Our History 
Handmade is an international community of systems programmers of all ages. The mission is to encourage a deep understanding of computers to build higher quality software.
Handmade Seattle was inspired by the Handmade Hero series which hosted Handmade Con twice. With the hero’s blessing we’ve taken over as the spiritual successor, and now compete as the world’s best systems programming conference.
We are a hybrid conference and each year we host hundreds of engineers at the Seattle Center with tens of thousands of viewers on live-stream.
Our Philosophy 
Handmade Seattle operates on three principles:
1. Operate Independently
We are independent: we depend on ticket sales and donations to survive. We also rent job booths to some companies, but on the condition they never influence how the event is organized.
Why is that?
Abner rejects sponsorship deals because we must scrutinize everyone’s software, often unfavorably. Accepting “free” bags of money compromises one’s ability to challenge the status quo.
2. Online Attendees as First-Class Citizens
Most conferences handle the online portion as an afterthought (and that’s IF they handle it at all.) Handmade Seattle famously supports a hybrid model that leaves virtual attendees quite satisfied:
- Our events are live-streamed in HD. Closed captioning is used wherever possible.
- Everyone participates in Q&A sessions using our private chat server. This requirement applies to physical attendees.
- Job recruiters must host both a physical booth and a virtual booth. Therefore you have equal access to employers hiring candidates.
3. Stop the Mining
No one at our events should ever be spied on.
Private Chat Server: We self-host a Matrix server and encrypt private conversations by default.
Keep It In-House: Whatever’s essential to the conference is processed in-house. For example, when you buy a ticket we personally consume the payment notification to generate your ticket – cutting out middlemen like Ticketmaster.
We properly own our newsletter data and publish our recordings for free and without ads.
Contact Us
Need help? Send us a note:
Email: abner@handmade-seattle.com
HANDMADE SEATTLE LLC
1037 NE 65TH ST #110
Seattle WA, 98115