Two-day developer conference in a Hamburg cinema, 4 and 5 November 2026: 14 curated tracks, 140 sessions in the published agenda, a CTO Summit on the first day, and one all-inclusive ticket.
code.talks is an annual developer conference in Hamburg run by alphalist GmbH. The 2026 edition takes place on 4 and 5 November in the Kinopolis Hamburg cinema. The organiser pitches it as a broad, mostly sponsor-independent conference for developers and CTOs: 14 curated tracks led by around 30 curators, with the organiser stating that 90% of content is sponsor-independent. It describes itself as "not an AI conference" that still covers AI for developers and CTOs, with GenAI and LLMs as the first of its 14 tracks. A separate CTO Summit runs on 4 November in the same building.
4 to 5 November 2026. Kinopolis Hamburg, in Hamburg, Germany; the organiser's pages say check-in is in the Westfield food court, meaning the Westfield Hamburg-Überseequartier complex in HafenCity. Day 1 starts with a welcome speech at 08:45, and lunch runs from 12:00 to 14:00. Closing times are not stated on the pages read. The venue is a cinema with several auditoriums used as stages.
alphalist GmbH, registered at Geranienweg 4, 24610 Trappenkamp, Germany, and presenting itself as based in Hamburg. The team page names Tobias Schlottke (founder), Sebastian Sachs (managing director), Jonathan Trinh (partnerships and marketing), Jeremisa Aldinger (events), Nolusindiso Hleko (podcast and community), Thomas Smart (tech) and Benedikt Stemmildt (program chair). alphalist also runs a CTO community that powers the CTO Summit. Tickets are sold through doo GmbH.
The organiser states 3,500 attendees (unverifiable information). The ticket terms cap participation at 1,600 attendees per event day, which does not add up to 3,500 on its face unless the figure counts people across both days or earlier editions. The audience the organiser describes is developers and CTOs from all tech domains, including whole teams, with a crowd it calls relaxed and "some 17 years in". The CTO Summit adds 300 or more engineering leaders on 4 November.
The speakers page links 147 profiles, tagged Hero, Community, Partner or Moderator. Published roster, in page order for the first 38: Andreas Rossberg, Eric Evans, Gergely Hodicska, Gitte Klitgaard, Luca Rossi, Maja Göpel, Michael Feathers, Wilhelm (Willi) Hasselbring, Torsten Grust, Sam Newman, Sebastian Vollmer, Susanne Kaiser, Timo Dufner, Tomasz Maj, Yulia Startsev, Aino Corry, Annette Bieniusa, Artie Shevchenko, Cat Swetel, Charles (surname not shown), Daniel Jones, Daniel Terhorst-North, Dex Horthy, Emily Bache, Gertrud Kolb, Henning Schwentner, Kevlin Henney, Lars Hupel, Laura Winterling, Michael Plöd, Neal Ford, Nick Tune, Nico Martin, Randy Shoup, Russ Miles, Simon Wardley, Tim Ottinger and Vlad Khononov. The remaining 109 profiles are not reproduced here; they are listed on https://codetalks.com/speaker. The CTO Summit adds Lars Grammel (Vercel), Antoine Coetsier (Exoscale) and Laura Winterling as closing keynote, and its line-up is marked not final.
The organiser lists these as this year's changes: the legendary kicker tournament (32 teams) moves into the gaming area and starts after the day 1 programme, a Meet the Speaker area runs on both days, lunch is à la carte from the Westfield food court instead of a buffet, and the Day 1 after-conference party is held at Docks with all drinks included. A DevEx track covers agentic engineering and developer tooling, and a Newcomer track is reserved for first-time speakers. Whether these are new relative to 2025 is not stated by the organiser except for the kicker move.
Two days of talks on 14 tracks, with 140 sessions counted in the agenda by track: Architecture 14, Culture 13, Craft 13, GenAI and LLMs 12, Cloud 12, Impact 11, DevEx 11, Geek-Out 10, Product 10, Data 8, Frontend 7, Science 6, Security 6. Stages on the agenda include a Main Stage, a Headliners stage, Security and Cloud, GenAI, DevEx and Data, Culture, Impact and Geek-Out, and Product, Frontend and Craft. Examples on 4 November: Eric Evans at 09:00, Randy Shoup on productivity at eBay at 10:00, Sam Newman at 11:00, Dex Horthy on why software factories fail at 14:00, Maja Göpel at 16:00 and Artie Shevchenko on code health at 17:00. The organiser's home page also names masterclasses among the included sessions.
Talks of 45 to 60 minutes on parallel stages, masterclasses, a Meet the Speaker area right after talks, a gaming area, an expo with exhibitor profiles, and a one-room CTO Summit on 4 November with keynotes, a panel and lightning talks. Every session is described as hand-picked and peer-reviewed by around 30 curators, each track having a named lead.
All tickets are one price with everything included: all sessions and masterclasses, meals, drinks and the party, popcorn and nachos, gaming and expo. Solo: 749 EUR, shown beside a crossed-out 879 EUR and labelled Final Call. Team (4 or more people): 699 EUR per person, crossed-out 799 EUR, valid 15 October to 4 November. Student: 199 EUR. Executive (includes the CTO Summit on 4 November): 1,299 EUR. Bundles for groups of more than 20 are requested at info@codetalks.com. Whether the prices include VAT is not stated. The crossed-out prices are not dated or explained.
