RoachFest isn’t your typical tech conference. It’s where builders, engineers, operators, architects, and executives come together to talk about what really happens in production. We’re not talking about sales pitches or sanitized demos. We’re talking real systems, real stress, and real stakes.
Following an electrifying first event in London, RoachFest heads to two more global innovation hubs: Bengaluru and Las Vegas. Each event offers a unique lens on what it means to build and run distributed applications in the real world — where scale is unpredictable, uptime is non-negotiable, and performance is expected under pressure.
Build, Scale, and Innovate
RoachFest is your gateway to the future of distributed SQL databases. Learn from the best, network with peers, and level up your expertise. Space is limited—grab your ticket now!
CEO keynote: Performance under adversity for the modern enterprise
Spencer Kimball, Co-Founder & CEO, Cockroach Labs
Image: Spencer Kimball speaking at RoachFest24.
As generative AI transforms what we ask of our systems, the old ways of measuring database performance are falling short. Throughput in a vacuum is irrelevant when you experience disk stalls, a zone goes dark, or a region drops off the map. That’s why Cockroach Labs created “Performance under Adversity,” a benchmarking framework built to simulate the chaos of the real world and expose how databases truly behave under pressure. At RoachFest Bengaluru and Las Vegas, Spencer Kimball will share how CockroachDB is architected to keep your applications running, no matter what fails.
Product Insights: Building CockroachDB for performance at scale
Product managers will share the latest innovations in CockroachDB, including performance improvements, enhanced observability tools, and vector data capabilities for AI workloads. This session also highlights new migration tooling that simplifies transitions from legacy platforms (like Oracle), giving teams a fast, reliable path to the future.
Hear from Biplav Saraf and Alicia Lu at RoachFest Bengaluru, and Rohan Joshi at RoachFest Las Vegas.
Sneak peek: RoachFest25 Bengaluru
Date: September 25 | Location: JW Marriott, Bengaluru, India
India’s technology ecosystem is scaling fast and so is the demand for infrastructure that can keep up. RoachFest Bengaluru brings together the engineers and architects solving for availability, compliance, and growth at global scale. Attendees will explore how distributed SQL is reshaping the data strategies of fintechs, digital commerce leaders, and infrastructure teams across the region.
Hands-on workshop, a RoachFest London encore
Image: The "Introduction to Distributed SQL" workshop at RoachFest25 London.
We saw incredible engagement in London with our brand new hands-on workshops, courtesy of our in-house education team behind Cockroach University.
Workshop: Introduction to Distributed SQL Learn the fundamentals of CockroachDB’s architecture and behavior under real-world conditions. As the first distributed SQL database on the market, this is your opportunity to learn the fundamentals from the innovators who created a new kind of database. Led by Shannon Bradshaw, PhD, VP of Education, Cockroach Labs
Workshop: Multi-Region Database Architecture This advanced workshop is for database administrators, cloud architects, and application developers who need to design optimized database systems that operate across multiple geographic locations. Deploy your own multi-region cluster to achieve resilience, data locality, and performance goals. Led by Clarence Tauro, PhD, Senior Trainer, Cockroach Labs
Real-world scale and performance stories
Why Yubi selected CockroachDB to power 10x transactional growth
Bharat Krishnamurthy, CTO, Yubi
Yubi, India’s largest digital debt marketplace, is scaling fast with YubiOS, a platform designed to modernize credit infrastructure across the country. CTO Bharat Krishnamurthy shares why traditional databases couldn’t meet their performance, compliance, and multi-region needs. Learn how CockroachDB enabled Yubi to support skyrocketing transaction volumes while staying cloud-neutral and regulation-ready.
How Global Payments set a new standard for reliability and performance
Jess Tays, Executive Director of Data Management, Global Payments
With over 32 billion card transactions and 816 million accounts to support, Global Payments needed a future-proof foundation for their next-gen architecture. Jess Tays, Executive Director of Data Management, walks through the team’s migration journey from legacy systems to a resilient, cloud-native deployment of CockroachDB, and how they now deliver subsecond latency and rapid disaster recovery across regions.
Future-proofing at scale: Exploring strategies for sustainable business growth
Sajish Kalam (Fidelity), Kiran Jagannath (AWS), Kamal Govindraij (Groww)
This cross-industry panel brings together leaders from Fidelity, AWS India, and Groww to discuss what it really takes to build for the long game. Expect candid insights into how they’re balancing rapid innovation with regulatory complexity, architectural sprawl, and user demands.
Las Vegas: Where high availability meets high stakes
Date: October 14 | Location: TAO, Las Vegas, Nevada
RoachFest Las Vegas is our flagship event this year — and it’s built around real-world architectures that don’t blink under pressure. Whether you’re running a sportsbook, a global content platform, or a multi-cloud SaaS product, these are the sessions that move the conversation beyond theory. Check back in on our website as we continue adding to our exciting agenda.
Scaling to support America’s #1 sportsbook
Jordan Leach & Alex Chadwick, FanDuel
FanDuel handles millions of bets across the country, and their ledger is the heart of it all. When the stakes are real money and real-time payouts, the infrastructure has to be flawless. In this session, FanDuel engineering leaders explain why they rebuilt their financial ledger on CockroachDB, how they navigated the transition, and what it means to scale with confidence in a tightly regulated, high-volume environment.
Why Squarespace adopted CockroachDB for better global performance at scale
Gavin McQuillan, Senior Staff Software Engineer, Squarespace
With nearly five million users around the world, Squarespace needed more than availability, they needed consistent, low-latency performance regardless of geography. Senior Staff Engineer Gavin McQuillan shares how the team migrated high-impact workloads from PostgreSQL to CockroachDB, and how that move has enabled faster feature development and better user experiences at global scale.
Special guest appearance: Kelsey Hightower
Industry luminary and open source legend brings his perspective to the RoachFest stage.
Kelsey Hightower has worn just about every hat in tech sysadmin, developer, operator, leader — and built his career helping people make sense of complexity and find the simplicity that lasts.
In this keynote, he draws from decades of experience at the edge of scale and deep in production to share what real systems teach us about building for the future. As demand grows and environments shift faster than ever, we need systems that are dependable, adaptable, and designed with operators in mind.
Through stories from the field, Kelsey will explore how infrastructure can evolve from something we constantly fight into something we can trust. Whether it’s scaling with confidence or building resilience that lasts, this talk is a reminder that the hardest parts of tech are often the most human.
Why attend?
Because real systems don’t run in perfect conditions. And real engineering doesn’t happen in a vacuum. RoachFest is for the teams doing the hard work of building the next generation of apps on a foundation that’s designed to survive and thrive.
If you’re responsible for uptime, global expansion, regulatory readiness, or just getting features shipped fast, this is where you’ll find your people.
Check out the highlights from RoachFest24 NYC:
