TechLead Conference 2024

“Hell is other people.” There are many talks on how to get started as an engineer and how to step into management, but there are few talks about how to be an adult in (professional) relationships. I’ve spent my career in small companies and startups, FAANG organizations, and opensource communities. Each of these spaces demands different things of the people in them, yet across these spaces all succeed and fail along the fault lines of a core set of soft skills: regulating emotions, setting boundaries, framing experiences productively, and letting go. In this talk, I share everything I’ve learned in my career that has helped my colleagues, mentees, and friends so that you may navigate the most difficult part of tech—people—with grace, empathy, and safety.

Probably the most noticeable change engineers experience when they become leaders is the increase of day-to-day chaos. The moment you become responsible for the work of a team or a large area, tasks start coming at you. Dozens of them! Sometimes, per day. And also, questions. From everyone and their dog! And finally, meetings. Lots of them, long and short, exciting and boring... Does it sound familiar?
To me, very. And it took me quite some time to figure out what to do with that. I'm going to share my recipe for taming the chaos with you. I'll talk about the components of that chaos, of reasons that they occur, and about solutions for avoiding it.

You're working as a developer, and one day - BAM, you're offered the chance to lead a team, to step into a managerial or leadership position.What now? If I accept the offer, will I forget how to code? Will my skills depreciate? Is there a way back to a specialist path? Can I really be a “manager by day, developer by night”? Will I still be a technical person?I've been at this point! At Atlassian, I undertook an experiment and moved from a senior developer position to a manager role for 15 months... and then I went back to coding.Will my experience help you make a decision if you're facing one - I don’t know. But it will be food for thought 🙂

This session explores the art of interviewing beyond traditional assessments, focusing on cultivating soft skills, mentorship, and recognizing senior talent. Covering strategies to build rapport, assess soft skills effectively, and shift the interview dynamic towards mentorship, the talk emphasizes the importance of cultivating a supportive environment for candidates. Additionally, it delves into identifying seniority traits beyond technical expertise, promoting diversity, and continuous improvement through feedback. Participants will gain insights to transform interviews into meaningful engagements that find talent and potential future leaders.

We all have our very own wellbeing processor.It influences how you feel and act. It leads to every outcome you’ve ever had or will have…For most of us, our wellbeing processor is primarily fed by our very own AI.Unfortunately, our AI often seems to work against us.In this talk, you’ll learn how to take back control and train your AI to work with you to promotes a growth mindset and optimise wellbeing.

In high-performance environments, the pace is relentless. While it's easy to make quick technical decisions in smaller developer teams, the dynamics shift drastically when dealing with a team of 100 developers. Making significant technical decisions, especially those concerning architecture, without impacting other teams becomes nearly impossible.In this talk, I'll share my experience of structuring an RFCs process at QuintoAndar. We'll delve deep into RFCs, uncovering why they're an indispensable tool for companies aiming to maintain technical excellence, even with a sizable workforce. We'll explore how RFCs facilitate high-level technical decision-making, providing a clear roadmap for changes and empowering everyone to navigate risks with precision.

Learn how to create and share professional web development content to expand your reach, advance your careers and establish expert status. This talk will tech you how to share your knowledge effectively through blogs, videos, and social media posts, helping you stand out and connect with others.

After years of rapid growth, the winds have changed in many tech companies, with strategy changes, budget cuts, restructurings, and layoffs. Productivity and efficiency have become the business buzzwords of the season, and while pressure towards “more engineering productivity” is mounting in many organizations, it can be difficult to apply these abstract concepts to engineering teams and turn them into concrete actions that don’t alienate your team and lead to lasting impact that aligns with your stakeholders’ needs. I’m here to help. In this talk, we’ll go: - Beyond buzzwords: What do productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness mean? - Beyond “implementing DORA metrics”: How can you understand and improve your team's productivity as a technical or people leader?- Beyond your team: How can you manage up effectively to keep your bosses informed and ensure alignment with organizational goals?Having led dozens of teams through times of high change, I know that leading during a tech downturn presents unique challenges. You will take away actionable steps to help you improve on your team, and lead successfully through uncertain times.

In an AI-driven world where information overload is the norm, it's all too easy to rely on ChatGPT or Google Search for quick answers, only to forget them just as quickly. But what if there's a smarter approach that not only helps us retain what we learn but also enhances our workflow and productivity?
We will explore why and how constructing a Second Brain can revolutionize the way developers work. By shifting our perspective and relying on our internal knowledge base, we can forge connections that enhance memory retention and improve our overall workflow. This presentation aims to delve into the core of the developer workflow, addressing commonly shared questions that are typically googled or answered using ChatGPT. Instead, we will focus on how adopting the habit of turning to our Second Brain can yield better results by providing answers in the context of our previous learning.

Recently I was asked: “but Rita, aren’t you a Software Developer? Isn’t you job to write code? Why do you keep pondering about people?” My answer was simple - “because it is not up to a person to build quality software. It takes a village”. Software Development and People can not be seen as two separate concerns by companies. There is a natural entanglement between the two of them that I would like to explore a bit in this session.

