Elevate Your Drupal Expertise: Sessions for Senior Developers at DrupalCon Atlanta 2025

This blog has been posted and edited with permission from Nadiia Nykolaichuk.

DrupalCon is a flagship event for everyone in the Drupal community, and developers are a huge part of the action. With DrupalCon Atlanta 2025 just around the corner, let’s take a look at what’s in store for these tech-savvy minds — especially the seasoned masters of the craft: senior developers.

There’s plenty to get involved in — contributing to Drupal’s future in code sprints, showing off your knowledge at Drupal Trivia Night, or grabbing cool swag from sponsors. But at the heart of the event? Insightful and thought-provoking sessions! 

If you’ve been building Drupal sites for years, you know that learning never stops. Staying ahead means keeping up with the latest innovations, tackling tough challenges, and exchanging ideas with fellow experts. DrupalCon 2025 is your chance to do exactly that — hear from top Drupal minds, ask the hard questions, and dive into discussions that push your skills further. Here’s a handpicked selection designed to challenge, inspire, and get you excited as a senior developer for 24-27 March.

Top sessions for senior developers at DrupalCon Atlanta 2025

“The future of Drupal core in the age of Drupal CMS” — by Gábor Hojtsy

Drupal CMS has been making waves, offering a fresh, flexible approach to building with Drupal. With Drupal CMS 1.0 officially released and work on version 2.0 already in motion, big questions are emerging about the future of Drupal core.

Will Drupal 12 simply be Drupal CMS? Well… yes and no. But what does that really mean? How will Drupal continue to support essential use cases like headless architectures, social, and e-commerce? And what about developers and other personas not directly in Drupal CMS’s focus — what changes can they expect?

When there are many questions, listen to the tech-savvy person behind many of Drupal’s innovations. Gábor Hojtsy, Drupal core committer and initiative coordinator, knows the answers. He always brings fresh perspectives and shares insights you might not have heard before.

Attend his session for a deep dive into the role of Drupal CMS in the entire ecosystem and the technical evolution of Drupal core. You’ll understand how this should impact long-term development strategies and how to adapt to the changing landscape.

“The Future of Drupal Theming: AI, Experience Builder, and Beyond” — by Mike Herchel

Drupal’s theming layer has evolved significantly in recent years, with new Twig filters, theme generation tools, and Single Directory Components making front-end development smoother than ever. But the biggest changes are still ahead.

With the introduction of Experience Builder and modern AI-driven tools, theming in Drupal is about to take a giant leap forward. How will these innovations reshape the way you build and style Drupal sites?

Immerse yourself in all the details at this session with Mike Herchel (mherchel), Drupal core committer, and the creator of the Olivero front-end theme. You’ll get a practical look at what’s coming in the next era of Drupal theming. Mike will share how to develop components for Experience Builder, where AI fits into your frontend process, and what should (and shouldn’t) be a component. Plus, you’ll pick up best practices to avoid unnecessary code bloat and ensure your work stands the test of time.

As a senior developer, you’re certainly already familiar with the quirks, strengths, and challenges of Drupal theming. This knowledge should be very helpful for getting the most out of the session. 

“Leveraging GitLab CI for contributions” — by Deepak Mishra and Ankit Pathak

Having a smooth and efficient development workflow can make all the difference. Automation is key to keeping things running smoothly. Here is where GitLab CI/CD comes in — a Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery system built into GitLab. It automates the process of testing, building, and deploying your code.

The session by Deepak Mishra (deepakkm) and Ankit Pathak (ankitv18) will show you how to harness the power of GitLab CI/CD. You’ll explore how to set up a GitLab CI pipeline, run automated quality assurance checks, manage deployments, and handle merge requests.

Say goodbye to repetitive manual tasks and deployment headaches and embrace better collaboration with other developers. With practical tips from this session, you’ll level up your workflow, making your development process faster, smoother, and more reliable.

The session will focus on using GitLab CI/CD for contributions to drupal.org, so Deepak and Ankit will demonstrate the best practices in this area. However, the knowledge you obtain will be helpful in your client projects, too.

“Creating Composer aware modules with Drupal core’s new Package Manager module” — by Ted Bowman

Have you heard about Package Manager — a new experimental module in Drupal core that provides an API for interacting with Composer? It’s the key tool behind such innovative solutions as Project Browser and Automatic Updates, running Composer behind the scenes and allowing users to rely on the admin dashboard.

If you are curious about its work or want to build a module that performs Composer operations or integrates with Project Browser or Automatic Updates, here is a can’t-miss session. Who better to guide you through this than Ted Bowman (tedbow), Drupal core committer and the maker of Automatic Updates?

Using the example modules that rely on the Package Manager API, Ted will demonstrate the steps to implementing various features:

  • making a simple form for installing modules by project name or URL
  • cleaning up unused packages from your codebase
  • showing detailed information about Project Browser’s work
  • controlling which modules can be installed with Project Browser

You’ll also learn how to build user-friendly interfaces for Composer operations, customize Composer tasks with the Package Manager’s event system, retrieve detailed package information, and much more.

