Melbourne MLOps Community

We are stoked to announce our next Melbourne MLOps Community Meetup of the year!

We are bringing you an absolute powerhouse lineup featuring two industry heavyweights. We will dive deep into tracking ML/DS performance using high-impact business metrics over raw statistical metrics. We will also tackle the AI coding productivity paradox and the high-stakes build-vs-buy SaaS dilemma.

🎤 Speakers

We’re thrilled to introduce:

- Nathanael Lampe, Machine Learning Manager at Bunnings Warehouse. Nat is widely recognised as one of the most brilliant, deeply technical data science leaders. He brings an elite background in advanced data science, now driving the core Data Science team at Bunnings. In his talk, Data & Decisions, Nat will explain how in ML, we often focus on model accuracy but it’s a lot harder to measure the decisions a model supports. When we can anchor our ML practice in true business metrics, we are better equipped to ensure analytics projects succeed.

- Javier Candeira, Fractional CTO at Infoplumbing.
Javier is a distinguished veteran of the data, software, and tech consultancy scenes. He brings many years of battle-tested technical and business experience to guiding teams through today's volatile AI landscape.
His talk titled: The Buy/Build Dilemma and the Agentic Productivity Paradox addresses three red-hot issues in the MLOps community:

1. Local LLM inference and tooling for small scale teams. What is too much local MLOps for a 1-5 person shop? Is local inference only a cost saver, or are there also capabilies unlocked by the finer-grained control afforded by operating one’s own models?

2. The Buy/Build dilemma. This is a question for every company, from small SaaS to big corporate. The abundance of LLM coding tools shifts the balance. How?

3. The Productivity Paradox: If Agentic Coding and LLM autocomplete are so great, where are the great new products? Where’s the programmer productivity going?

Javier will showcase some of his NixOS-based MLOps-for-one tools, and will attempt to progress the conversation on these three questions with his own reflections based on personal experience.

Networking

The Melbourne MLOps Community is committed to fostering a space where AI/ML engineers and practitioners can connect, exchange ideas, and build meaningful relationships.

Come ready to discuss:

• The tools you’re experimenting with
• Trends you’re seeing in ML and MLOps
• Challenges you’re tackling
• Ways to find peer support

We’ll have food, drinks, and the perfect space for great conversations — so feel free to bring along anyone interested in ML, MLOps, or AI more broadly.

Agenda

🍕 5:30pm – Networking, drinks & food
🙋 6:00pm – Welcome
🎤 6:10pm – Presentation by Nathanael
❓ 6:30pm – Questions for Nathanael
🎤 6:40pm – Presentation by Javier
❓ 7:00pm – Questions for Javier
🍻 7:10pm onwards – Networking, drinks & food
We’re looking forward to seeing you there!