Skills to Bills: A Users Guide to Demonstrated Competency

In today’s tech environment and job market, one needs to be able to discuss how to build solutions to resolve business problems and articulate the “why” and "how" behind one's choices. This concept can be best explained as demonstrated competence. This session aims to focus on bridging the gap between technical competence and professional confidence by showcasing how to present your work effectively, share your knowledge, and solidify your standing as a capable developer.
We will break down this talk in the following steps:

Speak to it.
In this talk, you will learn how to share your experiences of what you worked on at the workplace, in personal projects or in the open-source community.

Build it (Demonstrate it)
You will also learn that the workplace isn’t the only place where you build your repertoire of experience, there are other places you can do this.

Share it
Share the word with social media and other means to share what you know. We will discuss options that you can take advantage of.

The emotional wherewithal ( Beware of Imposter Syndrome)
Finally, we’ll discuss how you can handle some of the emotional traps that can cause you to trip up as you demonstrate your competence A.K.A. imposter syndrome raising its ugly head and how to head off and prevent it from happening to you.

By the end of this session, you’ll be equipped with practical tips for developing, presenting, and confidently discussing your work, proving that you truly know what you’re talking about.

This session focuses on developing the ability to articulate the "why" behind your technical choices, demonstrating competence in solving business problems. You'll learn to effectively present your work, share your experiences, and solidify your confidence as a capable developer. Key topics include discussing your tools, design choices, and problem-solving methods, building experience through personal projects and open-source contributions, and sharing your achievements via portfolios, blogs, or video platforms. We’ll also address overcoming imposter syndrome and enhancing your professional confidence. By the end, you'll have practical tips for building, presenting, and communicating your work effectively.

How to Conference : A User Guide

Are you an introvert who dreads large gatherings? Do you find it challenging to attend tech conferences or user group events? We know how you feel, but the good news is that these gatherings present invaluable opportunities to expand your knowledge, enhance your skills, and even discover your next career move. The key is to navigate them effectively without feeling overwhelmed.

Join us as we discuss how introverts can make the most of conferences and user groups without exhausting themselves. In this session, we will explore strategies to ensure your success, from what to bring to these events, to uncovering the most effective learning methods and practices. We'll also delve into techniques and ideas for finding essential breaks to recharge and reveal the optimal places to be for maximum advantage.

Discover how introverts and extroverts can thrive in the world of tech conferences and user groups.

The Engineer's Guide to Socialization

DB Associations as Networking Patterns: A Developer's Guide to Professional Connections"

This 45-minute talk reimagines professional networking through the familiar lens of database associations, making relationship-building more approachable for developers. By mapping associations to networking scenarios, we'll transform technical knowledge into effective social strategies.

Talk Overview
We'll explore how common Rails/ db associations parallel networking patterns:
- `belongs_to`: Building one-on-one mentor/mentee relationships
- `has_many: through`: Leveraging existing connections for introductions
- `has_and_belongs_to_many`: Engaging with tech communities and groups

Key Takeaways:
1. A technical framework for understanding networking dynamics
2. Practical strategies tailored for introverted developers
3. Implementation techniques for each "association type"
4. Tools to measure networking effectiveness
5. Actionable steps for immediate application

This session bridges the gap between technical expertise and professional relationship building. You'll gain:
- Structured approaches to networking that align with developer thinking
- Concrete examples of successful networking patterns
- Implementation strategies for various career stages
- Methods to convert technical knowledge into social capital

Target Audience:
- Developers of all levels seeking to grow their professional network
- Engineering leaders aiming to strengthen team connections
- Community organizers building tech communities

Whether you're starting your career or leading a team, this talk provides a systematic approach to networking that feels natural to technical minds. You'll leave with practical tools to build and maintain professional relationships using familiar patterns from your daily work.

Target Audience
- Software developers at all levels who want to improve their networking skills
- Team leads and engineering managers looking to help their teams build better connections
- Community organizers seeking structured approaches to building tech communities

Format
- 38 - 40 -minute presentation
- 5 -7-minute Q&A session

This is Technical Talk - Essential People Skills for Developers

This talk speaks to the importance of people skills as a developer. A deeper focus is then placed in 7 areas of focus important to the software engineering field. 1 actionable step each that can be taken to better or fix these skills. Here is a list of the skills I would like to talk about:
=> Communication
=> Collaboration
=> Problem-solving
=> Time management
=> Adaptability
=> Creativity
=> Attention to detail
=> Interpersonal skills
=> Leadership skills

Here is a list of the skills I would like to talk about:
=> Communication
=> Collaboration
=> Problem-solving
=> Time management
=> Adaptability
=> Creativity
=> Attention to detail
=> Interpersonal skills / Networking
=> Leadership skills

Unlocked : Growing Your Skills Through Open Source Development And Civic Hacking

As a developer, we want to increase our knowledge of the development world around us so that we can help grow our careers or help the world. Many folks can grow their career through reading blogs, books, following tutorials, building projects, or watching videos. But some of us need a project or community to help us attain our career growth. Where can we find these projects or the community? In this discussion, we will show you 2 paths that you can take advantage of, so that you can give to the community and grow your career.
The first path that we will discuss is how to contribute to an open-source project. This includes the who, what, and how of open source and the places where you can contribute to an open source.

