Software Engineering Events in Bristol

Cowork Cafe is a social, game development-focused work group that encourages game devs of all skill levels and disciplines to come together and work on their individual projects.

Developers, programmers, artists, designers, anyone working on anything game related can stop by and jam out with us on their current project.

How it works:
Cowork Cafe is 3 hours of pure relaxed jam time, where we get into the groove, develop, colab, and chat about our projects all we want. We do try to keep our discussions to a small scale for those around us who are in the zone.

Feel free to show up or leave during Cowork Cafe at any time. And remember to BYOH (Bring Your Own Hardware)!

This event is hosted at Replay Cafe. Join us at Replay, a vibrant board game café in Bristol known for its welcoming vibe and creative energy. Drinks and food will be available at the bar throughout the evening.

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If you wanna chat games or have a question, join our Discord server. We look forward to seeing you and developing games!

📸 We may take some photos at Cowork Cafe for promotional purposes. The photos are likely to appear on our Discord. If you would prefer not to be photographed, no worries, just let us know at the event.

Software Crafters Bristol is back and we’re kicking things off in style!

We’re thrilled to relaunch in Bristol in partnership with Lloyds Banking Group, the UK’s largest digital bank, bringing you a hands-on Architecture Kata designed exclusively for this event.

Join us for a high-energy evening of collaboration, problem-solving, and real-world software architecture, hosted by senior engineering leads from Codurance alongside an experienced team of technologists from Lloyds Banking Group.

It’s a great opportunity to learn from some of the best in the industry while working through a practical, hands-on architecture challenge!

The Architecture Kata itself (if you’re not too familiar with the term, we just mean an Architectural challenge) has been designed by Lloyds Banking Group specifically for this event, so this is an opportunity to work on something that is truly unique.

This event is all about exploring software architecture in a fun and engaging way, so expect dynamic discussions, real-world scenarios, and plenty of takeaways to level up your knowledge of technical architecture and design.

What to expect

• Hands-on team challenge: You’ll be introduced to the problem, split into teams, and tasked with designing a solution architecture. No prior architecture experience needed… just curiosity and problem-solving.
• Real-world decision making: Navigate trade-offs, engage with a Product Owner, and make the kinds of decisions that shape real systems.
• Showcase and discussion: Present your ideas, compare approaches, and spark lively debate with others in the Bristol tech community.

This is your chance to sharpen your thinking, meet like-minded people, and experience solution architecture in a practical, engaging way.

Who should attend
Anyone in Bristol or the surrounding areas with an interest in software, engineering, or problem-solving, across all industries and experience levels.

Food and Drinks
Pizza and drinks will be provided upon arrival sponsored by Codurance, with vegetarian and vegan options available.

Want to bring a friend? Great! Just ask them to RSVP so we know they are coming.

Register today!

Come along to a very special edition of Service Design Bristol!

For this event, bestselling author, educator and service activist Lou Downe will be giving a special talk to introduce their new book 'Bad Services'.

Lou will be joined by a host of other amazing voices from the design community - including School of Good Services co-founder Sarah Drummond, returning Service Design Bristol speaker Charlie Fountaine, and the inspirational Rebekah Broughton.

Anyone interested in service design and human centred design is welcome whether you're an experienced or aspiring service designer, or just curious about what it's all about.

Timings

18:00 - Arrive and grab a seat
18:15 - Intro to the evening & our supporters
18:30 - Lou Downe, talk: 'Bad Services: How to fix services that don’t work'
19:00 - Discussions and audience questions with Lou Downe, Sarah Drummond, Rebekah Broughton, and Charlie Fountaine
19:45 - Talks end - TBC: A chance to buy Bad Services merch, or a signed book from Lou
20:00 - Exit the building - continue the chat in the pub!

About the talk

Bad Services: How to fix services that don’t work

Every year we spend an estimated 15 billion hours in the UK ‘administering our personal lives’.

That’s roughly an hour per day, or just over a month per year resetting our passwords, finding customer numbers and requesting refunds. Why, despite advances in technology, does it feel like the services we use are getting worse?

The answer is simple, but the solution isn't.

In this talk, bestselling author, educator and service activist Lou Downe demystifies the reasons why, despite our best efforts, most organisations struggle with the same five problems that stop them from providing services that work, and what we can do about it.

Part of the Bad Services book tour. New book out in late June.

🗣 About Lou Downe
Pronouns: they/he

Lou Downe is the author of Good Services, the bestselling book on how to design services that work and the founding director of the School of Good Services, an organisation that helps people to build the skills they need to design and scale great services.

