Michael Dowden

From Monolith to Serverless: Rethinking your Architecture

It’s easy to understand the benefits of Serverless but it’s not always easy to understand how this will impact our software architecture.

In this talk we will deconstruct a set of requirements and walk through the architecture of both a traditional service-oriented architecture and a modern serverless architecture.

You’ll leave with a better understanding of how to design event-driven systems and serverless APIs, along with some alternatives to the traditional RESTful API layer.

ZAP! API Integrations with Zapier

Integrations between 3rd party applications and APIs has long been one of the most challenging and time-consuming parts of any application development effort.

But with the magic of cloud automation we can connect applications in just minutes instead of days. In this talk you’ll learn about:

* Responding to cloud events such as HTTPS endpoints and Tweets
* Connecting multiple APIs such as MailChimp and HubSpot
* How @TechDailyCFP was built using cloud tools without a single line of code
* Benefits and drawbacks of cloud automation tools

Examples will be on the Zapier platform, but similar principles apply to Integromat, Azuqua, Automate.io, and others.

Code Automation with Bitbucket

As developers we like the speed and consistency of code automation, but we don’t always want a lot of complex infrastructure to maintain.

Fortunately for us, Bitbucket is essentially an automation engine sitting on top of Git, which is both powerful and easy to use.

We’ll show specific scenarios based on real-world experience, including:
* Linting & Testing on every branch
* Pushing from Bitbucket to GitHub
* Build & Deploy to Firebase
* Automatically update Jira
* Send notifications to Slack

From custom branching models and workflow automation, to Pipelines, CI/CD and automation can be added to your projects today.

Hosted, not Served

Your static website, SPA, or PWA can be deployed on low-cost, world-class hosting using just a single command, without the need for servers. This talk will dive deep into the features of Firebase Hosting, using concrete examples derived from real-world experience.

You will learn about:

- Deploy and rollback
- Multi-site deploys
- Custom domains
- Security & cache management
- Custom URL management

After this talk you’ll be ready to host your projects on Firebase, without the need for managing servers.

Playing with Fire : Build a Web Application with Firebase

Come see how easy it can be to use Google Firebase to take your app idea from concept to production. In this session, we will build a messaging application together showing all the steps required to launch a new serverless web application with Firebase.

While we build this web app you will learn about many Firebase features, including:

* database
* cloud functions
* cloud storage
* hosting
* authentication
* security rules
* client and admin SDK

You will also need a Google account and mobile device or laptop to participate in the interactive demo.

Pants

From the very beginnings of western civilization, clothing has been used as an indication of a person’s social standing. This fast-paced, pun-filled talk explores this idea by focusing on the use of pants, set against the backdrop of a global pandemic, while exploring the role of technology in topics of social inequity.

The Serverless Company

Serverless technologies have had a tremendous impact on our software architecture and devops practices, but what about the rest of the organization?

In this presentation you will hear the story of a company that started in 2015 as a remote-first, pure-serverless organization. Without any servers or facilities to manage, dev ops _is_ the company’s infrastructure.

Learn how internal and external technology choices can support a company’s core values, and how lean systems help maintain resiliency (even during a global pandemic).

Whether you run (or want to start) your own business, or need to convince management in your company to adopt serverless, you’ll walk away with information that will help you move to the next level.

This keynote was first presented at Serverless Architecture Conference 2021, The Hague, Netherlands.

Thriving in Chaos

Companies might proudly display their core values, but do they model them when chaos strikes? Hear how a company with a mission to center people in product development thrived during a global pandemic.

Building policies and practices that reinforce a company’s core values facilitates project and client success, while maintaining team morale and engagement. Learn tips for communication, collaboration, ethics, inclusivity, accessibility, and humanity that will help your team thrive.

This keynote is based upon my companies mission statement, which is "to facilitate connections between people in an ethical, accessible way, using technology when necessary." This is the third keynote I've written in the past year which explores various aspects of values-driven leadership as they relate to technology teams under stress. This is a topic I care deeply about, and one I've been both living and sharing.

From Horror Story to Fairy Tale: Writing code people want to read

As developers we spend much more time reading code than we do writing it. It’s important that our code conveys its meaning clearly, not just to the computer but also to other developers. Everything we write tells a story, and our code is no different. From meaningless variable names to confusing comments, the code we write can be a horror story that leads to frustration, bugs, and delays.

In this session we'll discuss the importance of empathy when writing code, and the impact this can have on inclusivity. We'll look at concrete examples of poor naming, obfuscated logic, and other anti-patterns. And finally we'll cover specific tips for writing fairy tale code that future developers will want to read. We'll also cover processes for implementing these tips within your team so that you can all live happily ever after.

Winning as the Home Team

The process of building Great Software can be broken down to a number of processes and attributes that center around communication. From requirements to code to documentation, standups to retrospectives, we build our software teams around specific interactions and communication channels. The typical picture of a software team shows a group of people collaborating around a marker board in a room full of computers. But is this really necessary?

This talk will break down the processes of building software together as a team, and show how things change when you are no longer sharing the same room. You will learn about the practices and tools one company uses to successfully run remote-only software projects, with developers that work from home. From leadership styles, to meeting schedules, to coding practices, we’ll get into specifics about what it takes to be a winning team when everyone is working from home. And finally, there will be a comparison between working from home in 2019 and 2020.

First delivered as a webinar for Team Rockstars IT Webinar, Netherlands