What Speaking at Cloud Native Rejekts Europe 2026 Taught Me

This article recounts the author's experience speaking at Cloud Native Rejekts Europe 2026 in Amsterdam, a community-driven conference focused on cloud-native technologies. The author highlights the event's emphasis on genuine, non-commercial discussions among engineers and practitioners. Their talk, 'Sherlock Pods: Investigating a Compromised Kubernetes Cluster,' addressed the uncomfortable reality that many teams are unprepared for incident response in Kubernetes. The article covers practical insights shared, such as container checkpointing limitations and operational complexities, and notes how conversations naturally evolved toward automation and AI agents for security workflows. It underscores the value of testing ideas and receiving real feedback in a collaborative environment.