Starting a new job as a junior developer is exciting — until you hit your first pull request. In this talk, I’ll share the common (and painful) pitfalls I wish I had avoided when submitting PRs early in my career. From underestimating the importance of clear commit messages, to neglecting test coverage, to misunderstanding review feedback — we’ll walk through real lessons learned the hard way.

But this isn’t just for juniors. In today’s world of AI-powered development, there are powerful ways to avoid these same mistakes — and even seasoned, salty developers can pick up a few nuggets to up their game. We’ll explore practical ways to use AI tools to check your PRs, tighten up your code, generate better documentation, and make your review process smoother and faster — so you can spend less time fixing rookie mistakes and more time shipping quality code.

Whether you’re starting your first dev role or you’ve been merging PRs for years, this talk will help you level up your workflow and see how AI can make your developer life just a little bit easier.