My First PyCon (2026)

Published: May 13, 2026

Day 1, Wednesday May 13

I recently got a new job that allows me the flexibility to work while attending conferences (incredible). One conference I have been meaning to go to since I first started my career as a software engineer is PyCon. I recently attended PyCon 2026 and I want to share my experiences below.

I decided to go into this conference with the idea of getting the "full experience". Which meant staying for the full duration (Wed-Mon) and participating in the sprint sessions at the end of the conference. I signed up for tutorials, talks, and the PyLadies dinner auction thing. I also read a guide from RealPython on what to expect at PyCon in general. This made me feel good, but an article only prepares you so much.

I attended a tutorial on day one. It was on "Creating MCP Servers". It was awesome. I learned a great deal about MCP integration during the morning session. My work has asked me to make a lot of AI tools recenlty (shocker). I've unknowingly developed MCP servers without formally knowing what the MCP standard is. Incredible. Attending a class, understanding the "Industry Standard", talking to other devs, and doing hands on development was helpful in getting me up and running. I feel like I can take this knowledge back to my team and use it in personal projects. Win.

The second tutorial I attended in the afternoon was OK. It was a live demo implenting RAG with Python. I didn't learn anything new. The method of live coding demos gets pretty messy no matter how much one prepares. Which is what happened for the presenter. This is one of the more important take aways I had at PyCon: Not every talk is created equally. A topic that seems not interesting can be incredible informative based on the presenters ability to publically speak well. Live coding demos work well when the code is already written and tested (we've all heard the story: "it was working on my machine a few minutes ago I swear!").

Day 2, Thursday May 14

Day 2 was tutorials in the morning and sponsor presentations in the afternoon. The opening reception was at night. I attended a tutorial on machine learning models and later in the day attended sponsor presentations on building AI agents. Both talks were moderately useful. I didn't learn much from either talk, what felt impactful was meeting friendly developers in the hallway who shared their professional opinions on AI. I learned how other companies are using AI and the limitations they face. This is a theme appreciated out of PyCon: getting to meet friendly developers who have a real passion for the game.

Day 3, Friday May 15

Day 3 was awesome. The expo floor opened and I received an insane amount of -free- company swag including t-shirts, socks, hats, and backpacks (thanks Tower financial! They deadass handed out $65 Osprey backpacks). I received a copius amounts of stickers too :). I enjoyed getting to chat with different companies about their products and how they use Python. While the conversations were truly sales pitches, it was cool to interact with multiple big companies in one place. I met some more developer friends who I tagged along with to get more free swag. Felt a lot like Trick or Treat on Halloween. Later in the day, I attended talks on various topics that ranged from amusing to informative.

Day 4, Saturday May 16

Attended more talks, a keynote speech, and the PyLadies Auction. I almost bid $850 on a GitHub skate deck which I kind of regret not spending more for. Oh well. maybe next year. I did spend a lot on attending this conference in the first place so I was hesitant to spend another ~$1k haha. I think the coolest thing I learned on Saturday was just how much I've been missing out on from not being apart of the Python community. Seeing many share their unique projects and experiences highlighted a crucial subject: I sorely need to engineer in my free time. Seeing others develop cool software prjoects with Python inspired me to get busy implementing my backlog of ideas. I've been musing over the past three years about potential projects. Yet, here in front of me at this conference were hundreds of people who had ideas and made them a reality. Further more, they got on stage and had talks about them, even fielding questions from others (scary!). I was truly inspired.

I guess, when I initially did my career change from pre med to software engineering, I kept a lot of the "pre med" mentality (bad for swe). In pre med I would study study study to pass tests, quizzes, and labs. But really, software engineering could not be more different as a discipline. This field is all about making things. My real world development matters! I was witnessing a change within myself, seeing others develop cool projects stoked a fire in me that was previously a wee pilot light. I felt good. and realized just how busy i'd like to be writing code.

This blog is a good example of what I mean, I always wanted to have a tech blog like so many others I see on hacker news. I never really wrote any articles I had been meaning to though. PyCon opened my eyes to what I've been missing. A community! Seeing people who were interested in what I had to say made me comfortable with blogging on my tech blog.

Day 5 & 6, Sunday May 17 - Monday May 18

I'm grouping the last two days together because they blurred together in my mind. Sunday was the unofficial last day of the conference. Many had to go home and get ready for a work day on Monday. I decided to stay one more day for the sprints. Sunday was a tiring day for me. I was pooped from the previous days but I pushed on. Watched the last keynote and went to more talks. They fell flat for me. I said goodbye to the new friends I made and called it a success.

Monday was a sprint day and I learned about Document DB, a open source offering from the folks at Microsoft. I yearned to make open source contributions but always felt to amateur. After a few years of experience under my belt I positively absolutley (posilutely?) feel differently (different?) now. Being able to talk to the fine maintainers at Microsoft gave me the much needed confidence to start learning their issues in order to make my first PR. While I am still learning the code base I am confident now that I can reach out to the maintainers I met with any questions I have and they would be more than happy to help me out. Neat.

Conclusion

PyCon taught me something I never knew I was missing from my life as a professional software engineer. Community drives us forward much farther and much faster than anything we do alone. Attending talks and talking to other developers made me realize just how sorely I needed good ol regular conversation about what I do & how I do it. I've sadly worked in toxic work environments in the past with god awful developers and can safely say I met some of the nicest and smartest devs at PyCon which renewed my faith as a developer. I really look forward to the next PyCon and am happy to say I am now firing on all cylinders working on all my projects. Looking forward to sharing more about them on my blog in the future. Perchance.

-Jay