Previous Talks
29th June 2022 at 6:00pm BST
Replacing 'guesstimations' with Monte Carlo simulations
Lucas Fernandes da Costa
There are many ways of estimating how long a project will take. All of them are a waste of time. Software development is not a deterministic process; therefore, even the most informed guesses usually yield poor results. In this talk, you’ll learn how to use historical data to create a Monte Carlo Simulation, which will allow you to make accurate forecasts and stop “guesstimating”. Besides being much more accurate, these simulations will let you stop wasting time with planning poker and plan according to your risk appetite in a much more mature way.
What are Micro-Frontends, Really?
Ruben Casas
The standard definition of Micro-Frontends is: "An architectural style where independently deliverable frontend applications are composed into a greater whole", however, time and time again I find a lot of confusion about what Micro-Frontends really are and what they are meant to solve. In this presentation, we will learn what Micro-Frontends are by discovering what they are not.
27th April 2022 at 6:00pm GMT
Programmatically Performant
Jonathan Fielding
A talk all about how as developers we should focus more time on capturing web performance metrics from our site so we can make informed decisions on how to improve using data.
Increase your site traffic with page caching
Asher Carr
A talk on the interplay between search engine funnels and site caching, measuring the challenges and the effects that a high cache hit ratio can have on your site speed core web vitals.
26th January 2022 at 6:30pm GMT
The fight between access controls and security
Jenny Codes
A devils advocated talk from a software engineer - who needs high access to do their job, who is also passionate about security compliance and understands why tight measures are needed.
28th September 2021 at 6:30pm BST
A little accessibility goes a long way
James Hall
The talk will go through why accessibility is important, who it affects and will provide a live demonstration of a screen reader to highlight key issues to work in to your workflow
27th July 2021 at 6:30pm BST
The Modern DXP - How JAMstack will change the world
Tim Benniks
This talk showcases the Digital Experience Platform of the future. I will outline how we used to build DXP's and what needs to change to modernize them. We are ready to take on (and out-perform) the status quo in enterprise software. We can now build global scale platforms and e-commerce sites with the tools we love: Jamstack, Vue.js, React, CDN edge, serverless and more. The old school dusty enterprise software that has historically been used to shape your online shopping experience is no more. The time is now for Jamstack!
What’s it like being a Software Engineer & Tech Coach? My journey and experience learning through engaging with others
Kim Diep
I recently started my role as a Software Engineer & Tech Coach at Tech Returners in March 2021. It’s a hybrid role which means I get to do tech coaching and software engineering. In this talk, I share my journey up to this point, what I do in my role and what it is like to balance learning and coaching. I also share some tips on how you can start engaging with others on technical concepts effectively. I also share realistic perspectives on what I enjoy the most about my role and what the most challenging aspects are and how I’m overcoming them.
26th May 2021 at 7:00pm BST
What I learnt from starting the 'Ladies in DevOps' community
Pauline P. Narvas
I recently launched the 'Ladies in DevOps' community, a place for self-identifying female DevOps Engineers (or SREs/Infra/Platform Engineers) or women interested in interested in this area of tech to connect and learn from each other. Since launch day, we’ve nearly got over 400+ members! With 300 of members joining in 3 days. I learnt a lot about building an inclusive community, making mistakes, taking on feedback and creating a safe space for all.
When You Think There Is No Time For Learning Or Coding
Eleftheria Batsou
Do you ever feel like you’re stuck in your career? Do you constantly feel like you don’t have time to work on your projects? Do you want to learn something new, expand your knowledge, develop yourself and be the best you can be? In this session, I am going to share my story on how I started coding, how I make time to work on side projects and how you can grow and advance in your career. After this talk, I hope you'll be inspired to work smarter, make new habits and continue pushing yourself even when things fall apart.
From Team Lead to Entrepreneur
Ricardo Abreu
Leaving a company when everything feels comfortable, when you have mentees that you love to work with and see grow every sprint, taking risks to follow your dreams, all in the same year as a global pandemic.. what could possibly go wrong?! I will share what motivated me to start my own software company, what opportunities I took, the hard decisions I had to make, and how I stay productive and manage stress.
8th March 2021 at 5:00pm GMT
Women in Entrepreneurship/ Startups from developing nations
Bhuvana Meenakshi
How To Influence Your Manager & Win Promotions
Zaharenia Atzitzikaki
#IamRemarkable
Tabitha Kavyu
Getting ready for the Quantum World
Jenny Codes
Design and Development Considerations for Dual Screen Devices
Stephanie Stimac
27th January 2021 at 7:00pm GMT
A journey into web development
Faye Sipiano
In this talk, Faye shares details of her journey into tech and how joining a startup as an unpaid intern accelerated her learning journey
Linting - How to improve and enforce standards within your codebase.
Chris Bertrand
We'll look into why you should use Linting, the options available to you, and how you can automatically adhere to your standards within a JavaScript application.
Things I've learned maintaining and migrating large codebases
Jack Franklin
In this talk Jack will share the lessons learned dealing with the intricacies of a large frontend codebase that's over 150,000 lines long and fifteen years old.
