Volume IX · MMXXVI

A small gathering
on the Mendocino coast.

Three days in November. Eighty engineering leaders. No sponsors, no recordings, no slide decks for half the sessions. The ninth Stratos has been held without interruption since 2018.

November 7 — 9·Stratos Lodge·Mendocino, CA
Invitations are sent in July. Waitlist closes Aug 30.
Dates
Nov 7 — 9
Fri 15:00 — Sun 14:00
Setting
200 acres
Coastal lodge, off-grid
Cohort
80 leaders
VPs · CTOs · principals
Sponsors
None
Attendee fees only
Past attendees have led engineering at
Linnea FORECAST Glide.io Brightwave MERCURY Halcyon NIMBUS// Northwind atrium quartermast Foundry & Co. Vantage
§ I · Principles

A retreat, not a conference.

Stratos exists because the conferences engineering leaders attend reward the wrong things — performance, brand, networking-as-extraction. We made a smaller room with different rules. Three days, eighty people, off-the-record by default. You'll meet six to ten peers you'll keep talking to for years.

01
Chatham House by default

No recording. No live-tweeting. Quote freely; attribute only with permission. We've held this line for nine years and seen the conversation deepen each year.

02
No slides, half the time

Saturday afternoon and all of Sunday are slide-free. Speakers prepare prompts and questions instead — the audience does half the work.

03
No sponsors. Not one.

No logos on tote bags, no recruiter lounges, no "platinum partner" anything. Attendee fees cover every cup of coffee.

04
Cohort capped at eighty

The largest size where every attendee can have a real conversation with every other. We have turned away returning attendees to make room for new ones.

§ II · Program

Three days. Twelve sessions.

Mornings are sessions. Afternoons are walks, swims, and small-group conversation. Evenings are dinner, then a fire on the bluff. Times are advisory.

Friday

Nov 07
  1. 15:00
    Arrivals · check-in at the lodge
    Whiskey + tea by the fireplace. No agenda until five.
  2. 17:30
    Opening & introductions
    Two minutes per attendee. Stand-up, no slides.
  3. 19:00
    Welcome dinner · long tables
    Seating rotates. Bring an appetite and a question.
  4. 21:30
    Bonfire · the cove
    Quietest of the three nights. Bring a coat.

Saturday

Nov 08
  1. 08:00
    Coffee on the porch · optional run
    Six-mile loop along the bluff. Pace conversational.
  2. 09:30
    Keynote · "Anatomy of a 41-day migration"
    Maya Levenson · Forecast. Slides permitted.
  3. 11:00
    Session · org design under contraction
    Workshop format · groups of 10. Yusuf Abara facilitating.
  4. 13:00
    Lunch · the dining hall
  5. 15:00
    Session (no slides) · on-call after 5 years
    Adaeze Okonkwo & Ines Calderón · panel.
  6. 17:00
    Walks, swims, naps
    Cold-plunge available by the cove. Sauna at four.
  7. 19:30
    Dinner · roast · a long table of twelve
  8. 21:30
    Bonfire · principals' table
    Conversation usually runs past midnight.

Sunday

Nov 09
  1. 08:00
    Coffee, slow breakfast
  2. 09:30
    Session (no slides) · how we hire principal engineers
    Round-table · 40 voices.
  3. 11:00
    Session (no slides) · what we got wrong in 2025
    Open mic · two minutes per attendee.
  4. 12:30
    Closing lunch · long tables, one more time
  5. 14:00
    Farewells · shuttles to SFO begin
    Buses every half-hour through 16:30.

"Of twelve sessions, six are slide-free. The room does the work."

§ III · Twelve voices

Speakers, curated.

Half are alumni speaking again. Half are first-time invitations. None are paid; all are guests of the lodge.

§ IV · The Lodge

Stratos Lodge · two hundred acres.

