Performance Engineering Lessons from the Unlocked Conference

The inaugural Unlocked Conference, held on January 22, 2026, at Guildhouse in San Jose, California, provided a valuable forum for engineers to share insights and experiences in performance engineering, particularly focusing on high-performance computing and system behavior. The event emphasized the importance of understanding changes in traffic patterns, data sizes, and dependencies, and how these factors affect system performance. Attendees, which included engineers from companies like Apple, Uber, and Snap, engaged in discussions about real-world scenarios, tail latency, and interaction effects between systems. Valkey, an open-source project, was highlighted for its role in improving caching and system performance, inspiring confidence among infrastructure leaders to consider migrating to it. The conference, characterized by technical talks and hallway conversations, aimed to foster a community of engineers eager to learn from each other's experiences, and future events are planned to continue this exchange of knowledge.