A Vibrant Hub of Connection and Community Building
Authors: Alex Morus, Alexandru Tudor, Andreea Dragomirescu, Andrei-Cornel Porumb, Catalin Stan, Cornel-Dumitru Petrescu, George Patrascu, Nicu Murgu, Sergiu Petrescu & William Sarivan
DevTalks Bucharest 2025, held at Romexpo’s pavilion at the beginning of this month, proved to be one of Romania’s most significant tech events. With eight dedicated stages covering a wide array of domains — Java, Web, Mobile, Big Data & Cloud, Game Development, Security, Women in Tech, and especially Artificial Intelligence — the conference brought together thousands of IT professionals, developers, and tech enthusiasts under one roof.
The venue was spacious and well-suited for a large-scale event, comfortably accommodating the high volume of attendees and company booths. AI dominated the agenda, with a significant number of presentations exploring its rapid evolution and implications for the future of engineering.
It was the first time Criteo sponsored this event, and we are pretty happy with our participation and contribution. Our booth, in particular, stood out as a hub of activity. Positioned in a high-visibility area, it attracted a steady stream of visitors. Many attendees were unfamiliar with Criteo beforehand, but the team’s engaging presence and informative conversations left a strong impression. Visitors showed genuine interest in the company’s culture, open roles, and technical practices — especially after Sylvain’s well-received presentation on Criteo’s design system, which sparked follow-up discussions at the booth.
We take immense pride in the team we sent to the event. Their efforts significantly elevated Criteo R&D’s visibility and awareness. We ran out of goodies (who doesn’t love a shiny spin!) and brochures. A special shout-out goes to our Events team, led by Carla, who expertly managed logistics and booth design. Additionally, our talented TAs, Mary and Nare, made valuable connections with the local community in Bucharest.
The event also served as a valuable networking platform. Team members reconnected with former colleagues, explored potential collaborations for future events, and even discovered personal opportunities — like a robotics training program for a colleague’s daughter, highlighting the event’s broader community impact.
Criteo on the Web Stage
Besides the booth, we contributed to the conference with a talk on the Web Stage delivered by one of our tech speakers, Sylvain Dedieu. The topic: Is really implementing your own design system a good move… or a bad idea?
Sylvain’s talk focused on the advantages and challenges of implementing a company-wide Design System. At Criteo, we developed our own and built a component library on top of it, which Sylvain’s team maintains. This experience allowed him to share valuable insights on optimizing a Design System and avoiding common pitfalls during development.
It was amazing to see a full room with an engaged audience and lots of great feedback. Sylvain managed to get the attention of many participants, leading to all kinds of conversations at the booth. And, yes, since Sylvain is really passionate about this, he didn’t hesitate to open the laptop and walk people through real code.
Talks highlighted by our team
Before we dive into the talks, it’s essential to acknowledge a significant reality: AI is omnipresent. Indeed, it permeates conferences at every level. While many find this topic fascinating due to its relevance, others may perceive it as somewhat redundant and repetitive.
This emphasis on AI serves to enhance our understanding of its expanding influence and the transformative power it wields across various industries. However, there were moments when AI seemed to overshadow other equally important topics, leaving less space for diverse discussions.
WebAssembly and WASM Components
Speaker: Alexandru Bularca, Senior System Architect — EveryMatrix
The presentation provided a comprehensive overview of how WebAssembly (WASM) has evolved into a foundational technology for both high-performance web applications and modern back-end development.
It began with a historical context, tracing WASM’s journey from its early days to the recent introduction of the Component Model. This model enables developers to create modular components that can be written in different languages, compiled as separate modules, and seamlessly integrated via the WASM Interface Type (WIT) into a shared runtime. This innovation not only promotes language inclusivity and runtime uniformity but also eliminates the need for complex glue code, significantly reducing deployment size and startup times.
The session offered valuable insights into the future of web development, highlighting WASM’s potential to enhance performance while enabling scalable, efficient, and secure systems across browsers, servers, cloud, and edge environments.
