// kubecon week · mon nov 9 · salt lake city

Headbutting into the Cloud Native Hackathon.

John and Jared entered the Cloud Native Hackathon by WeMakeDevs, and the goat is coming with them. One day in downtown Salt Lake City, $20,000 in prizes, and judges including Kelsey Hightower. We're bringing a herd of agents on Infrared and two founders who make every call. Come build next to us, then watch us show it all live on Wednesday.

Darkshift's goat on its rock, head down and horns forward, in front of the snow-capped Wasatch at dusk, with Salt Lake City's lights in the valley below

Monday, November 9, from 9:00 a.m. Mountain · The Shop Workspace, 350 E 400 S, Salt Lake City · in person, free entry

// why you should be there

WeMakeDevs built a good one.

This is a day worth flying in for, and it costs nothing to enter. Here's what WeMakeDevs and its sponsors have put on the table.

the prize pool$20,000 in cash prizes$4,000 for each of four sponsor tracks, and you can enter more than one.

best overallAn NVIDIA DGX SparkA personal AI supercomputer for the best project from any track.

everyone in the roomA Keychron keyboardEvery person who attends gets a Keychron mechanical keyboard, $50 in OpenAI credits, swag and a certificate.

the judgesKelsey Hightower, and seven moreEngineers and leaders from Google Cloud, AWS, Adobe, Nebius and more. Meet the panel →

the themeMake conferences betterEvery track is judged on how well your project makes conferences easier. Fitting, in KubeCon week.

the basicsFree, fed and open to allBreakfast, lunch and coffee through the day. First hackathon or fiftieth, solo or with a team: there's time at kickoff to find people to build with.

// the judges

Who you'll pitch to.

Eight judges from across cloud native, as WeMakeDevs introduces them. Each track has its own criteria, and every one of them asks how well your project makes conferences easier.

judgeKelsey HightowerDistinguished Engineer (retired) at Google Cloud judgeWes NovackSVP, Engineering judgeJoseph SandovalPrincipal Product Manager at Adobe, and Vice Chair of the CNCF End User Technical Advisory Board judgeSaiyam PathakFounder of Kubesimplify and a CNCF Ambassador, teaching Kubernetes to developers judgePhil EstesPrincipal Engineer at Amazon Web Services judgeJacquie CapurDeveloper Relations at Nebius judgeTomás Martín Barreiro IffernetSoftware Engineer at Cline judgeSimon SchrottnerFractional Developer Advocate at Flagsmith

// the tracks

Pick a track. Or all of them.

A project enters every sponsor track whose tool it really uses, and the Merge Forward track too, and every project is in the running for best overall. WeMakeDevs has resources for each one.

track 1 · AI code reviewNever Merge BrokenGitar, Sonar's AI code verification agent, reviews every pull request against your conventions, fixes what it finds and diagnoses failing CI. track 2 · observabilityStop Flying BlindDash0: logs, metrics, traces, profiles and real-user monitoring in one place on OpenTelemetry, with AI agents that explain what broke. track 3 · Kubernetes UIAI SRERadar, the open source Kubernetes UI from Skyhook, with an AI SRE that finds the root cause when something breaks. track 4 · search and vectorsFind the Right TalkElasticsearch, the open source search engine and vector database: keyword, vector or hybrid search behind your app and your agents. merge forward · an iPadConferences for EveryoneFor the project that makes conferences more inclusive and accessible.

// our entry

The goat's game plan.

We don't know what we're building yet. Nobody does: the ideas start at kickoff. Here's what we do know.

01Horns down at 11:00Build time starts, and so does the herd.
02Agents do the climbingOn Infrared, agents write the plan, write the code, run the tests and review each other's work.agents
03Founders make the callsEvery merge and every release is approved by John or Jared, from the evidence.John and Jared
04Ship by 5:30The submission deadline doesn't move. Neither do goats.
05Show it all WednesdayWin or lose, we take it apart live on Save the World, our first ever Darkshift livestream, on Wednesday at 11:00 MT.

See us at The Shop on Monday? Come say hi, steal an idea, or tell us we're doing it wrong. We'd love the company.

// the day

How Monday runs.

Monday, November 9, 2026, in Mountain time, from WeMakeDevs' schedule.

9:00 a.m.Check-in and breakfast
10:00 a.m.Kickoff and talks
11:00 a.m.Build timeuntil 2:00
2:00 p.m.Lunch, a panel, and more building
5:30 p.m.Projects inthe submission deadline
5:30 p.m.Presentationsuntil 6:30
6:30 p.m.Winners announced
7:00 p.m.The after-party

// where

The Shop, then House of Kube.

the venueThe Shop Workspace350 E 400 S, Salt Lake City, UT 84111, downtown. In person only; bring your laptop and charger. Open in Google Maps → the after-party · same nightHouse of KubeOnce the winners are announced, the KubeCon after-party. Free entry and no KubeCon ticket needed. It's invite only, but signing up on Luma confirms you straight away. Sign up on Luma →

// who's behind it

Hats off to WeMakeDevs.

WeMakeDevs is "helping great developer tools reach the builders who will shape the future", with hackathons, meetups and scholarships for developers everywhere. A free, in-person day with this much on the table takes a lot of work, and they did it in KubeCon week. Thank you, and thank you to Sonar, Dash0, OpenAI, Radar and Elasticsearch for backing it.

the homewemakedevs.orgHackathons, meetups, scholarships and the event calendar. the communityDiscordWhere the builders hang out between events. followX@WeMakeDevs followLinkedIncompany/wemakedevs watchYouTube@WeMakeDevs

Then watch what we built.

Wednesday, November 11, at 11:00 Mountain, Save the World goes live from Salt Lake City: what the agents built at the hackathon, how, and who decided. Our first ever Darkshift livestream, on YouTube, X and LinkedIn.

watch Save the World, live →register for the hackathon