They are the former Director of Design for the UK Government where they founded the discipline of service design, growing a 2000 strong team of designers into one of the largest, and most influential design teams in the UK - winning a Designs of the Year award and a D&AD lifetime achievement award.

Their new book, Bad Services, is out this June.

Links:
Good Services website
Bad Services book
Pre-order Bad Services at Waterstones, or Amazon

About our special guests

Sarah Drummond is a design leader, with a specialism in service and strategic design focusing on balancing the needs of people and planet. She is currently a director at The School of Good Services.

Sarah co-founded Snook, an award winning design studio and led the company as CEO for over 12 years and went on to take a role as the Chief Digital Officer at NEC. Sarah was given an honorary doctorate from the Glasgow School of Art for services to design in 2019, awarded a Google Fellowship for her work in technology and democratic innovation and was named as Good magazine’s 100 extraordinary individuals tackling global issues in creative ways for CycleHack, an initiative to reduce barriers to cycling.
Website: sarah-drummond.com
Company: good.services

Charlie Fountaine is a Service and Interaction Designer with a passion for making services better for everyone. She writes, workshops and thinks about prototyping as a tool to ensure good ideas are tested and implemented in organisations. Charlie previously cofounded Kalda, the world’s first LGBTQIA+ self-therapy app. Since 2014, she's helped organisations improve services through prototyping, testing, and implementation.
Website: charlottefountaine.co.uk
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/charlotte-fountaine

Rebekah Broughton is the founder of Growth and Balance, working with large organisations to shape how they deliver better services
Over 14 years, she has worked with senior leaders across government and large organisations, helping them navigate ambiguity, align around clear direction, and translate user needs into measurable outcomes.
Operating at the intersection of service design, organisational strategy, and leadership her work focuses on the conditions that determine whether services succeed or fail. She combines service design with executive coaching to enable lasting and sustainable change at scale.
Website: https://www.growthandbalance.co.uk/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thisisrebekah/

Event Supporters

Lloyds Banking Group
Lloyds Banking Group is a leading financial institution in the U.K., known for its commitment to innovation and customer-centric solutions. Our focus on digital transformation helps us provide top-notch banking experiences that meet the diverse needs of our customers. By leveraging cutting-edge technology and design principles, we strive to offer secure, efficient, and user-friendly services.

Lloyds Bank are kindly providing the venue for this event.

Pilot Works
Pilot Works is a digital product consultancy. We use Lean research, strategy and prototyping techniques to help clients generate and validate product and service ideas.

How to the venue
Head to Lloyds Banking Group | Harbourside
10 Canons Way, and ask for "Service Design Bristol". The talk will take place in the Working Café on the ground floor. The venue is on the ground floor with no stairs.

Full address: Lloyds Banking Group | Harbourside
10 Canons Way, Harbourside, Bristol, BS1 5LF

Join us at BOSS #6 on the beautiful rooftop terrace at Beacon Tower on Thursday 2nd July!

This is a free event - you do not need to pay for a Meetup.com subscription - please see below.

This is going to be a fantastic summer evening with two short presentations and plenty of time to enjoy the sunshine and chat with friends and colleagues from across the Bristol Semiconductors community. Free food and drink will be provided (not pizza this time) so come hungry!

Enormous thanks to our Venue Sponsor: EIP. If you've ever had questions about IP and how to protect your startup's technology advantage, EIP are here to help. Come along and ask your questions to Andrew Thompson and Matt Lawman!

We are also excited to offer free food sponsored by Axelera AI! Axelera is actively hiring across Europe (inc. UK) for remote and hybrid roles, and they have a fantastic team in Bristol. Several regular BOSS attendees and our host (Ed) work for Axelera in their Bristol and Zurich teams. Feel free to find us and chat about our work to democratise AI!

Starting at 6:30 PM on Thursday 2nd July at DeskLodge Beacon Tower, Colston St, Bristol BS1 4XE.

We look forward to seeing you there!

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Agenda

18:30 - Doors open
19:00 - Tariq Kurd: Why the industry needs CHERI to be able to
meet the EU Cyber Resilience Act (Presentation followed by 5-min Q&A)
19:20 - Vulkos: Open Source Chip Design. Is this time any different? (Presentation followed by 5-min Q&A)
19:40 to end - Food, drink and chatting

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1. Please sign up in advance so we can cater accordingly.
2. If Meetup asks for your credit card, hunt for the skip button! You do not need to pay to attend this event. You do not need a Meetup Premium subscription to attend this event - a Free Meetup.com account is all that is required to sign up. If you are unable to sign up for free, please RSVP by emailing boss-signup@ednutting.com . Thank you!

