DEVUP lands in India

DEVUP Hyderabad has officially kicked off for the first time in India, bringing together top engineers from across JPMorganChase for a unique event designed for developers, by developers.

Launched in 2022, DEVUP is our annual technology conference where hundreds of engineers gather for three days of engineering excellence. After three successful events in the US, DEVUP is now taking place in India, which houses one third of our total technology workforce.

During these three days, participants exemplify engineering excellence as they engage in strategic problem-solving, hear from speakers on hot topics, and connect with a global network of like-minded peers.

Lori Beer, our Global Chief Information Officer, delivered an inspiring keynote address, emphasizing the firm’s unwavering commitment to fostering a top engineering community that sets us apart in the industry.

“Technology is changing fast, and it’s changing the world fast. This means we must reinvigorate and reimagine how we work, and continuous learning is a necessity," Lori said.

Welcoming the global technology leaders to DEVUP Hyderabad, Vibhavari Jahagirdar, Head of Global Technology for India, co-lead for Global Post Trade Technology, said the most fascinating aspect of DEVUP is that it is a conference by the developers for the developers. Vibha added that together, we achieve far more than any individual effort and that is the key to the firm's success. 

DEVUP Hyderabad is an incredible catalyst for this upskilling, offering software engineers an invaluable opportunity to connect, learn, apply and grow. We’re also having a great time together, celebrating with traditional dancers, an expo, and various networking receptions.

Here’s a peek into some of the topics we’re discussing on the ground.

Social impact at DEVUP with a hackathon relay!

By Anitha Kaveri Pratap and Mridula Nair, Tech for Social Good Leaders, India & APAC

This week, DEVUP participants brought the spirit of the conference’s theme, “Connect, learn, apply and grow,” to the technology for social impact space. Technologists participated in a Hackathon Relay to enhance the technology platforms that non-profit organizations rely on.

As they collaborated and competed, DEVUP attendees also took advantage of an opportunity to develop tech solutions to support underserved communities, Thalassemia patients in need of blood donation, and STEM skills development programs for youth.

The relay event gave participants 45-minute slots to ideate and think of ways to improve the social good organization's technology platform. In these windows, they ideated potential functionalities and features, brainstorming valuable tech additions to existing platforms and making blueprints for bringing these ideas to scale.

In the final phase of the relay, participants created an elevator pitch to define their objectives, solutions and impact of their ideas. These ideas and pitches are voted on by DEVUP Hyderabad attendees, with winning teams receiving an award for their innovative thinking.

From Silicon Valley to sustainability: Tech's recipe for sustainable change

By Sandhya Koravi, Sravani Chakravartula, Ganesh Veeramani, Consumer & Community Banking, India and US

Our project, "From Silicon Valley to Sustainability: Tech's Recipe for Sustainable Change," which we shared at DEVUP Hyderabad, is all about rethinking how we use technology to make the world a better place by adopting sustainable practices.

This project encourages developers to see the impact of every feature and line of code they create. It’s about making sustainability a key part of how we design software, from the features we choose to the way we manage data and infrastructure. By asking whether each feature is truly necessary and finding ways to use resources more efficiently, developers can help contribute to a more sustainable future.

The project suggests practical steps like using energy-efficient tools, taking advantage of pre-trained models, and making models smaller and more efficient. It shows that even a small improvement in how we write code—just 10% better—can have an in impact on reducing carbon emissions.

One exciting part of the project is adding a carbon emissions check into the development process, so developers can keep an eye on emissions.

Overall, this project is a call to action for everyone in tech to work together and talk about how we can make our industry more sustainable. It’s about making smart, sustainable choices that not only improve our technology but also can support a more sustainable future.

Data is the most important asset—how can we protect it?

By Dilyana Savcheva, Craig McAlister, Sri Latha Settipalli, Asset & Wealth Management, London

In the realm of data distribution systems, safeguarding data through robust access controls is crucial to prevent unauthorized access. Despite existing technologies, continuous monitoring of these controls, especially in federated models, remains challenging. To address this, our teams formed a partnership with a code search and navigation tool to create a solution for ongoing observability of data access controls. The tool’s capabilities, including querying across repositories and AI-assisted code generation, facilitate the identification and rectification of security misconfigurations.

This solution is adaptable, supporting various use cases and is scalable across platforms, enabling monitoring of authorization standards and legacy technology upgrades. The platform, a federated data distribution system, connects over 50 Systems of Records (SORs) to numerous applications and users, requiring consistent enforcement of access controls.

To ensure effective authorization monitoring, a serverless architecture leveraging the code search and navigation tool’s API was developed, performing automated checks on SORs to ensure proper authorization. This system has efficiently scanned over 50 code bases, prompting corrective actions for access controls to meet compliance requirements and mitigate data breach risks. The solution allows for real-time compliance checks, enhancing regulatory adherence and reducing potential costs and reputational damage from data misuse.

Breaking barriers: Navigating accessibility in cross-platform components

By Sandra Jurek, Kit Yee Lam, Teresa Wu, International Consumer Banking, London

In the digital world accessibility isn’t a ‘nice-to-have' – it’s essential. Everyone should be able to use a mobile app or website with ease, regardless of their abilities. In fact, it’s so important that many countries have introduced accessibility regulations to ensure digital products meet certain standards. From the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to the globally used Web Content Accessibility Standards (WCAG), these policies exist to guarantee a more inclusive experience for everyone. With 1 in 6 people worldwide experiencing some form of disability, accessibility is no longer about compliance – it’s about creating better experiences for all users.

Moreover, accessibility is increasingly becoming a legal obligation rather than just best practice. Many governments are introducing laws mandating compliance with accessibility standards. Failing to meet these requirements can lead to fines, lawsuits and reputational damage. Accessibility is no longer just good practice, but a critical factor in product sustainability and success.

In the past, building truly accessible applications often meant creating separate implementations for each platform. While this allowed for deep integration with built-in accessibility features, it also led to duplicate efforts and slower delivery.

To streamline development, we first explored a solution focused on mobile, which allowed us to share code between iOS and Android, while still leveraging native capabilities. As our needs expanded beyond mobile, we turned to a framework we could use to build for multiple platforms – web included – while staying aligned with technologies familiar to web and mobile developers.

This approach allows us to deliver a consistent, high-quality experience across platforms, while ensuring that users benefit from native accessibility features. Sometimes it means creating platform-specific variations of components, to align with built-in assistive technologies for web and mobile, but the result is a more familiar and inclusive experience for everyone.