Paul Conroy
CTO at Square1.io
Dublin, Ireland
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As CTO of Square1, a leading digital agency in Dublin, I bring 20+ years of experience building high-traffic applications across Europe. I’ve led teams, shaped products, and navigated the challenges of transitioning from developer to manager. An international speaker, I’m passionate about sharing insights on technical leadership and the evolving world of software development.
Area of Expertise
Topics
Boosting Frontend Speed: Quick Wins for Backend Developers
Page speed is a critical part of modern web application performance. From the speed of generating a response on the server, to how it ultimately gets rendered in the user's device, there are a number of areas we need to stay on top of. However, many devs are more comfortable with the backend side of things - happier working with APIs and CLIs than fighting CSS oddities, JS race conditions or images jumping around as a page loads. And that's before we even get to the fun of node js and npm versioning issues! As a result, many backend devs tend to shy away from performance issues caused on the frontend of the application.
Fortunately there are a number of "quick wins" available to backend devs to significantly boost frontend speed! In this talk, I cover a number of techniques to improve things like:
* Image loading
* Font rendering
* Video players
* Display ad performance
All of these can be improved by backend devs without getting bogged down in frontend tooling or frameworks, and make a rapid improvement to page speed scores. We'll also cover the metrics we can use to objectively measure the impact of our changes.
Vital Signs: Using Laravel Pulse to Monitor Your Website’s Page Speed Health
As web developers, we know how critical fast page speed is for user satisfaction and success. Yet traditional reporting tools often leave us waiting for laggy, sampled data that only tells part of the story - long after our users have experienced slow pages. So how can we monitor our users' page speed in real time, ensuring we're always ahead of the curve?
Enter Laravel Pulse! Though widely recognised for server-side monitoring, in this session I'll show you how to extend it for real-time page speed reporting. You’ll discover how simple it can be to create your own metrics and charts in Laravel Pulse, integrate it with Core Web Vitals reporting, and gain immediate insights into the experiences your users are having on your app.
By the end of this talk, you'll be able to detect and address performance issues as they happen, ensuring a smoother, faster experience for your users!
Digital Cat-and-Mouse: Strategies to Outsmart Scrapers, Phishers, and Thieves
As app developers, defending our digital assets goes far beyond firewalls and passwords. With scrapers, phishers, and content thieves at every turn, creative defences are often our best tool. Whether it’s trying to sell 10 Downing St or spotting the Eiffel Tower in Dublin, this talk will explore inventive techniques to outsmart threats in real-world scenarios.
We'll share stories from the trenches and discuss technical strategies to stay one step ahead of competitors and bad actors alike. As with all good stories, there were plenty of mistakes made along the way! You’ll leave with actionable tactics to protect your assets, outwit your competition, and stay ahead in this ever-evolving landscape.
No Servers, Just Sheets: Zero-Infrastructure APIs using Google Sheets and Cloudflare Workers
You've probably heard of Google Sheets. You may also know about Cloudflare Workers. But you might not expect them to team up as a serverless, globally-distributed JSON API platform. Perfect for internal tools, fast prototypes, or zero-maintenance content feeds, this technique lowers the barrier to publishing live data.
In this talk, we’ll explore how to turn a humble spreadsheet into a live data source and use Workers to cache, shape, and serve it at the edge - all with minimal code and no infrastructure requirements.
Avoiding Déjà Vu: Building Resilient APIs with Idempotency
When users click "Submit" twice, what happens next could make or break your application. Idempotency ensures repeated API calls produce consistent results, saving systems from duplicate charges, mismanaged resources, and confused customers. This talk explains idempotency’s role in building reliable APIs, with practical examples to show you how to implement it effectively in your application.
We’ll share real-world stories of what happens when idempotency goes wrong (or doesn’t exist), and go through how some of the largest companies in the world choose to implement this technique. Whether you’re a seasoned API developer or new to the concept, you’ll leave with actionable insights and techniques to make your APIs smarter and more user-friendly.
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