Practical sessions on the platform decisions behind real delivery.
I speak about platform engineering, Microsoft Azure, Terraform, GitHub and AI-assisted and AI-native engineering.
My sessions focus on implementation, the decisions behind it and what happens when a design reaches production.
Sessions
A selection of sessions I have delivered at community events and user groups:
- From Zero to GitOps with AKS, delivered with Karl Cooke for Azure Back to School. Watch the session.
- Terraforming from Zero to Pipelines as Code with Azure DevOps, covering Terraform workflow, state, build validation and promotion through multiple environments. View the session details.
- Tales from the Real World on DevOps, looking at the technical and organisational work behind sustainable DevOps adoption.
- Deploying Terraform through Azure DevOps, delivered for Belfast Azure User Group.
Topics
I can shape a session for hands-on engineers, platform leaders or a broader technical audience. Current areas include:
- Platform engineering at scale
- Internal developer platforms and self-service
- Azure architecture and production operations
- Terraform module and delivery design
- GitHub Actions and secure software delivery
- AI gateways, model access and guardrails
- GitHub Copilot and AI-native workflows
- Developer experience and delivery flow
Community involvement
I contribute to the Microsoft Azure, GitHub and wider engineering communities through technical writing, open-source projects, event organisation and speaking.
I co-organise Azure Spring Clean and have contributed to community programmes including Azure Back to School and the Azure Advent Calendar.
- Microsoft MVP Summit, 2023 and 2024
- Microsoft Ignite, 2019 & 2023
- GitHub Universe, 2024 and 2025
- BelTech, 2024, 2025
Speaking enquiries
If you have an event or discussion in mind, send the audience, format, date and likely topic through the contact page. You can also email thomas@thomasthornton.cloud.