How to Get Invited to Speak at Tech Conferences

There's nothing more invigorating than stepping onto a stage and giving a speech or presentation. There's something powerful about being able to connect directly with an audience and adapt based on a feedback loop that you can't get with other mediums.

But let's be honest. You're not going to get a speaking gig at a major conference if you haven't spoken before and haven't built up a name for yourself. That's just reality. The good news? You don't need to start there. It's better to start small and begin to perfect your skill of public speaking. The path from "I've never given a talk" to "conferences invite me to keynote" is well-worn, and thousands of developers have walked it before you. You just need to know the steps.

My friend John Papa is a great example of how this works. He started out doing a few small speaking gigs and now he's able to travel all over the world talking about various technologies. He's created many opportunities for himself by being known as a speaker. That didn't happen overnight, and it didn't happen by accident. It happened because he was strategic about building his reputation one talk at a time.

Why Speaking Live Is So Impactful

Have you ever gone to a rock concert or seen a band perform live? Why did you do it? You could have just bought the album and listened from home. You might even have better audio quality using your own headphones listening to a CD-quality album.

It's hard to explain, but there's a personal connection you get when you attend a live event that you don't get when listening to or watching a recording. There's something about hearing a presenter speak live that is more impactful than many other mediums, even if they contain the exact same content.

People who hear you speak are much more likely to remember you and to feel like they have a personal connection with you. We remember the times we saw our favorite band in concert, but we don't remember the times we listened to their albums.

Speaking is also an interactive medium. When you speak at an event you can directly answer questions from the audience and get them to participate in your presentation. Interacting in this way can build large amounts of trust quickly and can help you create fans who will promote your message for you.

The Business Case for Speaking at Conferences

Before we get into the how, let's talk about the why. Because speaking at conferences isn't just about ego or fun. It's one of the most effective career accelerators available to software developers. Period.

Think about it from a pure numbers perspective. A single 45-minute talk at a mid-size conference puts you in front of 200 to 500 people who are actively paying attention. They chose to sit in your room instead of three other sessions running at the same time. That's a highly qualified, self-selected audience of people interested in exactly what you have to say. Try getting that kind of attention with a blog post or a tweet.

The career benefits are concrete. Developers who speak at conferences report higher salaries, more job offers, and faster promotions. A 2019 Stack Overflow survey found that developers who contribute to the community (including speaking) earn 10-20% more than those who don't. That's not a coincidence. When you're the person on stage, you're automatically positioned as an authority. Hiring managers see your name on a conference schedule and think, "This person must really know their stuff." Recruiters start reaching out to you. Consulting leads show up in your inbox without you chasing them.

Scott Hanselman has talked openly about how speaking launched his career into a completely different orbit. He went from being a good developer to being a recognized name in the .NET world, and that recognition opened doors that technical skill alone never could have. The same pattern plays out for countless others. Troy Hunt built an entire security consulting business partly on the back of his conference speaking career. Kelsey Hightower became one of the most recognizable names in cloud computing, and conference talks were a huge part of how he got there.

If you're a freelancer or consultant, speaking is basically free marketing. You're literally being given a stage to demonstrate your expertise to a room full of potential clients. Some conferences even pay you to do it. That's an incredible deal.

Start at Your Workplace

One of the best places to start is by giving presentations at your own workplace. Most companies are happy to have their employees present on various topics, especially if the presentation is directly related to what you're working on.

Offer to do a presentation on some technology that your team is using or to give training in some area where your team could use help. You don't even have to present yourself as an expert, but as someone who earnestly wants to help by sharing what you've learned.

In fact, you'll find that you should almost always take this approach. Too many people get caught up in being perceived as an expert instead of being honest and humble. Being a real down-to-earth human with real flaws and weaknesses will go a long way to building trust with your audience and will make you seem a lot less like a jerk.

Lightning Talks: The Easiest Way to Get Started

If a full 45-minute presentation feels overwhelming, start with lightning talks. These are short presentations, usually 5 to 10 minutes, that cover a single idea or concept. They're the open mic night of the tech world.

Almost every meetup and many conferences have lightning talk slots specifically designed for newer speakers. The bar is low. You don't need to be an expert. You don't need polished slides. You just need one interesting thing to share. Maybe you found a clever debugging technique last week. Maybe you discovered a library that saved your team 20 hours. Maybe you have a hot take on a popular framework. That's enough for a lightning talk.