Speakers apply through the call for papers portal at https://cfp.codetalks.com/call-for-papers, which requires an account (Google, email magic link or GitHub) and asks for a speaker profile and an abstract. The portal still shows the call headline "Shape the code.talks 2026 Stage" on 20 October 2026 with no deadline, but the agenda already counts 140 sessions, so whether it is still accepting talks is unconfirmed (unverifiable information). Newcomer slots exist for first-time speakers. Questions go to the program team via the contact form.
Contact partners@codetalks.com. The organiser says partner slots are capped and sells exhibitor presence as a way to reach 3,500+ developers (unverifiable information) and CTOs, through the CTO Summit and by presenting to senior developers from all 14 domains. No price list or tiers are published. Exhibitor profiles are labelled TOOL, JOBS or SERVICE.
Exhibitor profiles published on 20 October 2026: Vercel, Sentry, Deichmann, adjoe, Datadog, Okta, Oparco, Auth0, A1 Digital, Exoscale, CTS Eventim, F5, Synatix, Exmox, TextControl, InnoGames, intersoft, Haspa Next, mittwald, Kerno, Match on Monday, MLP, hackers&wizards, DoiT and Cast AI. Media partners: German Tech Job (media partner), DevOpsDays (media partner), PyConDE PyData 2026 (media partner), Kube Events (media partner) and found (media partner). Past partners shown: AWS, Google Cloud, Algolia, About You, Okta, Apify, Wiz and Slack. Sponsor tiers are not published.
No breakdown is published. The exhibitor list points to developer tooling and cloud vendors (Vercel, Datadog, Sentry, Okta, Cast AI, DoiT), hosting and infrastructure providers (mittwald, Exoscale, A1 Digital), recruiting-led exhibitors (Deichmann, adjoe, Haspa Next, Match on Monday) and services firms, with several German employers among them.
Write to press@codetalks.com, which the contact page lists for media passes, assets and interview requests. No accreditation form or deadline is published.
None found in the sourced material for the 2026 edition. The organiser's own pages are the main source.
Nothing to classify. No independent coverage of the 2026 edition was found, and the figures on the organiser's pages (3,500 attendees, 90% sponsor-independent content) are organiser claims without an external audit.
Anyone looking for an AI-only event: the organiser says it is not an AI conference and runs 14 tracks. Buyers wanting a large exhibition: the expo has about 25 exhibitor profiles. Anyone who needs a refund if plans change: the terms exclude returns and exchanges. Researchers hoping to speak in 2026: the agenda is already full at 140 sessions.
The organiser places itself between vendor festivals (it names Google I/O, Web Summit and WeAreDevelopers as examples) and niche deep-dives or community meetups, with 14 tracks and 90% sponsor-independent content. DevOpsDays and PyConDE PyData 2026 appear as media partners, which links it to the German developer community calendar. Exact dates of neighbouring events are not listed here.
No. code.talks is held in Hamburg and the organiser's pages mention only Hamburg. Past editions are not listed on the pages read, so the earlier venue (the database holds the Congress Center Hamburg) could not be confirmed.
The website, agenda and session titles are in English. The language of each talk is not stated on the pages read, and German-language sessions were not found.
Not publicly disclosed. No livestream, replay or recording offer was found. The terms say the organiser films and photographs the event for promotion.
Tickets are excluded from return or exchange, and cancellations by the participant are not permitted, including for illness or non-attendance (terms updated September 2025). A refund is paid only if the organiser cancels the event entirely or reschedules it unreasonably; it does not apply in cases of force majeure. There is no statutory right of withdrawal for ticket purchases. Substitution of attendee names is not mentioned.
Not publicly disclosed. No accessibility statement was found on the code.talks site, which has a code of conduct but no access information. The venue is a cinema complex, and Kinopolis or Westfield Hamburg-Überseequartier should be asked about step-free access.
Kinopolis Hamburg is inside the Westfield Hamburg-Überseequartier in HafenCity, with the conference check-in in the Westfield food court. The Überseeboulevard 7, 20457 Hamburg address is carried from the earlier fiche (unverifiable information). Public transport options are not described on the event pages, so check the operator's journey planner. The CTO Summit dinner shuttle leaves from the 25hours Hotel Altes Hafenamt bus station on Osakaallee.
Because the proposition is breadth with independence: 14 curator-led tracks, 140 sessions and, by the organiser's account, 90% sponsor-independent content, in one cinema. That mix suits whole engineering teams and CTOs who want to cover architecture, cloud, security and culture in two days, with names such as Eric Evans, Sam Newman and Kevlin Henney on the speaker roster and a CTO Summit for leaders.
Because the 3,500 attendees figure sits beside ticket terms that cap participation at 1,600 per day, and the crossed-out ticket prices are not explained. The sponsor-independence share is also the organiser's own claim. Treat the dates, prices and programme as organiser-stated, and reconfirm them on the ticket page before you book.
Official site: https://codetalks.com/ (the earlier fiche cited a .de domain, which did not respond on 20 October 2026). Tickets: https://codetalks.com/ticket-overview. Agenda: https://codetalks.com/agenda. Speakers: https://codetalks.com/speaker. CTO Summit: https://codetalks.com/ctosummit. Call for papers: https://cfp.codetalks.com/call-for-papers. Terms: https://codetalks.com/terms. Contacts: hello@codetalks.com (tickets), partners@codetalks.com (partners), press@codetalks.com (press).