Seth Petry-Johnson
Pointy-haired boss by day, coder by night
Columbus, Ohio, United States
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Seth spent 21 years as a professional developer/architect before finally joining the dark side of management. He now spends his days as a pointy-haired boss leading a small-but-mighty product development team in the search for elegant solutions to complex problems. He is passionate about clean architecture, testable systems, and bringing order to chaos. Seth lives in Columbus, OH and is an active participant in the Midwest developer community. He'll write TPS reports when he has to, but still enjoys writing, reviewing, and talking about code.
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Advanced Home Automation (without the cloud!)
Turning lights on with your phone is neat, but real home automation is when your house anticipates your needs, makes life easier, and does it all without pricey subscriptions or privacy risks.
This session is for anyone who's already tinkered with smart devices and wants to take things to the next level. You'll learn how to set up presence detection so lights stay on even when you're sitting still; retrofit "dumb" appliances like fans and laundry machines with smart controls; enable private, cloud-free voice commands; and harness AI and LLMs to manage automations and personalize your home.
Join us to explore the cutting edge of local-first home automation, and leave ready to make your smart home truly intelligent!
I've been speaking about home automation at conferences for a few years now. When I first started, a lot of people were interested in the basics. Over time, more and more people coming to my sessions have prior experience and have begun asking more advanced questions.
This is a new session with those folks in mind. I'll cover some of the basics very quickly, just to set a common baseline, but most of this session will be focused on the really cool (but more advanced) stuff I'm doing that's overkill for my introductory sessions.
Thank you for your consideration!
Burnout - More than just a bad day
Burnout is more than just being tired, irritable, or beat down. It's a specific psychological condition that develops in response to different types of stress, and it can be measured and analyzed in systematic ways.
This session will explain the science behind burnout, introduce tools for measuring it, and explore ways to address it. We will cover both an organizational approach (for managers and leaders) and a more personal approach (for individual contributors).
You will leave with some practical suggestions for assessing and addressing burnout BEFORE it leads to turnover, low morale, and a loss of productivity.
I delivered this session at CodeMash 2023, focused primarily on addressing burnout from an organizational perspective; it was written for managers and leaders, but a lot of ICs showed up.
I'm retooling it going forward to address both managers and ICs.
The content is primarily driven by research that I did in 2021 as part of an initiative to avoid turnover and retain staff through COVID. I intend to summarize the research I conducted, how we rolled out this program to our staff, the lessons we learned in doing so, and the outcomes we've observed as a result.
Authentication Demystified: Basic Auth to Web Tokens in 60 minutes
Are you lost in the alphabet soup of authentication? OAuth, OIDC, JWTs, API Keys, HMAC, SAML - the list goes on.
This session cuts through the jargon and explains modern authentication in clear, practical terms. We'll compare the most common techniques, highlight the problems they solve, and show how they build on the same core concepts.
Finally, we'll connect the dots and show how these concepts apply to today's web apps, including single-page applications (SPAs) using the backend-for-frontend (BFF) pattern.
No coding experience required! This session focuses on fundamentals, explained in a way that's accessible to developers, architects, and anyone who works with technology.
I've been a "security minded" developer for many years and remember being very frustrated and confused when I couldn't find a clear, easy-to-follow guide to picking an authentication strategy for my apps.
Since then I've done a bunch of research and worked with a bunch of different security techniques, so I designed this as the clear, easy-to-follow guide that I so desperately wanted back then. I think it will help a lot of developers (and non-devs) understand how things work at a fundamental level.
From Click to Connection: Demystifying How the Internet Works
Modern frameworks make it easy to build powerful apps while hiding the fundamentals of how the internet really works. Have you ever wondered what actually happens when a user accesses your site in their browser?
This session will trace a single request from browser to server, stopping along the way to demystify DNS, routing, NAT, reverse proxies, HTTP caching, and HTTPS/SSL certificates.
Whether you're a developer, designer, or just curious about how things work, you’ll leave ready to troubleshoot network issues, debug performance problems, and design applications that are faster, more reliable, and more secure - because you'll finally understand how data travels across the 'net.
This was inspired by my work with junior developers and watching them get stuck on things that I'd assumed they knew. I suspect a lot of modern developers aren't that familiar with what happens under the hood.
I seem to have a knack for putting together "explainer" type sessions that make complex topics coherent and accessible, so I think I could do a good job with this.
*** I'd be willing to give multiple talks if it simplifies schedule planning! ***
Hiring and Inspiring an Exceptional Team
Management gets a bad rap in technical circles, and for good reason: many managers are terrible, and it shows!
Rising above the pointy-haired-boss stereotypes is easier than you might think. By grounding your leadership style in management science, and adding a touch of emotional intelligence, you can help your team meet its individual and collective goals, improve morale and engagement, and reduce turnover.
This session will show early-career managers how to find team players aligned with their core values, how to "design the alliance" with new hires, how to get the most out of 1:1s, and how to use personality-typing tools like DISC to motivate and communicate effectively.
This was delivered for the first time at CodeMash 2020 with good results. It fit the timeframe perfectly and generated good discussion afterwards.
Slides are here: https://github.com/spetryjohnson/Talk---Hiring--Firing--and-Inspiring
Home Automation - Without The Cloud!
Modern "smart" homes are surprisingly dumb: your lights might stop working when the Internet is down, your fancy new doorbell can weaken your network security, and poorly-written apps put your privacy at risk.
A locally-controlled smart home is reliable, secure, and puts you (not some giant tech company) in control. And it's easy to get started!
In this session we'll compare hubs (and explain why they matter), demystify the different protocols they use to talk to devices (Zigbee, Z-Wave, Matter), and show you how to integrate lights, plugs, sensors, and switches into a cohesive system. You'll even discover how to get smart alerts from your old "dumb" appliances and how to add voice control without Alexa or Google listening in.
Join us for a tour of local-first home automation, and leave ready to build a smart home that's faster, safer, and finally under your control.
This talk grew out of a ton of research I did during quarantine when I adopted a new hobby and started playing around with Raspberry Pi and home automation.
My goal is to give attendees all of the basic knowledge they need to get started in an accessible and entertaining way. I cover the different types of device protocols people need to know about and how to do some cool things, such as adding notifications to legacy appliances.
Thank you for your consideration!
Stir Trek 2023 Sessionize Event
CodeMash 2023 Sessionize Event
Stir Trek 2022 Sessionize Event
CodeMash 2020 Sessionize Event
CodeMash 2019 Sessionize Event
KCDC 2018 Sessionize Event
Stir Trek 2018 Sessionize Event
Seth Petry-Johnson
Pointy-haired boss by day, coder by night
Columbus, Ohio, United States
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