Every time you make an API call, save a file, or send a message between services, you’re participating in humanity’s ongoing quest to turn complex data structures into streams of bytes—and back again.

UTF-8 has become the de facto standard for text encoding, with 97% of websites using it by default. Most developers reflexively choose UTF-8 without understanding what they’re actually getting—or what they might be missing. This talk dives deep into how UTF-8 actually works under the hood, from its brilliant variable-length design to its backward compatibility with ASCII, and explores the engineering trade-offs that make it both a triumph and occasionally the wrong choice.

Forget everything you know about database normalization! DynamoDB’s single table design pattern seems counterintuitive to traditional RDBMS thinking, but it unlocks incredible performance and scalability benefits. This talk explores how cramming all your data into one table can actually simplify your architecture, reduce costs, and eliminate complex joins. We’ll walk through real-world examples, design patterns, and the mental shift required to embrace this “crazy” approach. You’ll leave with a new perspective on data modeling that might just revolutionize how you think about databases.