The Call for Papers for our fourth annual Developer Days 2026 is officially open, and we want to hear from you!
About Developer Days 2026
This year’s theme is Charting the future of adaptive identity with a developer-led, platform approach. We’re seeking technical session proposals that showcase how developers are pushing the boundaries of identity security with SailPoint.
What We’re Looking For
We’re interested in sessions for IdentityIQ and Identity Security Cloud that demonstrate real-world implementations, innovative integrations, and technical deep-dives. Sessions should focus on:
Adaptive identity and intelligent automation
Platform extensibility through APIs, SDKs, and integrations
Architecture and security foundations
Developer driven innovation at scale
We’re especially interested in content covering:
Machine and agent identity security
AI driven use cases
Future looking platform capabilities
Multi-product security solutions
Sessions should be either 25 minutes or 55 minutes long.
Speaker Benefits
If your proposal is selected:
All-expenses-paid trip to Austin, Texas on May 5-6, 2026
Recording at a hotel with professional production
Networking opportunities with fellow developers, product leaders, and SailPoint subject matter experts
Platform to share your expertise with the global SailPoint developer community
1,000 points towards your Ambassador status
Important Dates
Submission Deadline:February 13, 2026 February 28, 2026
We’ve changed the point value for a couple of reasons. One, we felt that the points were out of balance at 1,500 with the next highest point earning event at only 600. We will be shifting many of the point values but none so much as the DevDays presentation. And second, we are adding more point earning events in a few months that will allow more opportunities to earn points throughout the quarter.
Out of balance by what metric? It takes a ton of time and preparation to participate in an event like this. You not only have to spend time coming up with a topic and proposal that may be compelling enough to be selected, but if selected, you have to physically travel to do the presentation that requires sacrifice to both work and family life AND THEN you get to the point where you’re actually recording your presentation, which not just anyone can do effectively.
There’s a reason it previously had so much value - it’s because it was far above and beyond the amount of effort required to do any of the other tasks that award points. It was an appropriate reflection of the work required to do, and this change is a poor one in my opinion.
My status in the community is something that’s important to me because the people in this community are amazing I’ve been lucky to meet and keep up with a lot of them. When I was in need, the people of the community helped me out. It makes me want to give back what’s been given me.
I don’t always have as much time anymore to contribute in the discussion forums and other contributions that reward you with points, but maintaining that status is something I wish to continue, so an event with a high amount of points as a reward is something I desire to take part in.
If it becomes diluted to the point that it is, then I’m not sure I have as strong as a desire to participate. As much as I’d love to do it “for the love of the game”, I can’t do it on that alone and feel people should be awarded appropriately for that effort.
For clarification, will the presentations be live streamed, or will they be recorded and then streamed at a later date?
Also, I see that the recording is going to be done at a Hotel this year, and not at the SailPoint Office. What does that look like for those who are not actively presenting? Will there be a dedicated networking space to use when not recording?
I will also echo @mcheek’s sentiment here on the point value. There is a larger than normal time commitment and knowledge necessary for doing the presentations that in my opinion would warrant the large jump in points for this event.
Personally, I’m very selective when it comes to currency system buy-in. e.g. Just because some organization has a point system, one has to question what’s the ‘value’ to me. Without user buy-in the point system is nothing more than a glorified set of hoops and numbers. Why should one put time and effort into a point system that isn’t a balanced two-way street, right? (I’m totally with you regarding your “by what metric” question)
Talks will be recorded, and then the community can tune into the livestream after, similar to how it was last year.
And yes, we will be in a hotel this year, but there will still be opportunity and space to network. We are also hard at work to create additional engagement for speakers who are recording, more to come on that as we solidify details!
hi @David_Norris, it’s not a currency system because you don’t “spend” your points for anything. At it’s core the Ambassador program exists to recognize and reward those community members who go above and beyond and dedicate their time to helping others and making SailPoint and the SailPoint community better.
Each quarter we total how many points everyone has earned and then award either an “Ambassador” or “Expert Ambassador” status. The benefits of achieving those statuses are detailed in the link Mark shared.