28th October 2020 at 7:00pm GMT
The importance of creating APIs with security in mind
Jenny Codes
In this talk, Jenny will discuss possible vulnerabilities within insecure APIs as outlined in OWASP API Top 10 of 2019 and how to write code that is secure from the risks posed by these vulnerabilities.
Handling SVGs - from opponent to component
Maya Shavin
SVG - Scalable Vector Graphics is powerful for animations, creative graphics, and especially accessible icons in a web. But handling SVGs is challenging, since there isn"t a single standard and one-fit-all solution. What are the obstacles in working with SVGs? How to we componentize SVGs in modern app effectively? Let"s find out.
Standardizing "Select": What the future holds for HTML Controls
Stephanie Stimac
Native HTML Form Controls can be some of the most painful elements to style and customize. 25 years after the first HTML Standard introduced them and developers have resorted to building custom controls from scratch to achieve what they need to. I’ll discuss the history behind native form controls, where we’re at presently with styling them and take a look at the proposed solutions by standards groups and browser vendors to standardize controls and solve the pain points developers have been complaining about for years.
26th August 2020 at 7:00pm GMT
theRiseOfTypeScript(rate: Meteoric | Meandering): Story[] { return History; }
Dylan Schiemann
This talk will explore some of the interesting and quirky history of the TypeScript project from outside the walls of Redmond, from the perspective of someone who took a very early look at TypeScript (0.9.2), was skeptical due to a previous open source cease and desist warning from Microsoft, and over many months was grudgingly persuaded of the value of TypeScript. We’ll also look at key advances in TypeScript that took the project from promising yet flawed to something that made it possible to rewrite the longest-lived, actively-maintained JavaScript framework in TypeScript and become a development approach that we love and appreciate. Expect a healthy dose of humor and ridiculousness along the way.
From Management Consulting to Software engineering
Natalie Yeo
Natalie didn’t take a traditional route into software engineering. Starting her career as a management consultant, she moved to Fintech before deciding to do a coding bootcamp leading to her landing her first developer role at RVU. In this talk, Natalie will walk you through her career journey and share some advice to those thinking of making a career change.
How to Start a Side Project
Pedro Filho
“Over the last 7 years, I’ve been working on side projects, and I’m proud to say that I have failed most of them, but the knowledge that I gathered with them was fantastic, and the experience was amazing. I would like to talk about how to make your side project, how to start, and how to get the time to do it, even if you work full time for a company.
24th June 2020 at 7:00pm GMT
Images, pixels, canvas, tigers and bears
Chris Heilmann
There is a lot of joy in putting pixels next to each other to create something nice. There is even more joy in making a computer do it for you and paint with code. In this talk Chris Heilmann is going to share his love for pixel graphics. You'll learn how to get images into the browser. We'll also use the canvas element to turn pixels into numbers and vice versa. All in plain vanilla JavaScript.
Building high performing teams
Ryan Greenhall
As engineers we would never dream of putting a product live, say, without having a means to monitor product health. Are customers converting? Is site performance in line with expectations? When it comes to running teams, many managers fly blind relying on lagging indicators such as delivery or just relying on “gut feel”. This is especially troublesome for managers of managers as problems are often found too late.
Building a multiplayer version of Space Invaders
Srushtika Neelakantam
“Do you play games?”.... Duh! “Ever thought of building one yourself?”...Yes, but, umm... Games innately seem difficult to build. With lots of moving pieces involved (quite literally), game development seems like it’s restricted to devs who’ve immersed their feet deep into the holy waters of networking, mathematics, graphics, and the like. However, with the web evolving ever so rapidly and with all the new protocols and libraries that have spanned in recent years, it’s now super simple to get started with building browser-based multiplayer games. In this talk, we'll understand the core elements of a web-based multiplayer game, including game design and architecture. We'll also understand how these concepts can be implemented to build a multiplayer version of Space Invaders, and of course, play that game together too!
30th April 2020 at 7:00pm GMT
Testing vs Monitoring
Jiazhen Xie
TDD helps software engineers learn, understand, and internalise the key principles of good modular design. But over-testing can be really painful. Some companies believe that the goal is to have 100% test coverage - unit tests, acceptance tests, selenium tests … They are just not enough! This talk is about how to make trade-offs between testing and monitoring, why devops is trending in test. I'll share my personal stories as well as giving examples of what we monitor and why. Because at the end of the day, it's the business that matters.
Make your own IoTshirt
Jo Franchetti
Ever wanted your clothing to respond to the music you’re listening to? How about the latest news or the weather? With a bit of JS and some soldering, it can! This talk will cover how to make your own wearable LED display using a microcontroller and hook it up to the internet. Then we’ll learn how to control it with data, node.js and some arduino code. All suitable for absolute beginners! I’ll help you to avoid some of the silly mistakes I made while working on my first wearable and encourage you to give IoT a try!
Chrome Devtools Inside and Out
Katie Fenn
Chrome DevTools: a suite of tools to debug and profile the performance of your site. They’re bundled with every copy of Chrome, and you have every reason to learn what they’re capable of. Starting with the basics of inspecting HTML and CSS, we will then tour debugging scripts line-by-line and profiling performance. We’ll also find out the features that help you automate work and save time. If you’ve always wanted to know how to debug CSS and Javascript, this talk will help you demystify your code and not make things worse by guessin’.
