# Event Details - **Event Name**: DEV.BG @ SumUp: Office Tech Talks - **Event Start and End Date**: Tue, 17 Nov, 2026 at 07:00 pm – Tue, 17 Nov, 2026 at 09:20 pm (+02:00) - **Event Description**: Office Tech Talks is DEV.BG's event series that brings the tech community together at the offices of leading technology companies. Each event features practical talks, real-world industry experience, Q&A sessions, and opportunities to connect with fellow professionals. On 17 November 2026, join us at SumUp in Sofia for an evening dedicated to product management, data-driven decision-making, and building products that deliver real value to customers. As AI transforms how product teams gather and interpret information, sound product judgement becomes increasingly important. At the same time, validating assumptions before development begins can help teams make better decisions about what to build, how to prioritise requirements, and where to focus their efforts. Through two talks led by SumUp's product leaders, we will explore how to make informed product decisions in an AI-enabled world and how to use prototypes and stakeholder feedback to validate data-related use cases before they reach production. The event will feature two presentations, followed by a Q&A session and networking with the tech community. ✅ Registration is required as seats are limited. ✅ The language of the event will be English. 🔎 Program: 18:30 – 19:00 - Registration 19:00 – 19:30 - Talk 1: Beyond the Data: Product Judgement in an AI-Enabled World - Aneta Petkova 19:30 – 20:00 - Talk 2: Prototype Before Production: A Practical Approach to Data Validation - Yanislava Ilieva 20:00 – 20:20 — Q&A session with the speakers 20:20 – 21:20 — Networking with catering and drinks provided by the host Talk 1: Beyond the Data: Product Judgement in an AI-Enabled World As AI takes on more of the work of gathering and interpreting information, the key question for product teams is who makes the decision. AI can identify patterns and generate options, but people still need to determine what matters, which signals to trust, what level of risk is acceptable, and when additional measurement is unlikely to change the outcome. In this talk, Aneta Petkova will explore product judgement in an AI-enabled world, drawing on examples from payments and reporting. She will examine the decisions behind the data, including how to turn customer feedback into priorities, determine whether an experiment provides sufficient evidence to scale, and verify that an initiative has delivered value without unintended consequences. The talk will also consider when further instrumentation or optimisation is unnecessary. Not every decision needs a dashboard; knowing how much certainty is enough is itself an important product decision. 🎙️ Speaker: Aneta Petkova, Senior Group Product Manager @ SumUp Aneta Petkova is a Senior Group Product Manager at SumUp, where she leads payouts, reporting, and payments pricing within the Global Payments organisation. She transitioned into product management after a decade in engineering and quality assurance. Over the past five years, she has focused on shaping payment products and infrastructure that move money at scale across Europe, Latin America, the United States, and Australia. Aneta believes that the best product work comes from close collaboration with engineering, where challenging a plan can be just as valuable as confirming it. Talk 2: Prototype Before Production: A Practical Approach to Data Validation As data-driven products become more complex, product teams need to consider not only whether the data is correct, but also whether people can understand it and act on it with confidence. Prototypes can help make assumptions visible early in the development process. However, stakeholder input is essential to understanding which information matters, which workflows feel natural, and what is actually necessary to build. In this talk, Yanislava Ilieva will share a case study on how prototype-based stakeholder validation helped turn assumptions into actionable product decisions. Using a case study involving data-related use cases and a new fee-change option, she will explore how task-based focus groups revealed unknowns, challenged assumptions about stakeholder familiarity, and helped simplify the proposed experience before engineering work began. The talk will also examine how validation can improve prioritisation beyond usability testing. By testing critical user journeys early, product teams can distinguish essential requirements from unnecessary complexity, reassess use cases, and use stakeholder knowledge to inform both what gets built and when. 