DevFest Extended: Android for the Agentic Era

GDG Sydney is back with a special DevFest Extended event: Android for the Agentic Era! DevFest Extended brings the DevFest spirit to a special evening of three exciting technical talks, community connections, and knowledge sharing at Google Sydney. This event is in-person only. There are no plans to stream the event. Builds & Blockers Before the main talks kick off, we’re opening the floor for four rapid-fire, 3-minute community slots. Step up to either share a build (a weekend project, a clever Gemini/Android prompt, or a weird bug you squashed) or bring a blocker (a tricky Compose migration, Android XR hurdle, or agentic workflow issue) for live ideas from the room. No slides required, grab a slot at check-in! Talks Talk 1: Android Dev Summit 2026 - Insights on XR, Android CLI, Compose and everything in between (Jonathon Reid) The Android development landscape is undergoing a major shift toward AI engineering and supporting richer mediums like Android XR. In this ADS conference overview, I will share: Key trends - The pivot toward agentic workflows, Android CLI, and dynamic SDUI patterns Tooling updates - Hands-on first impressions of Android XR, and performance leaps in new dev tooling Takeaways - How Google is standardising AI-generated code with Android Skills, and what this means for mobile teams in their day-to-day work Whether you are an engineer or technical leader, this high-level session gives you a concise snapshot of where the Android platform is heading and what to watch for next. Talk 2: Merge Ready - The soft skills that make you a professional software engineer (Katie Barnett) Technical skills get you through the door, but soft skills are what make a professional software engineer truly effective. In this talk, I will share my experience on what I see as the essential pillars of professional engineering. I'll be covering: How you show up and communicate on a team Write pull requests your team actually wants to review Give and receive code review fee