The beauty of lightning talks is that you can't really fail. Five minutes goes by fast. Even if you stumble, it's over before anyone has time to judge you. And the upside is enormous. I've seen developers give a single 5-minute lightning talk at a local JavaScript meetup and get invited to give a full session at a regional conference based on that alone. Organizers are always scouting for new talent, and lightning talks are where they look.

PyCon actually runs a dedicated lightning talk track every year. Dozens of speakers sign up on a first-come, first-served basis, and many of them are first-timers. If you attend PyCon and don't sign up for a lightning talk, you're leaving one of the easiest speaking opportunities in tech on the table.

Move to User Groups and Code Camps

Another easy avenue for public speaking is code camps and user groups. There are usually many different user groups for software developers in most metropolitan areas. It usually isn't hard to find some user group nearby that you can attend. Check Meetup.com and search for groups related to your technology stack. Most cities have groups for Python, JavaScript, .NET, Ruby, DevOps, data science, and more.

After attending a user group for a while, you can ask the organizer if you can present on a particular topic. Most user groups are always looking for new people to present, so as long as you have a topic that's interesting, you'll probably be given a shot. This is a great opportunity to speak in front of a smaller, more forgiving audience, and as a bonus, it's a good way to market yourself to local companies and recruiters in your area.

In addition to user groups, you can find yearly code camps all over the world. Most code camps will let anyone with any level of experience speak on a topic of their choosing. Take advantage of this opportunity and try to speak at at least one code camp every year. Most of these events are low-pressure situations, because no one paid to get in. You can relax, and if you mess up, it's not that big of a deal. Code camps like SoCal Code Camp, Houston TechFest, and similar events are purpose-built for this. They want new speakers. They need new speakers.

Understanding the CFP Process

Most developer conferences use a process called CFP, or Call for Papers, to select their speakers. The name comes from academia, but don't let that intimidate you. It's basically an open application. The conference announces, "Hey, we're accepting talk proposals," and anyone can submit one. The selection committee reviews all submissions and picks the talks they think will provide the most value to attendees.

CFP timelines vary widely. Some conferences open their CFP a full year before the event. Others give you just a few weeks. As a general rule, the bigger the conference, the earlier the CFP opens and closes. JSConf typically opens its CFP about six to eight months before the event. NDC Oslo does the same. Smaller regional conferences might only give you a month or two.

The best way to stay on top of CFP deadlines is to use a tracking site like Confs.tech, Papercall.io, or the CFP section on SesCon. These sites aggregate open CFPs from conferences around the world. Set up alerts, bookmark the page, check it weekly. Treat CFP submissions like job applications. You need volume. Most experienced speakers submit to 15 to 25 conferences per year and get accepted to maybe 5 to 8. That's a 25-35% acceptance rate, and these are people with established track records. If you're new, expect to submit a lot before you get your first yes.

Don't get discouraged by rejections. They're not personal. Conference organizers receive hundreds of submissions and can only accept 30 to 50 talks. Your proposal might be great and still not make the cut because three other people submitted on a similar topic and one of them happened to be a bigger name. That's just how it works. Submit again next year with a better proposal.

How to Write Talk Proposals That Actually Get Accepted

Your CFP proposal is a sales pitch. You're selling the conference organizer on the idea that your talk will deliver value to their audience. That's all it is. And like any sales pitch, there are things that work and things that don't.

The single most important element of your proposal is the title. Conference attendees scan a schedule with 40 or 50 talks and pick sessions based almost entirely on the title. A boring title kills your chances before anyone reads your abstract. "An Introduction to React Hooks" is forgettable. "How We Cut Our React Bundle Size by 60% With Three Custom Hooks" is specific, concrete, and promises a clear takeaway. See the difference?

Your abstract should answer three questions: What will the audience learn? Why does it matter? And why are you the right person to teach it? You don't need to be the world's leading expert. You just need a credible reason to be talking about this subject. "I spent six months migrating our team's codebase from Redux to Zustand and learned a ton of lessons along the way" is plenty. Real experience beats theoretical knowledge every time in the eyes of conference organizers.