Spoilers: Anyone can contribute, and you need not be a coder to contribute.
The second path we'll discuss is civic Hacking. We will define what it is, where to get involved, and cover its basic tenets:
- Do what you can?
- Where you can?
- With what you've got?

This is a talk that is presented with two speakers handling 2 separate sections.

Read the F*&K!ng ReadMe - How to Interpret A Repo's Instructional Manual

"I never got how this worked" ~ is a common talk heard by all developers at one time or another, the other one is - "This is black magic" or it works on my machine or it should work.
This talk aims to highlight the importance of reading the documentation attached to a work repo. This talk is the other side to Write F*&K!ng ReadMe. It highlights how to demystify one's code once created as a repo, using the instructional manual AKA the ReadMe.

It aims to help developers to understand :
- the importance of ReadMe as a tool to understand how to use someone's code.
- how to break the ReadMe down to decipher how a project is coded or built and how to use it.
- how to use ReadMe to get more resources on the project if needed.
- An actionable breakdown of how to figure out how to
use a ReadMe.
- finding out about open-sourced contributions etc.
- provide actionable steps for all of the above.

- This talk is aimed to be a community talk.
- It can be 30 - 50 mins long based on the audience.
- target: Anyone but catering mostly to entry-level and mid-devs.

Open-Sourced - Growth Hacking Your Tech Skills

How does one grow one's technical skills on limited resources ( whether by choice or otherwise ) or show how one can learn using current resources?

This talk aims to provide a how-to guide to developing one's technical skills using community resources to enhance the developer's journey. It will use examples from my journey such as freeCodeCamp meetups, mentorships, hackathons, and civic hacking, providing actionable steps with accompanying learned insights. These steps include :
=> What is is open source learning?
=> Establishing your learning goal and breaking down the steps to getting there.
=> Understanding the importance of joining a community and being an active participant.
=> Why you should blog and tweet your progress as you learn.
=> Why and how you should contribute to open source?
=> How to find activities such as hackathons, meetups, and civic hacking groups that will challenge you?
=> Examine how to building a coding habit eg #100daysofCode.
=> How using open source resources helps you to learn makes you a better and more valuable developer/ engineer.
=> Etc ( anything else that may cater to the theme of the conference or meetup where this talk is being given).

- This talk is aimed to being a how-to on how to use open source resources to grow as a developer.
- It can be 30 - 60 mins long based on the audience and their needs.
- Target: developers at any experience level.

Don't Scare The Newbies ~ Creating Beginner Friendly Spaces

One of the hardest things to do as a developer is to develop and maintain a beginner-friendly community. This issue has a bit of complexity built into it as experts have a problem simplifying and relaying knowledge to beginners.

Using my last 6 years as one of the organizers for freeCodeCamp Atlanta, my talk provides a few actionable ways to create an environment that enables the retention and growth of beginners in a developer community. It is based on the article of the same title: =>https://tinyurl.com/ycv72hbh.

This talk will entail actionable tips and tricks that I learned as one of the freeCodeCamp Atlanta organizers. This talk may include:
=> The importance of creating beginner-friendly spaces.
=> How to support newbie developers and interested people.
=> The importance of communication in nurturing developers.
=> Results of the application of some of these details.
=> How to establish virtual and physical environments that enable newbie developers to thrive.
=> Etc

- This talk is aimed to be a community talk.
- It can be 30 - 50 mins long based on the audience.
- target: mid to snr devs.

How !To Be Mentored

How to does one get the best out of a mentor-ship, while provide providing value to both the mentee and the mentor in times of time spent and growth?

The mentee/mentor relationship in tech tends to be wrought with issues if not structured properly on both ends. This talk hopes to provide actionable steps learned from my wins and losses based on my experience being a part of a learn-to-code mentorship group for 1 year period. This talk will include :
=> Understanding the value propositions of the participants [mentee vs mentor]), etc.
=> Setting relationship fundamentals/foundations and expectations/results.
=> Time and task management suggestions.
=> How to deal with challenges as they come up.
=> Content to read ( books, articles, and people to follow on Twitter).
=> Etc ( Anything else that can come to mind when writing this talk based on the theme of the audience/ conference ).

- This talk is aimed to be a community talk.
- It can be 30 - 50 mins long based on the audience.
- target: Anyone but catering to entry-level and mid-devs

Social Goodness || Civic Hacking - What's in it for me?

I am giving away my time and talent for free, how to I benefit from being a part of civic hacking?

This talk will look at the benefits of being a part of the local civic hacking community. This talk will use some concrete examples to speak about how I have become a better developer and project manager through those experiences and was a part of a team that donated $40,000 to charity. I will also cite experiences and provide actionable steps learned as a developer and a community organizer, explain how civic hacking has helped me to grow as a developer ( using examples from Marta Hackathons, AT&T C3 Hackathons, Civic Hack nights, Atl Thinks competitions )
These steps include :
=> How to use civic hacking to grow your soft skills.
=> How to use civic hacking to grow your technical skills.
=> How to use civic hacking as a networking tool.
=> How to use civic hacking projects as a part of job hunting ( both technically and behaviorally).