Dare Mighty Things: Five Key Lessons I’ve Learned
Speaker: Kate Edwards
Kate’s career journey is truly fascinating, spanning roles as an astronaut and writer, a conceptual artist for Star Wars, a geographer at Microsoft working on Encarta, a geopolitical strategist, a gaming consultant, and, ultimately, a founder. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing about the various cultural challenges she faced and the innovative strategies she employed to navigate them.
One notable example was her creation of a game world inspired by a historical event where Japan invaded Korea. To cater to the Korean audience, they launched a tailored version of the game that reversed the narrative. Additionally, she shared a story about how to delight users by incorporating Mexican costumes for game characters during the launch, coinciding with “Día de los Muertos.”
As our world becomes increasingly interconnected, understanding and respecting cultural differences is more crucial than ever, especially for international companies like Criteo.
Safeguarding the software supply chain: addressing the rise of AI tools in attacks
Speaker: Steve Poole
Steve discussed various scenarios in which malicious actors might exploit AI. These include leveraging hallucinated package names to create actual malware-laden packages, executing benevolent stranger attacks by gaining trust within an open-source codebase, and subsequently using that trust as an entry point for attacks. Additionally, he highlighted the risks associated with targeting build tools and CI/CD runners.
As he emphasized, while we will undoubtedly harness AI for its benefits, we must remain vigilant, as hackers are utilizing the same tools at our disposal.
Deploying LLMs: agents, reasoning, and what’s next for AI
Speaker: Teodora Musatoiu, Solutions Architect EMEA — OpenAI
The speaker discussed the deployment of OpenAI’s latest models in addressing real-world challenges on a large scale. The session emphasized the application of AI in optimizing operations, enhancing customer experiences, and developing innovative workflows.
A key example featured the use of AI agents for planning and booking a vacation in Tokyo. In this scenario, three distinct types of agents were utilized: a finance agent for budget management, a tourism agent for trip organization, and a computer interaction agent that navigates websites to book flights and hotels, mimicking human behavior. These agents collaborated seamlessly to manage everything from financial planning to reservations, demonstrating how AI can simplify intricate tasks and elevate user experience by automating various elements of the planning and booking process.
How Banking Technology ensured a smooth transition from monolith to distributed systems — a developer’s perspective
Speaker: Andreea Trupcea — ING Bank Romania
Andreea shared her valuable insights regarding the significant evolution of a bank’s operational framework, specifically highlighting the transition from a traditional monolithic architecture to a more modern distributed systems approach.
This shift was made possible by leveraging an internal framework that is built upon industry-standard tools, which are widely recognized for their effectiveness and reliability in the field. It was truly impressive to witness how this transformation has not only facilitated improved scalability but has also fostered enhanced team autonomy.
Additionally, this evolution has led to a more seamless integration among various services, ultimately contributing to a more efficient and responsive banking environment.
Front-End Innovation at Scale: Designing UIs for Multi-Tenant Cloud Environments
Speaker: Yoana Boyanova, R&D Manager — Broadcom
This presentation focused on the critical aspects of developing user interfaces that are not only secure but also highly customizable and scalable. These interfaces are specifically designed to cater to multiple tenants who share the same backend infrastructure, which is a common requirement in modern software applications. A significant emphasis was placed on the implementation of dynamic role-based access and permission management, ensuring that users have appropriate access levels based on their roles within the system.
Furthermore, the presentation highlighted the importance of UI extensibility, which can be achieved through various innovative approaches such as micro frontends, npm libraries, iFrames, and plugins. These methods allow for greater flexibility and adaptability in user interface design, enabling developers to create tailored experiences for different user groups. Additionally, VMware’s Cloud UI Extensibility framework was discussed, which is built using Angular and Clarity. This framework provides a robust foundation for developers to extend and enhance user interfaces, ensuring that they meet the diverse needs of multiple tenants effectively.
Overall, DevTalks Bucharest 2025 was a resounding success for Criteo. The team’s enthusiasm, visibility, and meaningful interactions helped raise brand awareness and fostered connections that may lead to future growth in the Romanian tech ecosystem.
They were two days filled with learning, sharing, and pride in representing the company on such a vibrant stage.
Join our team in Bucharest and be part of the crew at the next conference! 👉 https://bit.ly/rnd-jobs-bucharest
