Tech Events at Department Bonded Warehouse, Manchester

with Simon Painter (Speaker, Dot Net North)

Dot Net North's August meetup takes on a common misconception: that machine learning has to be done in Python. Simon Painter walks through solving Kaggle's classic Titanic survival challenge end-to-end using Visual Studio, C# and ML.NET — showing that you can produce high-quality ML results without leaving the .NET stack. A practical, code-along evening for .NET developers curious about applied machine learning, held at the Department Bonded Warehouse in Castlefield.

Software Crafters Manchester (2,300+ members) hosts a war-stories evening on managing scale and the $750 cloud bill that prompted a rethink. Practical engineering talk plus drinks and networking at Department in the Bonded Warehouse — a reliable monthly fixture for senior engineers.

The Architecting Manchester meetup returns to Bonded Warehouse with a session on what it actually takes to build and run AI-powered systems at scale — architecture patterns, trade-offs, the unglamorous parts. Follow-up to March's sold-out session.

Software Crafters Manchester returns with a practitioner lab on how quality disciplines are evolving as AI is embedded into the engineering workflow. A working session — not a talk — for engineers wrestling with copilots, test generation, and delivery confidence in AI-assisted code. Bring laptops, bring questions.

Dot Net North's monthly meetup tackles the intersection of open source and AI — when should developers rely on libraries versus generating code with AI, and what this means for OSS maintainers. Speaker: Lotte Pitcher, Head of Developer Relations at Umbraco and 3x Microsoft MVP. 61 RSVPs. Catering by Morson Edge.

Software Crafters Manchester's community problem-solving format — this session focused on engineers growing into leadership roles. Bring your real challenges, share experiences, leave with ideas. No slides, just conversation. Pizza and drinks provided.

Architecting Manchester returns to its discussion-group roots to tackle the defining question of the moment: as AI slashes the cost of generating code, does intentional architecture matter more or less? Led by Simon Kirkham of Partful, the session covers governance tools, rapid code generation implications and the evolving architect's role. Sold out — 40 confirmed, 26 on the waitlist.