The 13th edition of BSides Tampa is happening tomorrow, Saturday May 16. It’s not too late to get tickets ($45 for general admission, $30 for students and military), and you can save 20% by using Tampa Devs’ discount code, TampaDevs20_BSIDESTAMPA_2026.
There are plenty of reasons to attend BSides Tampa, a cybersecurity conference that brings in 2,000+ attendees, including…
- Great keynotes and presentations across seven tracks: keynotes, red team, blue team, cloud security, GRC and privacy, appsec, and AI and emerging
- The exhibitor hall, where they don’t scan your badge, which means that you won’t get spammed as a result and they won’t sell your info
- Interactive villages: malware, social engineering, IOT, network, lockpicking
- A chance to meet the technology and cybersecurity professionals in the area, including these two…
But the most compelling reason I can think of to go is…
Let me repeat that:
80 percent of success is just showing up.
Let me illustrate with a story. Last May, techie-about-town Ammar Yusuf said he could hook me up with a free ticket to VueConf, which was taking place right here in Tampa.
I’d just come back from an expensive two-week trip, and I was still operating as an independent consultant. The spring and summer of 2025 were pretty slow; the well of clients was running dry.
I was strongly tempted to turn down the free ticket so I could devote more time and energy to finding my next job or client. Some might argue that it would be the smart thing to do.
But I decided to take the free ticket and go to VueConf instead, because I remembered all those times when showing up led to great things. Again, I remind you:
At VueConf, I met one of the organizers, Pratik Patel. When he came here in February, I decided to say hi and attend the Java User Group meetup where he gave a talk about AI architecture, pictured below:
I ended up chatting with Pratik, who then offered both me and Anitra free tickets to the Dev/Nexus conference in Atlanta that would take place a couple of weeks later. It was short notice, and Atlanta’s a 7+ hour drive from Tampa. But we remembered the rule:
So we went, learned a lot, and had a great time:
And while we were at Dev/Nexus, I ran into Pratik, who was walking the exhibitor floor with Venkat Subramaniam, who knows me because I show up to his talks whenever he comes to town.
Here’s the “Bollywood Buddy Movie Poster” photo taken at the meetup where I met Venkat:
When I ran into Pratik and Venkat at Dev/Nexus, Pratik suggested to Venkat that I speak at the Arc of AI conference that would take place the following month. Venkat thought that would be a good idea, and asked me to submit a couple of talk proposals. So I did, even though I was knee-deep in contract work and a job search, because…
My submissions got accepted, and the result was my talk about writing documentation and example code for consumption by AI agents:
…and I met a lot of people:
And here’s the kicker: not only did I get to meet new people and attend (and speak) at conferences, but all this helped me land my current job at NetFoundry. The fact that I’d managed to land a speaker gig at Arc of AI was a key point in my job interviews. And I wouldn’t have the key point for that interview if…
- I didn’t speak at Arc of AI, which wouldn’t have happened if
- I didn’t apply to speak at Arc of AI, which wouldn’t have happened if
- I didn’t go to Dev/Nexus, which wouldn’t have happened if
- I didn’t go to Pratik’s talk at the Tampa Java User Group meetup, which wouldn’t have happened if
- I didn’t go to VueConf with the free ticket Ammar gave me.
The lesson here is simple:
So if you don’t have prior commitments and you can afford to do so and you’re in a tech/tech-adjacent/cybersecurity/cybersecurity-adjacent field — and especially if you’re looking for work — consider going to BSides Tampa tomorrow, because you know what showing up can do for you!
Once again, ticket prices are:
- $45 for general admission
- $30 for students and military
…and you can save 20% by using Tampa Devs’ discount code, TampaDevs20_BSIDESTAMPA_2026.