributed systems. His focus is on observability and performance, areas where he constantly seeks new insights. As an active advocate of OpenTelemetry, Yash contributes to both the project and the wider community. Outside of tech, he’s an avid explorer, whether in the kitchen experimenting with new recipes or traveling the world to taste diverse cuisines.

Yngve is also an experienced Python educator, Python developer and data science consultant. He has taught Python to professionals, university students and academics. While working at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, he headed a project transforming introduction to Python into a tutorial-based course focusing on active learning. He is currently tech lead, working on automating the Norwegian power grid.