Owing to the awful dark patterns Meetup.com has introduced, as well as the exorbitant organiser fees, this will be the last time we use Meetup.com for this community. We will send out a message to everyone when we've selected a new platform.

A session focused on clarity, leadership and making technology accessible to everyone.

Women in Tech: Taking the Jargon out of Technology

We’ll explore:

• Why clarity is a leadership skill
• How to influence technical teams without being “technical”
• How to challenge complexity without undermining experts
• How to communicate when stakes are high
• Practical tools for simplifying tech in real‑world environments

This event is perfect for anyone who leads technical teams, works alongside technical specialists, or wants to encourage more women into the technical sector.

In partnership with TechNation - Information, honest conversation, and a celebration of immigration-fuelled innovation in UK digital tech.

The Global Talent Visa is one of the most powerful visa pathways available to digital tech founders, operators, and innovators building in the UK. It's also one of the most underused, because sometimes even great talent can be too humble. Don’t count yourself out before even applying!

The Global Talent visa can be just as applicable for the latest wunderkind of AI as it could be for an ace startup marketer, or finance or talent whizz for early-stage tech.

Come find out if this visa pathway is right for you! And, if you’re an alum, come represent: because representation matters!

On 7 July, TechNation and NatWest are co-hosting an open evening in Bristol for prospective applicants and Global Talent Visa alumni: part information session, part honest fireside conversation, part celebration of the immigrant innovators shaping UK digital tech.

Programme

5:30pm: Doors open, drinks and networking

6:00pm: Programme begins with:

· A welcome from the NatWest Accelerator Team; Global Talent 101 from TechNation

· Fireside conversation and Ask Me Anything with Global Talent Visa holders, including Laurie Felker Jones (Startup & SME Investor with FSE Group).

6:45pm: Networking to close

Free to attend. Light food and drinks provided. Space is limited, so register to secure your spot.

Date: Tuesday 7 July 2026

Time: 5:30 to 7:30pm

Location: NatWest Accelerator Hub, Bristol

Disclaimer (1.0)

Cameras will be present at this event

All information used in this presentation you are registering for is produced for information purposes only and is for the sole use of the attendees at the

presentation.

Whilst we feel this topic is beneficial to business owners, the views expressed are not intended to be and should not be viewed as individual advice or as a

recommendation by Royal Bank of Scotland, NatWest, Ulster Bank, or any third party. You should seek independent advice in respect of issues that are of

concern to you.

To the maximum extent permitted by law we expressly disclaim all representations, warranties, or assurance of any kind, expressed or implied, that are made to

the accuracy or completeness of the information contained in this presentation and do not accept any obligation to update or correct any information contained

herein.

During the event photographs may be taken on behalf of the host with a view to posting on social media to promote services offered to customers. If you do not

wish to be included in the photographs please notify us.

For the avoidance of doubt Royal Bank of Scotland/NatWest Bank/Ulster Bank does not produce the materials for all presentations. This disclaimer applies equally

to any materials or presentations produced by a third party.

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Simon Pollard shows how to create your own blocks made up of other blocks to create bespoke reusable layout elements. All without touching a line of react code.

This talk is suitable for beginner through to intermediate.

SWUX is returning in person — and we’ve got something exciting lined up...

On July 9th, we’ll be hosting an AWESOME talk exploring how real teams are weaving accessibility into everyday product work. Expect practical insights, honest stories, and a look at what it really takes to make accessibility a core principle rather than a checkbox.

We’ll be joined by speakers from Zurich and GAIN, drawing on the work featured here:
https://www.thisisgain.com/case-studies/embedding-accessibility-as-a-core-principle

More details — including the confirmed venue — will be announced very soon. For now, save the date and get ready for a relaxed, friendly evening with the SWUX community.

📅 Date: July 9th
📍 Venue: Somewhere in Bristol centre - details to be confirmed
🕠 Doors: 5.30pm
🗣 Talk: 6pm

We really hope to see you in person — it’s been a while. And if you can’t attend in-person, you’re still very welcome to join us online. We'll be live streaming the meet.

This will be a proper “behind the scenes” look at accessibility in the real world — and as always, we want to hear your thoughts. Come and join us!

#UX #Accessibility #InclusiveDesign #ProductDesign #UXResearch #SWUX #BristolTech