The time has come: the DevOps revolution is winding down, and we’re entering the post-DevOps era. We’re at the precipice of a massive generational shift in how we build and understand our software, and CTOs need to prepare.In the past, we were only interested in basic metrics on how we operated our software: reliability, uptime, MTTR, MTTD. Observability 1.0. Companies that settle for these basic data points will not survive in this new era.As engineering best practices around separating deploys from releases, testing in production, observability-driven development have become standardized, the approach to telemetry has stalled, and it’s time for a new version: Observability 2.0.Learn what this new version means for your engineers, and how to embrace this breaking change to:- Save them from drowning in symptom-based alerting- Help fewer people work together to build better software- Create fast feedback loops throughout the entire organization through highly granular visibility into all their systems

The role of a Tech Lead is more about leading than tech. Tech is a part of it, but people are the rest. In my talk, "Tech Leadership is more about people than tech" I'll explain why people skills are crucial in tech leadership. We'll dive into the essential skills every tech leader needs: listening, empathy, and effective feedback.But more than just knowing these skills, you'll learn how to develop them. I’ll share some practical, day-to-day strategies that can help you improve your people skills over time. This session is ideal for anyone aiming to not only manage but truly lead by focusing on the human element in tech.

No developer is an island and no developer is perfect. This means that you cannot create anything without using components written by someone else and these components will have defects or missing features. At some point in our life we all asked for support to someone else.But being a maintainer is not an easy task at all. Think about receiving tons of reports with partial or missing information, or being yelled by strangers for not being responsive or fast enough.For the health of our industry we must love our maintainers more: in this talk I’ll show how to politely ask for help and how to make sure you provide all the necessary informations.

Vanessa’s presentation, Refactoring Mindsets: Prioritizing Mental Health in Software Development, will delve into the signs and symptoms commonly experienced within this professional group. The session will identify and define a range of mental disorders, offering a clearer understanding of these conditions. Furthermore, we will explore various coping strategies, equipping Developers & Engineers with the tools to manage their mental health more effectively. This presentation aims to foster a deeper awareness and provide practical solutions to support mental well-being in the Tech Industry.

The World Wide Web can be really harsh place, especially when people are trying to hurt other people online. And sometimes we have to do something about it.This is my wild story about taking down a website where non-consensual intimate images were shared using widely available web technologies and trying to protect people online.

There's lots of information out there about reducing cognitive load for users, but what about developers? This talk will cover Cognitive Load Theory, how some disabilities affect it, and designing a development environment around it.

Anyone who worked in tech, for any amount of time, knows that the landscape is in constant motion. The technologies of today are obsolete tomorrow. The tools of the trade are in constant motion, and continuous upskilling is the bread and butter of all software engineers who survive the passing waves. The software engineers of the future are those who mastered 1 skill: adaptation. In this talk, I will address the evolution of our craft, and my predictions for the core competencies of the future.

In this presentation, we explore the role of playfulness and hobbies in preventing burnout in the tech industry. Discover how integrating joy and creativity into our work routines can enhance innovation and well-being. Join us for insights and strategies to embrace a more balanced and fulfilling approach to technology work.

Building a business is a slugfest to see who gets more customers first. You have to adopt that mindset when writing code. As an old boss told me once: Clean code won't matter if we're dead. You have to shift your mindset from best practices to getting shit done. But you can't go too wild or the tech debt will kill ya. 

We all had a manager who doesn’t seem to listen to a single word we say, and if we don’t, it’s probably because we are that person. I’ve been on both ends, but I found a way out of the vicious cycle. The answer is active listening.As leaders, we have a lot of influence and power to make changes. We owe the team the responsibility of taking care of the team members, helping them grow, and supporting them in tough times, and we cannot do this effectively if we don’t know how to actively listen. Why would someone listen to us if we don’t listen to them?Active listening is a communication skill that involves going beyond simply hearing the words that another person speaks, to seek to understand the meaning and intent behind them. Listening builds trust, builds shared understanding, and puts the people on the same side to work toward a solution.Explore with me the meaning of active listening, how it can help us be more effective and empathetic leaders, and how to practice it.

In the field of software development, collaboration is key. Yet, many developers find themselves working in teams without ever being taught how to effectively express their opinions and ethically influence their colleagues to align with their vision and goals.In this practical and enlightening session, we delve into the science of influence. By understanding the psychology of why people say yes and how to apply these insights ethically in business, we explore the psychological triggers that drive human behavior. Participants will learn how to communicate considerately yet persuasively, inspire cooperation, and foster a culture of collaboration within their team.Whether you're leading a project, seeking buy-in from stakeholders, or simply aiming to improve team dynamics, mastering the art of influence can lead to smoother workflows, better decision-making, and ultimately, greater success. This session will share proven practical strategies and techniques for harnessing the power of influence to create a more productive and harmonious work environment.