Michelle Brenner
Helping engineers grow from good to exceptional: career growth, networking, and AI leadership.
Travels from Los Angeles CA, USA
Audience Feedback
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Attendees Find Valuable
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Would See Again
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Talks Given
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Speaks on:
Communication
Continuous Feedback
Leadership Development
Relationship Building
Speaks to:
Technology & Innovation
Formats:
Breakout
Michelle's Bio
Michelle Brenner is a Senior Software Engineer with 16 years of professional experience and the author of The Missing Cipher: The Field Guide to Becoming a Senior Software Engineer (Packt). An art school graduate, she started in engineering support and, through self-study, grew into a seven-year role at Netflix building the Workstations platform that lets VFX and animation artists work from anywhere, work that earned her a US patent. She has spoken at 50+ conferences in the US, Europe, and the Caribbean, including Grace Hopper, LeadDev, Strange Loop, and AWS re:Invent. She coaches engineers and technical leaders on career growth, networking, and leading teams in the age of AI. Michelle splits her time between Los Angeles and Jersey City.
Private
Varies based on date, location, and engagement type
What you will receive
A detailed quote with pricing, availability, add-ons, and travel info that's ready to share with your team.
Michelle Offers the Following Talks
The Missing Cipher: The Field Guide for Senior Software Engineers
System Design breakdown, from basics to productionizing
Communication and research tactics for bringing ideas to life
Adding resilience and observability to reduce support costs
AI native thinking to focus our judgment and skills on critical tasks
Navigate ambiguity, technical negotiation, and documenting your work to build your brand
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30 - 60 minutes
Changing Your AI Story from Adoption to Impact
A map of the four AI goals in your org based on the current research, and language for surfacing them
A process mapping exercise you can run on your own work
What the six percent did differently
A concrete plan to make the most out of AI and increase ROI
Use AI surgically, keeping the creative human in the loop where it matters most
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30 - 60 minutes
I *am* Here to Make Friends: Networking Skills to Build Real Connections
Set networking goals and identify the most useful events
Become a confident conversationalist, from breaking into groups to following up
Turn a one-off conversation into a genuine, lasting connection
Practice every skill live with fellow attendees, so most leave with a new connection already made
Build a memorable personal brand that supports career visibility and growth
Leave with simple, immediately applicable rules and frameworks suited to a range of personality types, including neurodivergent individuals
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45 - 60 minutes
Audience Feedback on Michelle
1 / 10
I really enjoyed Michelle's presentation and loved that she included the audience and made it interactive. Her tips for providing feedback that is Objective, Actionable and Timely is something I will try out more when giving feedback to my direct reports. I also will work on creating better success stories to elevate my brand so I can take my career to the next level. If you get a chance to attend one of Michelle's sessions on how to grow your career, I highly recommend not passing up the opportunity to do so.
Attendee
I loved hearing about this! I have been thinking a lot about cloud pc’s for students specifically and have deployed a couple in azure and aws. Based on your presentation the key is to focus on the end user and their needs. The next few years will be exciting as we shift from a hardware focus to cloud based architecture. Thank you!
Attendee
Michelle was able to expand on what I had previously learned in a classroom and gave pretty easy to follow guidelines and suggested attitude on how to take give and take feedback. She also gave me some insight on how to create a personal brand with a sample template.
Attendee
I really enjoyed your presentation for the Project Management for Engineers. You shared detailed steps on your approach and then took the time to explain the findings. This was super useful and I look forward to seeing your worksheet to implement this for my team
Attendee
I enjoyed your presentation. I particularly liked the checklist discussion that you presented near the end. I am focused on Y2038 and other time rollover risks, and a checklist is a great approach to creating an inventory of epoch rollover-related risks.
John Lange
The session definitely helps to understand what are you supposed to be as a person at work and how to excel. The habits she shared will really help managing school/worklife leadership less challenging!
Attendee
It was nice but I didn't like some of what was said for example the LinkedIn you have there contact reach out talk to them also this is a open source con so the value specifically here are different
Justin pemberton
She was super helpful about what the journey looks like. I know I just get prepared with System Design, Telemetry, MVP metrics, etc but laying it out in the chronological way was super helpful!
Amanda Burger
Learned experience shared in a way that also fuses proven approaches and methods, valuable for any one building customer outcomes in a fast moving and ambiguous world! Highly recommend
Chris Davidson