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CanvaConference talks

David Curlewis (Senior Engineering Manager, Canva) at Agentic Engineering Day New Zealand.

What happened

Session: You're the Principal Engineer of an Agent Squad. Not a Manager.

Source

agenticbuild.dayOct 21, 2026

Agentic Engineering Day New Zealand

You're the Principal Engineer of an Agent Squad. Not a Manager.

Session

"Everyone's a manager now" is a view I regularly come across as more and more of us start coordinating fleets of AI agents. It's inaccurate on several counts, but the part that worries me most is what it assumes about motivation: that being told you're a manager is universally a good thing. Most engineers actively choose not to go into (people) management, and hearing that the agentic future makes them one anyway is demotivating to many, not exciting. Coordinating agents looks far more like staf

agenticbuild.dayRead the full source

Extracted by Autobound

From the Signal API record
Signal
Conference talks
Conference
Agentic Engineering Day New Zealand
Date
Oct 21, 2026
Location
Auckland, New Zealand
Topics
4

More conference speaker signals at other companies

The full record

From the Signal API record

People

  • David CurlewisSenior Engineering Manager, Canva · Speaker

Details

Conference ends
Oct 22, 2026

Topics and mentions

Conference topics

  • agentic AI
  • AI agents
  • context engineering
  • MCP servers
  • multi-agent orchestration
  • observability
  • AI security
  • prompt injection

Extraction

Confidence
High
Relevance
76%
Detected
Oct 31, 2026
signal_type
conference-speaker
signal_subtype
conferenceSpeaker

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The API returns more than this page shows

This page shows a preview. The full conference-speaker record in the Signal API and MCP can also have these 19 fields. Some fields are empty for some signals.

Contact

  • full_nameValue in the API
  • job_titleValue in the API
  • linkedin_urlValue in the API
  • emailValue in the API
  • first_nameValue in the API
  • last_nameValue in the API
  • cityValue in the API
  • stateValue in the API
  • countryValue in the API
  • seniorityValue in the API

Company

  • linkedin_urlValue in the API
  • industriesValue in the API
  • employee_count_lowValue in the API
  • employee_count_highValue in the API
  • revenueValue in the API
  • descriptionValue in the API

Signal

  • signal_nameValue in the API
  • associationValue in the API

And 1 more fields.

Show the full JSONThe record on this page and the API request

GET /v1/signals/05ad58bd-ae3a-50c8-939e-3f6b0b187c9e returns this record as JSON. POST /v1/companies/enrich returns every signal for canva.com.

{
  "signal_id": "05ad58bd-ae3a-50c8-939e-3f6b0b187c9e",
  "signal_type": "conference-speaker",
  "signal_subtype": "conferenceSpeaker",
  "detected_at": "2026-10-31T00:00:00+00:00",
  "company": {
    "name": "Canva",
    "domain": "canva.com"
  },
  "data": {
    "summary": "David Curlewis (Senior Engineering Manager, Canva) at Agentic Engineering Day New Zealand.",
    "relevance": 0.76,
    "confidence": "high",
    "speaker_bio": "David Curlewis is a Senior Engineering Manager at Canva, where he leads teams in the AI Platform group. He has spent 25+ years in product & platform engineering, 15 years in engineering leadership, with earlier roles at Flux, GitLab, Sharesies, Timely, and Trade Me. He writes about AI-assisted engineering, leadership, and the rollercoaster of working in tech at curlewis.co.nz. He is based in Wellington, and is happiest with a problem to untangle, whether that's organisational architecture, a dat",
    "session_type": "talk",
    "session_title": "You're the Principal Engineer of an Agent Squad. Not a Manager.",
    "conference_url": "https://www.agenticbuild.day/",
    "conference_date": "2026-10-21",
    "conference_name": "Agentic Engineering Day New Zealand",
    "is_future_event": false,
    "contact_resolved": true,
    "conference_topics": [
      "agentic AI",
      "AI agents",
      "context engineering",
      "MCP servers",
      "multi-agent orchestration",
      "observability",
      "AI security",
      "prompt injection"
    ],
    "extraction_method": "llm-speakers_list+bio",
    "domain_match_score": 10,
    "conference_end_date": "2026-10-22",
    "conference_location": "Auckland, New Zealand",
    "session_description": "\"Everyone's a manager now\" is a view I regularly come across as more and more of us start coordinating fleets of AI agents. It's inaccurate on several counts, but the part that worries me most is what it assumes about motivation: that being told you're a manager is universally a good thing. Most engineers actively choose not to go into (people) management, and hearing that the agentic future makes them one anyway is demotivating to many, not exciting. Coordinating agents looks far more like staf",
    "conference_description": "Agentic Engineering Day New Zealand is an independent, community-driven conference for AI engineers, architects, product people, and builders focused on real-world AI systems. It emphasizes hands-on workshops and deep technical sessions on moving agentic and AI-powered systems into reliable producti",
    "domain_match_confidence": "high",
    "conference_estimated_size": "300-500"
  }
}

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