Be specific about outcomes. Don't say "attendees will learn about testing." Say "attendees will leave with a working mental model for deciding when to write unit tests, integration tests, and end-to-end tests, plus three specific patterns they can apply on Monday morning." The more concrete your promised outcomes, the easier it is for a reviewer to say yes.

One trick that works surprisingly well: include a brief outline of your talk structure in the notes section. Something like "5 min intro and problem statement, 15 min live coding demo, 10 min architecture walkthrough, 10 min lessons learned, 5 min Q&A." This tells the reviewer you've actually thought about the talk and aren't just winging it with a vague idea.

Building Your Speaker Portfolio

Every talk you give is an asset. Treat it like one. After each presentation, you should have three things: your slide deck, a recording if possible, and a short write-up of the talk. Upload slides to Speaker Deck or SlideShare. Post recordings on YouTube. Write a companion blog post that covers the key points. This collection becomes your speaker portfolio, and it's what conference organizers look at when they're deciding whether to accept your proposal.

A speaker portfolio solves the biggest problem new speakers face: proof. When you submit to a conference with no prior speaking history, the organizer is taking a risk. They don't know if you're any good. But if you link to a recording of you giving a solid 30-minute talk at a local meetup, that risk drops dramatically. Even a smartphone recording of a user group talk is better than nothing. It shows you can stand in front of people and communicate ideas clearly.

Create a dedicated page on your personal website for speaking. List every talk you've given, with links to slides and recordings. Include upcoming talks if you have any confirmed. This page serves double duty: it's evidence for CFP committees and it's a signal to potential employers and clients that you're active in the community. Some speakers, like Cassidy Williams, maintain beautifully organized speaking pages that make it dead obvious they're experienced and professional. Model yours after theirs.

Breaking Into Developer Conferences

Once you have some speaking engagements under your belt, you can start submitting to developer conferences. There's quite a bit of competition in this area and there tends to be a bit of a "good old boys" system with some of the events, but once you break into the circuit, you can find many opportunities to speak each year.

For most of these events, you'll be completely reimbursed for travel and any other expenses. Many software developers I know get to travel all around the world speaking at these events. They might not get paid to speak, but they get to go to all kinds of places they wouldn't get to go otherwise and to expand their audiences. These bigger events are also a great way to get business if you're a freelancer.

The key is building up that track record first. Conference organizers don't take risks on unknown speakers for their main stages. They need proof that you can deliver value to their audience. If you've been doing the work at meetups and code camps, if you've been collecting recordings and building your portfolio, if you've been writing strong proposals, the conferences will come. It might take a year or two of consistent effort. But it will happen.

Conferences That Welcome First-Time Speakers

Not all conferences are equally hard to break into. Some events actively seek out first-time speakers because they want fresh voices and diverse perspectives. Knowing which conferences are friendly to newcomers can save you a lot of frustration.

Write/Speak/Code is explicitly designed to help underrepresented developers get their start in public speaking. Many DevOpsDays events around the world have a strong culture of accepting newer speakers, especially for their Ignite talk format, which is a rapid-fire 5-minute presentation with auto-advancing slides. It's terrifying and fun in equal measure. PyGotham in New York and PyOhio have reputations for being welcoming to first-time speakers. All Things Open in Raleigh accepts a broad range of experience levels and is one of the largest open-source conferences in the US. Contributing to open source also helps build speaking credibility.

Regional and single-track conferences are generally easier to get into than the big international events. Don't sleep on conferences like CodeMash, Stir Trek, That Conference, or dev.to community events. These mid-tier conferences draw engaged audiences of 300 to 1,500 people, and they genuinely want to discover new speaking talent. They're also less likely to be dominated by the same speakers who rotate through the major conference circuit year after year. Your odds of acceptance are significantly higher at these events compared to something like re:Invent or Google I/O, where speaker slots are often filled through internal selection or direct invitation.

How Established Speakers Get Invited

There's a level in conference speaking where you stop applying and start getting invited. This is where the real magic happens. Organizers reach out to you, often with travel covered and sometimes with a speaker fee. But how do you get there?

It comes down to two things: reputation and relationships. Reputation means you've given enough visible, high-quality talks that organizers know your name and trust you'll deliver. Relationships mean you've spent time networking with other speakers and organizers at the events you've attended. Conference organizers talk to each other. If you crush a talk at NDC London, there's a decent chance the organizer mentions you to a friend running a conference in Amsterdam. Word of mouth is the primary currency in the speaker circuit. It always has been.

Dan Abramov didn't apply to give his famous "Hot Reloading with Time Travel" talk at React Europe. He was invited because the React community already knew he was building something important, and organizers wanted him on their stage. That level of invitation comes from being consistently visible. Blog posts, open-source contributions, social media presence, prior talks that got shared widely. It all compounds. The more you put out there, the more likely someone organizing a conference will think, "We need to get that person."

The transition from "applying to CFPs" to "getting invited" usually happens after about 10 to 15 conference talks over two to three years, assuming you're also active online. Some people get there faster. Some take longer. But if you keep showing up and delivering valuable content, the invitations will come.

Speaker Fees and Travel: What to Actually Expect

Let's talk about money, because nobody else seems to want to. The truth about speaker compensation is that it varies wildly and most of it isn't great, especially when you're starting out.

Community-run conferences like most DevOpsDays events, PyCon, and local code camps typically don't pay speakers at all. They might cover your conference ticket, and that's it. No travel, no hotel, no stipend. You're paying out of pocket for the privilege of speaking. That might sound harsh, but these events operate on shoestring budgets and rely on volunteers. The value you get is the exposure, the networking, and the line on your resume.

Mid-tier commercial conferences like NDC, Oredev, and Strange Loop usually cover travel and hotel. Some offer a small honorarium of $500 to $1,500. A few pay more. This is where speaking starts to become financially neutral. You're not making money, but you're not losing it either.

Corporate conferences and private events are where real speaker fees exist. Companies hiring speakers for internal tech summits, vendor conferences, or customer events will pay anywhere from $2,500 to $15,000 per talk, sometimes more for keynotes. But you won't get these gigs until you're well-established with a strong public profile. The speakers pulling $10,000 per talk have usually been doing this for a decade and have a significant following. Don't go into conference speaking expecting to make money right away. Go into it expecting to build your brand, expand your network, and open doors you didn't know existed. The money follows the reputation, not the other way around.

Virtual vs In-Person Speaking

The pandemic turned every developer with a webcam into a potential conference speaker. Virtual conferences exploded in 2020 and 2021, and while most events have returned to in-person formats, virtual and hybrid options are still common. They present a different set of challenges and opportunities.

Virtual talks are easier to get into. Conferences can accept more speakers when they don't have to worry about room capacity and scheduling conflicts. The barrier to entry is lower because there's no travel involved, which means more people submit. But the competition for attention is brutal. Your audience is sitting at home with email, Slack, Twitter, and Netflix one tab away. If your talk isn't engaging within the first two minutes, they're gone. You won't even know they left.

In-person speaking is harder to arrange but far more rewarding. The energy of a live audience is irreplaceable. You can read the room, adjust your pace, crack a joke and actually hear people laugh. The networking before and after your talk is often more valuable than the talk itself. People approach you in the hallway, at lunch, at the after-party. Those conversations lead to job offers, partnerships, and friendships that last years. I strongly recommend prioritizing in-person events whenever possible. Virtual talks are fine for building your portfolio and reaching a wider audience. But the real career-changing moments happen when you're physically in the room with people.

Common Mistakes New Speakers Make

I've watched hundreds of conference talks, and the same mistakes come up again and again with newer speakers. Knowing what to avoid is half the battle.

The biggest mistake is trying to cover too much material. New speakers cram 90 minutes of content into a 45-minute slot because they're afraid of running out of things to say. The result is a rushed, surface-level talk where nobody learns anything useful. It's far better to pick one idea and go deep than to skim across five ideas. A talk called "Everything You Need to Know About Kubernetes" is going to be terrible because that's impossible in 45 minutes. A talk called "Three Patterns for Zero-Downtime Deployments on Kubernetes" has a chance of being excellent.

Another common mistake is reading from slides. Your slides should be visual aids, not a script. If every point you're making is written in full sentences on a slide behind you, the audience will read the slides and stop listening to you. Use images, diagrams, code snippets, and single keywords. Let your voice carry the content.

Not doing a tech check before your talk is a rookie error that's completely preventable. Show up early. Plug in your laptop. Make sure your display settings work with the projector. Test your audio. Test your live demo environment. I've seen talks derailed in the first five minutes because of resolution issues, missing adapters, or a demo that required an internet connection in a venue with terrible WiFi.

