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 it's not super exciting. What _is_ exciting is a home that makes life easier and more comfortable by automatically doing what you want, when you want it, and without subscription fees or privacy headaches.
This session is aimed at people who have dabbled in home automation and want to take things to the next level. You'll learn about setting up effective presence detection using mmWave and motion sensors, adding smarts to dumb household appliances such as lamps, fans, and laundry machines, and how to control your home with your voice without relying on Alexa or Google. Oh, yeah, and you'll learn how to do all of it without cloud services!
Come see what's possible on the cutting edge of home automation!
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.
Practical Auth(entication|orization) for Developers
It's never been easier to launch a website or expose services over HTTP. It's also never been easier to make rookie mistakes in the authentication of those services.
This session is designed for the average developer/architect that's struggling to make sense of modern authentication options. You'll learn the differences between OAuth, API Keys, HMAC, JSON Web Tokens (JWT), SAML, OpenID Connect, and passkeys.
Don't worry if those things sound foreign; they'll be explained in a clear, practical way so that you can choose the appropriate tool for your needs without making rookie mistakes.
This is a re-tooled and re-written version of my "Securing Your API Endpoints". I've probably delivered it 10 times across all the iterations, but this version is dramatically improved.
I always get a few people each conference telling me that the talk was _exactly_ what they needed, and I'm quite confident that I can make it a good use of attendee time.
The most recent version includes an updated section on passwordless.
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 dumb; your lights shouldn't stop working because your Internet is down, and your new doorbell shouldn't compromise your network security.
A smarter and more secure home doesn't depend on cloud services or a disparate array of apps to function, and it's easier than you might think to achieve total local control. A dash of technical knowledge, a dab of DIY elbow grease, and this session are all you need to get started.
In this session you'll learn how to choose and install a local hub, which devices work best (Zigbee vs Z-Wave vs Wifi), and how to integrate lights, plugs, sensors, and switches without the cloud. You'll also learn how to add smart features like remote control and push notifications to your existing "dumb" appliances and how to use voice control without Alexa or Google.
Come take a tour through the land of smart, local home automation and stop being dependent on someone else's computers!
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!
Authentication Demystified: Basic Auth to Web Tokens in 60 minutes
Have you ever searched for "how to authenticate an API call" and been confused by the dizzying array of techniques, terminology, jargon, and acronyms that come back?
This session is designed for anyone that's struggling to make sense of modern authentication options. You'll learn the differences between OAuth, API Keys, HMAC, JSON Web Tokens (JWT), SAML, OpenID Connect, and passkeys using Webauthn. Each technique will be explained in a clear, practical, easy-to-understand way.
This session focuses on core concepts, not code, and is accessible to anyone that 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
Have you ever wondered what happens "under the hood" when a user accesses your app or site in their browser?
This session takes you on a journey through the fundamental building blocks of the internet. You'll learn about DNS lookups, IP addresses and routing, HTTP caching strategies, and how HTTPS/SSL keeps your connections secure.
Whether you're a developer, designer, or just curious about how things work, you'll leave with a solid understanding of how data travels across the internet, how to troubleshoot network issues, and how to optimize your applications for speed and reliability.
Modern development has advanced to the point that you don't *need* to understand how things work under the hood to produce a web app, but I think that knowledge of fundamentals makes people better developers and technologists.
I think I'm pretty good at putting together "explainer" type sessions, and I have some experience working lower down the network stack, so I think I could make this a good use of attendee time.
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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