Thank you Mark and Geoff for bringing this up and sharing your thoughts around it. I have taken this to the team and we have decided to change the points to 1,000 instead.
I understand how a reduction in the points could feel like a reduction in value-seen and I want to assure you that is not the case. We know that creating and preparing a talk is a huge undertaking and represents a lot of your professional and personal time and we want to recognize and reward that effort. Reducing the points for speaking at DevDays while also adding in more opportunities to earn points throughout the quarter will ultimately allow us to scale the program and grow it into something even better than it already is.
Additionally, we are making DevDays bigger and better this year! It’s not just going to be a fly-in/fly-out situation. Like last year, the sessions will be recorded and then streamed at a later date with live chat and other interactions.
Some other things speakers will get this year:
An in person Q&A with the DevRel team
Speaking coaching and rehearsal time
Dedicated networking space on-site
And a lot more that we will be sharing in the coming weeks!
I know that not having all the information right now can be frustrating but we wanted to prioritize the CFP to give everyone enough time to prepare. As soon as I have more to share I will
technically you spend 400 points per quarter to maintain ambassador status (or 2000 to maintain expert ambassador status)… but that’s it. there’s been talk over the years about additional ways to leverage points, or to add additional benefits to ambassador/expert ambassador status, but no traction on any of those.
realistically, there’s very minimal benefit to maintaining expert status, and it seems anyone with an AI prompt can quickly achieve ambassador status these days, so it seems strange that an opportunity exclusively for verified experts (many of whom have historically been among the most vocal in the community) to earn a decent chunk of points (which, notably, cost sailpoint nothing*) in exchange for a significant amount of work (coming up with a topic, writing a paper, making a presentation, flying across the country for a few days away from family and work, recording the presentation, and answering viewer questions) is being nerfed. consider also that people who work for sailpoint customers (rather than partners) would potentially have additional hurdles to clear (PR/legal approval to represent their employer, etc.) and may have to use PTO to do this since there’s no real benefit to their employer like there is for folks who work for sailpoint partners (who have a different set of incentives).
honestly, even 1500 points seems a bit weird… presenting at developer days should, in my opinion, qualify someone for expert ambassador for at least the next year until the next DD event.
*while tenants do have a cost, the incremental cost of expert ambassador perks over ambassador perks is negligible at best
I don’t participate nearly as much as ambassadors or expert ambassadors and I am in full agreement with you. Unfortunately, there is no surprise in seeing this happen. I was quite shocked when I obtained my engineer certification that it didn’t even qualify me for a tenant. I saw little to no benefit to keeping the 2-year certification unless required by my employer. If I need to obtain the new certification again one day, I guess I will take the course. Monetization comes for all areas unfortunately.
I cannot overstate how much we appreciate your contributions and how much you have done and continue to do for this community. We would not be here without you. I completely understand why some of you may feel that a reduction in points means a reduction in value-seen. That is not the case. The blatant truth is that I lost sight of what you know vs what I know.
The DevRel team and I are hard at work making this awesome program even bigger and better than it already is. We are very much in the ideas phase and nothing is set in stone yet. We had planned to have a call with you all to lay out our plans for the program and ask for feedback in February or March. However, we needed to get the DevDays CFP out the door asap to give people time to prepare and time for our team to review the submissions. I chose to include the point value in the post because I felt it’s information people would want to have prior to putting work into submitting a talk idea. But without all the context of what I know, I understand how it felt like a big sudden and negative change. I apologize for the misstep in communication and any concerns it has caused.
As for next steps, I have scheduled a call for the 27th of January (Ambassadors - be on the lookout for an invite tomorrow) where the Ambassadors and the DevRel team will discuss how many points certain activities are worth as well as how we can better recognize and reward the Expert Ambassadors for their above and beyond contributions to the community.
I also wanted to explain why we are doing DevDays in a hotel this year. The Austin HQ is undergoing major renovations to make the space better for hosting events such as DevDays. As a result we will have to have it in a hotel this year but next year we should have an awesome new space in HQ to use.
We truly appreciate the feedback we’ve received. We take your opinions very seriously. We are looking forward to reading all of your amazing CFP submissions!
