Kaitlyn Concilio
Software Engineering Leader | Prompt Therapy Solutions
Spokane, Washington, United States
Actions
Kaitlyn Concilio has been playing with computers since she first telnetted into the library to reserve books in first grade. With deep experience in design and writing, she’s programmed her way through stints in journalism, nonprofits, higher education and healthcare, both as an internal team member and through consultancy. She’s passionate about building vibrant, cross-functional teams and helping other developers grow.
Area of Expertise
Topics
Data regulations for software developers
GDPR, HIPAA, CCPA, COPPA … nowadays there are (almost) as many regulatory acronyms as there are Javascript frameworks and libraries. But while we have entire conferences and books devoted to React and Angular, regulatory obligations are often left up to lawyers or those developers with deep domain knowledge to sort out.
Well, no more! We’ll cover some of the most important regulations, with a broad overview of what they require and (more importantly) when you need to worry about them. And this knowledge will continue to be useful, both as you write code and look to advance in your career.
Greenfield, minefield? Finding unforeseen requirements in new projects
A greenfield project is supposed to be a developer’s dream, theoretically one that has no existing infrastructure or legacy systems to contend with. In reality, unless you’re starting completely from scratch with no ties to anything external, what looks like a wide open field actually could have things hidden underground you may not be aware of.
We’ll look in depth at two recent projects that at first glance appeared to be empty, fertile ground but actually contained several surprises. Connections to external APIs, future-proofing and consistency with existing related data are all potential holes you might find yourself falling into. We’ll look at some general strategies for sussing out such hidden pitfalls and how they might best be avoided.
Debug like a pro
Debugging, like all of programming, is something of an art. But contrary to belief, art doesn't just "happen." There are skills and techniques you can work on to give yourself a head-start when faced with a blank canvas (or production bug that takes down your whole system).
We'll walk through a systematic process for debugging anything, regardless of language, framework or tools. When you have a good process in place, debugging can even be, dare I say it, fun!
Using Data Transfer Objects to keep your applications coherent, lean and bug-free
Backend developers only want to name our variables_like_this, while frontenders are all about that camelCaseLife. But you’re not doomed as aCapulet to war with them forever, so don’t reach for that poison just yet.
Data Transfer Objects are here to save the day. Whether you’re looking to maintain naming convention consistency or convert between similar data types that don’t quite match up (without either sacrificing type safety or bloating the scope of your component), DTO is the way to go.
We will talk about the importance of maintaining metaphorical coherence in your application, and why it’s the secret sauce that will allow you develop applications faster and with fewer bugs.
We’ll talk about the conceptual underpinnings and share examples of when they can be best put to use.
The Imposter’s Advantage
Kaitlyn Concilio worked as a newspaper editor despite never having taken a journalism class; she’s taken on a senior Angular job despite having never used the framework before; and she’s made to principal software engineer with a BA in history as her sole official credential.
And while she feels the weight of Imposter’s Syndrome all the time, it’s not always a disadvantage to be an outsider. Having a unique perspective can make you valuable, and you can always learn the base-level skills.
We’ll discuss the upsides of what it means to approach things from a new angle; we’ll talk about some strategies you can use to shore up weaknesses. And we’ll go over some basic dev things that senior devs think everybody knows but no one does unless they actually have a CS degree.
That’s not “real” Scrum: Measuring and managing productivity for development teams
The first rule of Scrum is that everyone else is doing Scrum wrong. The first rule of Agile is that you’re actually just doing Waterfall with sprints.
We’re going to talk about the philosophies of Scrum and Agile, and what the hell you’re actually supposed to be using story points for. We’re gonna dig deep into how you should actually be measuring your dev team’s productivity. We’ll go over some common misconceptions and pitfalls, and finish up with some tips for practices you should be striving for as well some baby-step approaches to fixing your processes.
Minimal vs. functional: Beyond "clean" code
You cannot tell at a glance whether code is “clean” or not, yet most developers seem to attribute more value to code that’s pleasing to look at rather than code that is consistent, readable and understandable.
We’ll discuss some of the shortcomings with some commonly accepted indicators of “clean” code, as well as some principles to follow for truly cleaner (and maintainable!) codebases, regardless of language. Learn the specifiable traits of quality code, as well as some common assumptions you're making you're not even aware of.
Highlight: We'll solve tabs vs. spaces once and for all.
Intersectiona11y: Accessibility, AI and the future of work
Work is all about managing your priorities. Legally, we need to be accessible, but it's so haaard. We need AI to be competitive, but we also need to be judicious in how we use it. Remote work is going to enable us to hire great people, but we feel we get the best productivity in-office.
And you can slalom to and fro each of those areas, as well as any number of different ones, and find some measure of success. But unlocking the true potential of those disparate areas – as well as creating the best products – comes from considering them all together.
We'll talk about how accessibility can help not just cover your legal assets, but also about how it can materially grow your audience. We'll also discuss the best use-cases for AI (warning: Not as many as it's being touted as), and the right method to implement them. We'll also talk about remote work and DEIB, an how those things and more can be incorporated into making your company the best place it can be, both internally and externally.
Fairytale vs. Narrative: Telling stories and making decisions with data
Everyone wants to be data-driven: "We want to do things empirically correctly, so we just rely on the data to provide a value-neutral assessment of the best course forward."
Except for the most part, data-driven tends to be data-informed, at best. Because you can tell any story from a given set of data. We'll talk what data can actually tell you vs. what it can't, looking at specific case studies and examples.
We'll discover how to find the right data to help drive your decisions, and how you might actually be able to collect it. And at least once I will get so upset about someone using data incorrectly I'll start sputtering, which is pretty amusing for everyone else.
NDC Melbourne 2025 Sessionize Event Upcoming
Cascadia PHP
Intersectiona11y & Narrative vs. Fairytale
dev up 2024 Sessionize Event
php[tek] 2024 Sessionize Event
Michigan Technology Conference 2024 Sessionize Event
DeveloperWeek 2024 Sessionize Event
Please note that Sessionize is not responsible for the accuracy or validity of the data provided by speakers. If you suspect this profile to be fake or spam, please let us know.
Jump to top