“Mixing the Schema.org Blueprints module into a Drupal Recipe to bake a sweet content model” — by Jacob Rockowitz

Structured data helps search engines better understand the content of a web page, leading to richer search results. Schema.org markup is a reliable way to achieve this goal. Want to be equipped with the best tools and practices for using it? Then read on.

In this DrupalCon session, you’ll get a look at two exciting, innovative solutions for building and managing structured content:

  • First, the Schema.org Blueprints module offers a great way to define content using schema.org standards. Jacob Rockowitz (jrockowitz), the speaker of the session, is the creator of the Schema.org Blueprints module, as well as of the famous Webform module.
  • But what if you could take that content model and arrange it into a ready-to-use package? That’s where Drupal Recipes come in — a ground-breaking innovation in Drupal for creating pre-configured functionalities and easily adding them to any new or existing Drupal project.

This session will show you how to combine the power of both. You’ll see a demo of how to build structured content types, as well as hierarchical content and organization charts.

“Collecting Data in Drupal When Internet is Unstable: Browser Local Storage and Service Workers” — by Nia Kathoni and Daniel Cothran

Drupal Recipes deserve a dedicated session in your schedule. They have really revolutionized how feature sets are added to websites. You can now pre-package the necessary modules and configurations in flexible ways, without being locked into the constraints of a specific distribution. Recipes can be applied, mixed, matched, and updated to meet the evolving needs of your website.

Introduced as experimental in Drupal 10.3, the Recipes APIs laid the foundation for Drupal CMS. Since then, the team has been refining the code base and gathering valuable feedback. DrupalCon Atlanta 2025 is the perfect opportunity to hear exclusive insights from the team.

If you are curious about one of Drupal Recipes, join Jim Birch (thejimbirch), the architect behind this solution. In his session, Jim will update you on the progress of the phase 2 roadmap of the Drupal Recipes Initiative. He will also delve into important topics such as config actions, default content, config checkpoints, and the process of creating recipes. Plus, he’ll explore idempotency — ensuring configurations remain reliable and consistent, no matter how many times they are applied.

Or maybe you’re ready to roll up your sleeves and help shape the next chapter? This session has a strong contribution focus, bringing together maintainers and contributors. You’ll learn how you can get involved with the Drupal Recipes Initiative.

“Supply Chain Security in Drupal and Composer” — by Christopher Gervais, Tim Hestenes Lehnen, and Neil Drumm

There can never be too much talk about security — especially when it comes to securing software supply chains. A software supply chain ensures that all the necessary software elements (like libraries, modules, or tools) are in place and function properly together. 

Join this DrupalCon Atlanta 2025 session to discover more about supply chains and how to protect them from unauthorized access. You’ll be introduced to the nature of supply chain attacks and understand Drupal’s vulnerability to such threats. You will also gain insight into how Composer, along with services like packagist.org and Private Packagist, fits into the supply chain, and the crucial role PHP dependencies play in securing your project.

Next, the session will cover the Automatic Updates Initiative, one of the Drupal Association’s most impactful efforts to ensure websites stay up to date and secure. You’ll also be introduced to essential tools for bolstering security, including:

  • the Update Framework (TUF), which ensures that packages are safe and have not been tampered with before download
  • the PHP-TUF Composer Integration Plugin, which adds an extra layer of security by verifying modules, themes, and profiles downloaded from drupal.org
  • the Rugged TUF Server, which safeguards signing keys and supports the drupal.org packaging pipeline

The session will be led by Christopher Gervais (ergonlogic), Tim Hestenes Lehnen (hestenet), and Neil Drumm (drumm). They are renowned Drupal experts and active contributors to the Drupal Security Team, Automatic Updates, Drupal core, and more. This makes them perfectly suited to guide you through supply chain security.

Driesnote by Dries Buytaert

The central keynote at DrupalCon, Driesnote, is always something to look forward to. If there’s anyone at the event who hasn’t yet heard of Dries Buytaert, it certainly won’t be you. As a senior developer, you know Dries will keep you up to date with Drupal’s latest developments, and you will never want to miss his presentation.

Your experience has already shown you how quickly technology evolves, and Driesnote is the perfect opportunity to see Drupal’s momentum in action. Dries will share what’s next for the platform, including what’s in store for developers like you. This talk will give you a clear view of where Drupal is headed — whether it’s new features, tools, or improvements in how the platform works. Furthermore, based on past Driesnotes, even the most seasoned developers might find themselves completely amazed by the demos Dries has in store.

You’ll understand how the latest changes might impact your projects moving forward and how you can make the most of them. It’s a fantastic opportunity to stay ahead of the curve and connect with the Drupal community.

Final thoughts

Make sure to grab your ticket to the biggest Drupal gathering, where these and plenty of other great sessions are waiting for you. After enjoying this adventure, you’ll leave Atlanta with fresh techniques, smart solutions, and a stronger bond with fellow Drupal enthusiasts — fueling your work long after the event ends.