Skipping the introduction is surprisingly common too. Speakers jump straight into technical content without spending 60 seconds telling the audience who they are and why they should listen. You don't need a long bio. Just your name, where you work, and one sentence about why this topic matters to you. That context helps the audience connect with you as a person, not just a voice delivering information.

How to Practice and Refine Your Presentations

Great talks aren't born. They're rehearsed. Every polished conference speaker you admire has practiced their material far more than you'd guess.

The minimum number of full run-throughs before giving a talk at a conference is three. I'd recommend five or more if it's your first time. Do the first one alone, standing up, speaking out loud, with your slides advancing on screen. Time yourself. You'll almost certainly run long on your first attempt. Cut material until you're comfortably under time by about five minutes. That buffer is for the audience questions you'll get, the demo that takes slightly longer than planned, and the inevitable moment where you lose your train of thought for a few seconds.

After your solo run-throughs, give the talk to a friend or coworker. Ask for honest feedback. Not "that was great," but specific notes. "You said 'um' a lot during the third section." "The transition between your second and third point was confusing." "You sped up when you talked about the database migration." This kind of targeted feedback is gold, and it's hard to get unless you specifically ask for it.

Record yourself. This feels deeply uncomfortable, but watching yourself present is the fastest way to identify habits you didn't know you had. Maybe you rock back and forth. Maybe you stare at your laptop instead of the audience. Maybe you speak in a monotone when you're nervous. You can't fix what you can't see. One recording session will teach you more about your speaking style than ten practice runs without one.

If you're doing a live coding demo, practice it until it's automatic. Then practice it five more times. Demos always take longer on stage than they do on your couch. Your hands shake a little, you mistype variable names, and the audience watches every keystroke on a screen 15 feet tall. If you can, pre-type some of the code in a hidden file and paste sections in during the demo. Nobody cares if you paste instead of type. They care about understanding the concept.

If Public Speaking Terrifies You

It's okay if you're scared. The fear of public speaking is one of the most common phobias. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, about 73% of people experience some degree of glossophobia, which is the clinical term for speech anxiety. You're in very large company. But what can you do about it?

There are organizations like Toastmasters that you can join that will help you get over your fear of public speaking in a comfortable atmosphere. Toastmasters has over 16,000 clubs worldwide, so there's almost certainly one near you. The format is structured, supportive, and specifically designed to help nervous speakers build confidence incrementally. You can also start very small by doing little things like standing up and talking in meetings or giving presentations to a smaller team of people you know well. As you get more comfortable, you can move on to more intimidating events.

You have to remember that as human beings we're very good at adaptation. If you do something enough, you'll adapt to it. Paratroopers who are first learning to jump out of planes are pretty terrified, but after doing many successful jumps, the fear eventually goes away. If you keep attempting to speak in public, the fear will dissipate over time as you adapt. The nervousness never fully disappears, by the way. Even experienced speakers feel butterflies before a big talk. The difference is they've learned to channel that energy into enthusiasm instead of panic.

Here's something that helped me personally: reframing the purpose of the talk. When you think "I need to impress 300 people," that's terrifying. When you think "I need to help 300 people understand one thing better," it's way less scary. You're not performing. You're helping. That mental shift changes everything about how you feel walking up to the podium.

What to Do This Week

Come up with a list of all the user groups in your area. Go to Meetup.com right now and search for technology groups within 30 miles of where you live. Also come up with a list of any code camps that you might be able to speak at. Check Confs.tech and Papercall.io for open CFPs that match your technology interests. Offer to speak at one of these events on a topic you feel comfortable talking about.

Create a list of topics you could speak about. Aim for at least five. You don't need to be the world's foremost expert. You just need to know enough to help the people in that room learn something useful. Think about problems you've solved recently at work, tools you've evaluated, or patterns you've adopted. Any of these can become a talk.

Write one CFP proposal this week. Just one. Pick a conference that's accepting submissions and send something in. It doesn't need to be perfect. The first proposal you write will probably be mediocre, and that's fine. The tenth one will be much better. You have to start somewhere.

The stage is waiting. The conference organizer is refreshing their CFP inbox hoping for one more great submission. The audience is sitting in their chairs wanting to learn something new from someone who's been where they are. The only question is whether you'll take that first step toward the front of the room.