FutureStack 2022 is May 17–19. Here are 10 reasons software engineers and developers should make sure to attend this year. Feel free to share this link with your boss (or take advantage of this more formal justification letter).

1. Learn from your peers.

FutureStack 2022 includes presentations from engineering teams using New Relic at Verizon, McDonald's, Gap, Viacom, Paramount Pictures, AB InBev, AmerisourceBergen, Riot Games, IBM, CBS Broadcasting, Foot Locker, GitHub, Mercado Libre, and many others.

This is an annual opportunity to network and work on solutions to your pressing DevOps issues with New Relic product experts, partner speakers, and your peers in observability, reliability, and engineering.

2. We’re back in person! 

One of the first live, in-person events in more than two years is going to be epic. Spend three days in-person in Las Vegas with more than 750 other New Relic customers. 

You’ll get access to live events that aren’t available for live streaming. As a heads up, only the CEO keynote will be live-streamed this year. Go deep in a way that’s only possible through interactive in-person sessions.

3. Steve Wosniak will join us.

Silicon Valley icon, Apple co-founder, and philanthropist Steve Wosniak, AKA Woz, will take the stage on Thursday, May 19.

For more than 30 years, Woz has helped shape the computing industry with his design of Apple’s first line of products, the Apple I and II, and his influence on the popular Macintosh. He has been involved in various business and philanthropic ventures, focusing on computer capabilities in schools, stressing hands-on learning, and encouraging creativity for students. It will be exciting to hear the latest on these endeavors and his thoughts for engineers today.

4. Build your skills with training sessions, workshops, and certifications.

Get hands-on presentations, demos, and technical deep dives on what you can do with New Relic platform capabilities from the engineers who built them. Complete labs, workshops, and certification courses to elevate your observability game. 

Choose from technical sessions with expert speakers and 12 hands-on workshops from New Relic University. More than 50 specialized breakout sessions for observability best practices include in three tracks: Observability in Prod, Observability in Pre-Prod, and Observability at Scale.

5. Comedian Ronny Chieng headlines the Wednesday night party.

Ronny Chieng, of Netflix stand-up and Comedy Central’s The Daily Show fame, will entertain the FutureStack audience at the Observability for All party on May 18.

Ronny is a stand-up comedian, actor, and correspondent on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. You might know him from his Netflix stand-up comedy special Asian Comedian Destroys America! and has recently released a second special Ronny Chieng: Speakeasy. He also starred in multiple films and tv series, such as Crazy Rich Asians, Marvel's Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and NBC's Young Rock.

6. FutureHack your way to $10,000.

The FutureHack 24-hour hackathon is the perfect opportunity to get your hands on the latest New Relic technology. You can try out the skills you learn in one of the many deep-dive sessions and hang out with old and new friends, collaborating in person to compete in three categories: Continuous Innovation, Build Something Amazing, and Community Hack. You could go home with $10,000 as Best Overall Hack or other prizes, including a Macbook Pro for Best New Hacker or an OLED Nintendo Switch for Most Fun Application.

Get some insider tips on how to prepare at a virtual Q&A session on May 11

7. Get the latest news on product innovations.

Be the first to learn about more than eight new product announcements at this year’s FutureStack. Preview demos of new functionality, and tell us what you’d like to see in upcoming updates. Tap into the expertise of New Relic engineers who build the experiences you use every day.

8. Meet a real-life Guardian of the Galaxy.

NASA’s Dr. Moogega Cooper speaks about using data in the 2020 Mars Rover Perseverance mission for NASA in the Wednesday, May 18, keynote. Dr. Cooper, AKA Dr. Moo, is an astronomer and trailblazing engineer. She currently works for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s (JPL) Planetary Protection Group. Her current interests include sample return missions from Mars and developing sterilization capabilities for future mission use. 

9. It’s Vegas, folks!

FutureStack 2020 is hosted at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, a luxury resort in the heart of the Strip.

10. There’s still a chance to grab an early-bird registration price.

Early bird pricing ends May 6, and prices for registration and room rates go up. What are you waiting for? Register for FutureStack today!