Speaker Series
Tuesday January 28th, 2020
6:00 - 8:00 PM
Atomic Object, 1034 Wealthy St. SE, Grand Rapids
How a “Product Mindset” Eases Fear of Failure with Custom Software Projects
With custom software development, the risk is high. Companies can invest a year of a time and a million dollars only to never use what was developed. That’s a scary prospect! Approaching custom software with a product mindset can alleviate this risk.
Learn through the stories of a 20-year software systems consultant and a local product manager who is applying a product mindset in health care and financial services tech. Brian Anderson, CEO of Augusto and software system consultant, will discuss the key outcomes of a product mindset. This includes providing overwhelming customer value, building a sustainable competitive advantage, delivering financial benefit to the business, and delighting customers.
About Brian
Brian is a visionary problem solver constantly working at the confluence of product design, systems development, and entrepreneurship. His focus is on product development and software systems. Brian is the CEO of Augusto, a software development company that creates digital products for customers.
Brian has co-founded several start-ups including PayIt2, TallySheet, and LOFT.
SoftwareGR Presents Jake Bartlett: Software Breaks: Incident Communication 101
Tuesday January 28th, 2020
6:00 - 8:00 PM
Atomic Object, 1034 Wealthy St. SE, Grand Rapids
SoftwareGR Presents Jake Bartlett: Software Breaks: Incident Communication 101
Incident communication can make or break a company's reputation. When your software breaks, you need the right people and processes in place to help you respond. Communicating quickly, clearly, and often helps build trust and reduce incoming support requests. In this talk, we'll cover 1) defining an incident, 2) incident roles & responsibilities, 3) incident communication channels, and 4) communicating during an incident.
About Jake
Jake Bartlett is a Customer Success Manager at Atlassian, a software company that builds products for software developers, project managers, content management, and incident management. It is best known for its issue tracking tool, Jira, and team collaboration tool, Confluence. Jake works on the Statuspage product, where he helps companies build trust with their customers through better incident communication. His passion for delivering exceptional customer experiences grew from 10+ years working with technology teams and customers. Jake is a drummer, an avid hiker and camper, and a new Grand Rapidian. For more information and to connect with Jake, visit jakebartlett.net.
SoftwareGR Presents Stephanie Vaughn: "I’m Just An Engineer” - What Are the Ethical Responsibilities of Developers?
Tuesday December 10th, 2019
6:00 - 8:00 PM
Atomic Object, 1034 Wealthy St. SE, Grand Rapids
Details
Do developers have an ethical responsibility when it comes to developing tech that ultimately becomes a tool of state violence? Should they have a say in how the tech they build should be used once it’s delivered to the client?
In this talk, I will examine how efforts to move tech forward are built on statistical biases, and why those who build these things should care. I will also discuss what a code of ethics could look like when approached by developers.
NOTE: The abstract previously referenced a quote from Science Magazine (“I’m just an engineer”), which was originally misquoted. The quote was updated in Science Magazine and removed from the abstract.
About Stephanie
After being adopted by Chicago for 14 years, Stephanie hit 'RESET' and returned to her hometown of Detroit in 2015 to reboot her writing ambitions into a tech career. This bold move has since yielded a foray into Computer Science education and working on staff with nationally recognized STEM education programs like SMASH and tech diversity organizations like Black Girls Code. With over a decade of experience in media-focused Communications, the Grand Circus (Javascript, '16) and Integrate Detroit (Software Development, ‘18) alumna is always looking to share her passion for the T in “STEM” with developers & non-developers alike.
SoftwareGR Presents Jared DeMott: Software Security Fundamentals
Tuesday November 16th, 2019
6:00 - 8:00 PM
Atomic Object, 1034 Wealthy St. SE, Grand Rapids
Summary
Dr. DeMott has been teaching AppSec topics for 13 years. The depth and breadth required to stand-up and execute on a security program may seem overwhelming at first. But actually, by understanding what’s key to your organization, fitting the key practices into your group may not be as daunting as anticipated. Come learn which pieces are most impactful, so you can prioritize the next steps for your project.
About Jared
Dr. Jared DeMott is the Founder of VDA Labs, a full-scope cyber security company. DeMott previously served as a vulnerability analyst with the NSA. He holds a PhD from Michigan State University. He regularly speaks on cyber matters at conferences like RSA, DerbyCon, BlackHat, ToorCon, GrrCon, HITB, etc. He was a finalist in Microsoft’s BlueHat prize contest, which helped make Microsoft customers more secure. Dr. DeMott has been on three winning Defcon capture-the-flag teams, and has been an invited lecturer at prestigious institutions such as the US Military Academy. Jared is a Pluralsight author, and is often interviewed by Media to weigh in on cyber matters.