🎙️ Speaker: Yanislava Ilieva, Product Manager @ SumUp Yanislava Ilieva is a Product Manager at SumUp, working within the Pricing domain, which calculates transaction fees and provides the internal back-office tools used to manage them. Her background includes payment operations, where she reviewed money flows, handled disputes, and escalated compliance risks, as well as product operations, where she led multi-market product launches reaching over 18 million users across 77 markets. In that role, she aligned tax experts and other stakeholders and worked closely with engineering teams to define clear requirements. At SumUp, she combines operational rigour with cross-functional product delivery to make pricing logic accurate, transparent, and easy to manage. 🤝 Partners: SumUp SumUp is a company with the scale of a corporation and the culture of a startup. The freedom to share and bring your ideas to life at the very heart of the business is a key driver for more than 180 software engineers and product managers in Sofia. Our customers are a diverse mix of small merchants: bakeries, family restaurants, hair salons, makers and artists selling handmade goods, and many others. We provide them with powerful financial tools to help them start and grow their businesses—such as in-person and online payment solutions, an online store, a card, a business account, invoicing, and more. https://dev.bg/company/sumup/ 🎟️ Registration: Participation is free of charge, but registration is required in order to attend the event: https://d.dev.bg/2p87xddm Please make sure to register in advance, as the number of seats is limited. - **Event URL**: https://allevents.in/sofia/devbg-sumup-office-tech-talks/200031017901209 - **Event Categories**: art, business, fine-arts - **Interested Audience**: - total_interested_count: 15 ## Ticket Details ## Event venue details - **city**: Sofia - **state**: SF - **country**: Bulgaria - **location**: Sofia, 5 “Nikola Tesla” St., BSR 2 - **lat**: 42.67953 - **long**: 23.36871 - **full address**: Sofia, 5 “Nikola Tesla” St., BSR 2, Bulgaria ## Event gallery - **Alt text**: DEV.BG @ SumUp: Office Tech Talks - **Image URL**: https://cdn-az.allevents.in/events2/banners/07c10341d3743bd3e788536a91edb61b836a1b7d2193126ee31daae814df4c67-rimg-w1200-h628-dce8e8f8-gmir?v=1794311946 ## FAQs - **Q**: When and where is DEV.BG @ SumUp: Office Tech Talks being held? - **A:** DEV.BG @ SumUp: Office Tech Talks takes place on Tue, 17 Nov, 2026 at 07:00 pm to Tue, 17 Nov, 2026 at 09:20 pm at Sofia, 5 Nikola Tesla St., BSR 2, Bulgaria. - **Q**: Who is organizing DEV.BG @ SumUp: Office Tech Talks? - **A:** DEV.BG @ SumUp: Office Tech Talks is organized by DEV.BG. - **Q**: Who is this event for? Is it right for me? - **A:** DEV.BG @ SumUp: Office Tech Talks is ideal for art lovers, collectors, creatives, and anyone inspired by visual arts, installations, and exhibitions. Whether you're a first-time attendee or a longtime enthusiast in Sofia, this event is thoughtfully curated to deliver a standout experience worth every moment. If DEV.BG @ SumUp: Office Tech Talks sounds like your kind of event, don't wait - spots fill up fast. ## Structured Data (JSON-LD) ```json [ { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Event", "name": "DEV.BG @ SumUp: Office Tech Talks", "image": "https://cdn-az.allevents.in/events2/banners/07c10341d3743bd3e788536a91edb61b836a1b7d2193126ee31daae814df4c67-rimg-w1200-h628-dce8e8f8-gmir?v=1794311946", "startDate": "2026-11-17T19:00:00+02:00", "endDate": "2026-11-17T21:20:00+02:00", "url": "https://allevents.in/sofia/devbg-sumup-office-tech-talks/200031017901209", "eventStatus": "https://schema.org/EventScheduled", "location": { "@type": "Place", "name": "Sofia, 5 “Nikola Tesla” St., BSR 2", "address": { "@type": "PostalAddress", "streetAddress": "Улица Никола Тесла 5, 1574 София, България", "addressLocality": "Sofia", "addressRegion": "SF", "addressCountry": "BG" }, "geo": { "@type": "GeoCoordinates", "latitude": "42.67953", "longitude": "23.36871" } }, "eventAttendanceMode": "https://schema.org/OfflineEventAttendanceMode", "description": "Office Tech Talks is DEV.BG's event series that brings the tech community together at the offices of leading technology companies. Each event features practical talks, real-world industry experience, Q&A sessions, and opportunities to connect with fellow professionals.\n\nOn 17 November 2026, join us", "organizer": [ { "@type": "Organization", "name": "DEV.BG", "url": "https://allevents.in/org/devbg/8939727", "description": "DEV.BG - Job Board за IT общността." } ] } ] ```