Code Europe moves to Warsaw

After nine editions across Tricity, Kraków, and Warsaw, the 2026 edition of Code Europe lands in Warsaw on 15 September 2026, with Day 1 broadcasting online the day before. The move is one of the biggest changes to the festival’s logistics in a decade, and it’s worth being direct about the reasoning.

This wasn’t a 2025 decision. We started planning the Warsaw move in 2023, after two editions where the operational picture made the case for us. International speakers were spending too much of their travel time getting in and out of Poland. Attendees outside southern Poland were treating Code Europe as a destination trip rather than a working day. Much of the engineering employer base we work with is concentrated in and around Warsaw. And, to be transparent about it, our own organization is headquartered in Warsaw too, which means the team running the festival is now in the same city as the venue. That removes a category of operational friction nobody on the outside should have to care about, but that we definitely do. The decision was made in 2023; the execution took until 2026 because moving a conference of this scale isn’t something you do on twelve months’ notice.

What’s changing, and what isn’t

Warsaw on-site, Day 2, 15 September. Day 1 stays online, 14 September, reaching CEE-wide. The three-track format carries forward: AI Engineering & Data, Cloud, DevOps & Platform Engineering, and Software Architecture & Engineering Excellence. The booth and exhibition format carries forward. The audience profile carries forward, too: 81% of 2025 attendees had 5+ years of professional experience, and we expect the Warsaw edition to push that number higher, not lower.

What changes is the logistical center of gravity.

Why Warsaw, specifically

International connectivity. Warsaw is by far the most internationally connected city in Poland. Chopin Airport is LOT Polish Airlines’ main hub and the entry point for long-haul routes from the Americas, the Middle East, and East Asia, the routes the international speaker pool we want on Polish stages actually flies. Cutting an extra connection off a speaker’s itinerary isn’t a small thing when you’re asking someone to fly in from San Francisco or Seattle for two days.

Domestic centrality. Warsaw sits in the middle of Poland’s rail network. Attendees from Gdańsk, Poznań, Wrocław, Łódź, Lublin, and the Tricity belt can reach Warsaw and return same-day. From Kraków that calculus is harder for everyone north of the country.

Employer concentration. Polish tech employers, both the multinationals running engineering hubs here and the local product companies, are disproportionately concentrated in Warsaw. The recruiting and partnership conversations that happen in the booth area on Day 2 are more efficient when the companies and the candidates already live in the same metropolitan area. For a senior engineer based in Warsaw, attending Code Europe is now a commute rather than a trip.

Venue scale. Warsaw’s venue market gives us room to grow the on-site footprint without compromising the on-site experience. We’re not chasing 5,000 attendees, since the audience profile we care about isn’t infinitely scalable, but we want headroom to grow the booth area and the networking moments without crowding the technical sessions.

A note on Kraków

Kraków hosted Code Europe through the 2021 to 2025 editions and was a great home for the festival. The city’s tech community is real, the venues we worked with were excellent, and the audience that traveled to Kraków every year built the foundation everything else stands on. Moving the on-site edition north isn’t a judgment on Kraków. It’s a choice driven by where our international speakers come from and where our sponsor companies are headquartered.

We expect a portion of the Kraków-based audience will still travel for the on-site day. The train from Kraków to Warsaw is around 2.5 hours; same-day return is workable, and the after-party doesn’t make the last train tight. For those who can’t make Warsaw on Day 2, Day 1 remains online and free of geographic constraints.

Day 1 stays online, by design

Day 1 isn’t a consolation prize for people who can’t get to Warsaw. It’s a deliberate broadcast day: keynotes, panels, and partner lecture slots streamed across CEE, with sessions available live and on-demand afterward. For attendees, it’s the reach-and-context day before the on-site day. For partners, it’s the thought-leadership broadcast that complements the in-person recruitment work on Day 2. The two days are designed to do different things; they’re not interchangeable.

What this means for partners and attendees

For partners, Warsaw means more of the conversations you came for happen at your booth, not in a hotel lobby afterward. The candidate density and the local employer density both move in your favor.

For attendees, Warsaw means less travel friction, broader speaker access, and a venue built for a single, sharp on-site day.

For speakers, Warsaw means one connection instead of two for most international itineraries, and a Polish capital with the infrastructure to host an event you’d recommend to your peers.

Tickets and the partner program are open at codeeurope.pl. See you on 14 and 15 September.