Editorial architecture photograph of a glass-walled modern home glowing warm at dusk
Address
Coast Highway 1, Mile 87
Mendocino, CA 95460 · Inn Cove turn-off
View on map →
Getting there
FLYSFO + 3h coastal drive · we provide shuttles Fri 11:00 & 13:00; return shuttles Sun every 30 min until 16:30.
DRIVE~3h 20m from SF · last 8 miles unpaved · 4WD not required, slow speeds advised.
HELIPad on-site · arrange directly through the lodge if required.
On-site
  • Bedrooms (en-suite)80
  • Dining hall90 seats
  • Meeting hall100 seats
  • Sauna · cold plungeon the cove
  • Cell + Wi-Fideliberately patchy
§ V · Attendance

One fee. All-inclusive.

There is no early-bird, no industry rate, no tier system. Eighty places, one price, three meals a day, three nights of lodging, every transit shuttle, every glass of wine.

Standard place
A single attendee
$4,408
All-in · billed on invitation acceptance
  • ·Three nights in a private en-suite room
  • ·All meals & beverages (incl. wine, bar)
  • ·SFO shuttles both directions
  • ·Twelve sessions · open swim & sauna access
  • ·The bonfire, both nights
Partner add-on
$1,499

Bring a partner. They share your room, attend meals and evening sessions, and have an optional day-off track of guided walks, the village of Mendocino, and a half-day at the inn.

Scholarship places
6 reserved

Six places held for underrepresented attendees at organizations under 50 people. Full cost waived (including travel). One paragraph in your application is enough — applications reviewed by alumni, never by us.

Apply for a scholarship →
Refunds full until Oct 7 · transferable to any peer thereafter with the committee's approval. About 11% of past attendees have been refunded; one was reimbursed mid-event for a family emergency.
§ VI · From past editions

What attendees say afterwards.

"In nine years of executive offsites, this is the only one where I never once thought about my phone. The lodge does half the work."
— Priya Anand · VP Engineering, Linnea · Stratos VII & VIII
"The slide-free sessions changed how I run my own staff offsites. We now do one a quarter, twelve people, no decks."
— Yusuf Abara · CTO, Mercury · Stratos V — VIII
"I left with four phone numbers and one bad sunburn. The four phone numbers have been the single most valuable network of my career."
— Ines Calderón · Head of Eng, Brightwave · Stratos VIII
"The cost looks high until you realize it includes silence — and silence in this industry is the rare good."
— Marcus Tobin · Founding Eng, Cinder · Stratos VI
§ VII · Questions

Plainly answered.

Have a question we have not? Email [email protected]. Replies within two business days.

Why no sponsors? Wouldn't the price come down? +

It would. We've calculated — roughly $1,800 per attendee. The reason we don't is that the value of Stratos is the conversation, and the conversation changes when there is a sponsor in the room. We've sat through enough other summits to know. Attendees pay full freight and the program belongs to them.

Will anything be recorded or written up? +

No recordings — audio, video, or otherwise. Chatham House rules: you may share what was said, you may not say who said it without permission. The committee writes a short private memo to attendees afterwards, three to five pages, summarizing themes without attribution. We have never published it.

Is there a dress code? +

None. November on the coast is cold and wet — pack layers, a coat, sturdy shoes for the bluff walk. The dinners are not formal; many attendees come in jeans. There is no networking event, no name-tag lanyard photo, no reason to dress up.

Dietary requirements — can the kitchen handle them? +

Yes, comprehensively. The kitchen at the lodge accommodates vegan, vegetarian, kosher, halal, gluten-free, severe allergies, and any combination thereof. We confirm with you by phone two weeks ahead. In nine editions, we have never failed a restriction.

May I bring a partner or family? +

A partner, yes — $1,499 includes lodging, meals, evening sessions, and an optional day-off track (village of Mendocino, guided walks, half-day at the inn). Children we ask you keep at home; the lodge is not set up for them and the conversation runs late. Two attendees over nine years have asked for childcare; both times we've helped arrange it off-site.

How does the invitation system actually work? +

Each year's committee (8 alumni) reviews ~340 names — half are returning attendees, half are first-time recommendations from alumni or the committee itself. We aim for 80 confirmed by mid-August. You can request consideration via the link below; you'll hear back either way by August 30, including a one-paragraph note on why.

Waitlist closes Aug 30, 2026

Request consideration.

Tell us who you are, what you lead, and one engineer you admire. Three sentences is plenty. We read every note ourselves.

Submissions go directly to the committee. Decisions sent in waves through Aug.