Pluralsight Courses:
https://www.pluralsight.com/paths/security-for-hackers-and-developers
Public Speaking and Security Information:
https://www.vdalabs.com/2017/11/14/get-darknet-safely/
https://www.vdalabs.com/2017/12/15/thoughts-on-snowden/
https://www.vdalabs.com/2017/11/22/embedded-iot-security/
https://www.vdalabs.com/2017/02/08/social-engineering-is-on-the-rise/
https://www.vdalabs.com/2017/02/24/great-time-at-rsa/
SoftwareGR Presents Carlus Henry: Confessions of a Test Driven Developer-holic
Tuesday October 29th, 2019
6:00 - 8:00 PM
Atomic Object, 1034 Wealthy St. SE, Grand Rapids
Summary
Test Driven Development is an industry accepted best practice. It gives developers confidence in the software that they write by promising both requirement fulfilling products as well as simpler designs. Who could ever argue against it’s merits?
For years I have been an advocate of Test Driven Development - to the point where I have been called of being a Test Driven Developer-holic. Not only did I drink the Kool-Aid, I also served it to minors.
Despite it’s merits, there is a dark underbelly to Test Driven Development. Exhausted of ignoring this underbelly, I have committed a number of sins against the Test Driven Developer community.
During this talk, I will share my confession of where almost two decades of professional software development has lead me and my current position on this topic
About carlus
Carlus Henry has been working in the Software Industry for over 19 years. Through that experience, he has been a Software Developer, Technical Team Lead and Entrepreneur. He has given many talks in the Grand Rapids Area and beyond. Most recently he has been focusing on Continuous Integration / Deployment pipelines and .NET development. He is happily married to his wife for 19 years and has 6 beautiful children - 3 boys and 3 girls that keep him extremely busy.
RSVP on Meetup
SoftwareGR Presents Andy Lester: 12 Skills Every Rookie Programmer Should Have (But Often Don't)
Tuesday April 30th, 2019
7:00 - 9:00 PM
Atomic Object, 1034 Wealthy St. SE, Grand Rapids
12 Skills Every Rookie Programmer Should Have (But Often Don’t)
Students coming out of college, or the newly popular coding bootcamps, are eager to get working in the business world of programming. Unfortunately, many college programs and bootcamps are leaving students ill-prepared for life in the working world of computer professionals.
In this talk, I'll present a dozen areas of knowledge that every programmer should know, but may not have learned, or learned with enough depth. We'll cover technical skills like SQL and regular expressions, soft skills like working effectively with other coders, and everything in between.
If you're looking to make the leap into the world of programming, or to make your first big move to the next job, you'll learn where you should beef up your skills to make sure you can hit the ground running.
About Andy
Andy Lester has been developing software professionally for over
30 years. He's released many open source projects on GitHub (https://github.com/petdance) and
Perl's CPAN (https://metacpan.org/author/PETDANCE), including
ack (https://beyondgrep.com), a grep-like search tool for programmers. Andy's experiences managing and hiring programmers are the basis of his job-hunting guide "Land The Tech Job You Love" (https://pragprog.com/book/algh/land-the-tech-job-you-love).
He writes about software development and careers at http://blog.petdance.com and tweets at https://twitter.com/petdance.
SoftwareGR Presents Joshua Hulst: Problem Solving in Software Development
Tuesday, March 26, 2019
6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
NOTE DIFFERENT LOCATION:
Michigan Software Labs,
452 Ada Dr SE Suite 300, Ada, MI
Problem Solving in Software Development
Professional software development is an interesting craft. There are always new technologies to learn, different project delivery methods to keep up on, new hosting platforms available - so much seems to be changing all the time.
Through all of this change, one of the most rewarding (and important) parts of the craft is the opportunity we have to solve problems and create solutions. Sometimes these are technical problems and solutions, but often the technical solutions are the most rewarding when they are in support of higher level problems - figuring out how to improve a business process, making a user’s life a little better, etc.
In this discussion, we’ll talk together about methods and strategies I’ve found for thinking about problems, both technical and non-technical, and creating solutions to solve those problems. I’ll also share some lessons learned over the years about partnering with clients to solve their problems.
About Joshua Hulst
Joshua Hulst is the co-founder and managing partner of Michigan Software Labs, creator of transformational software solutions for middle market and Fortune 500 companies alike. He is a published security researcher, graduate of the GE Edison Engineering Development Program, and frequent industry panelist and speaker.
SoftwareGR Presents Jonathan "J." Tower: Seeing Your Career as an Adventure
Tuesday January 29th, 2019
6:00 - 8:00 PM
Atomic Object, 1034 Wealthy St. SE, Grand Rapids
Seeing Your Career As An Adventure
In my 20-year professional career, I have had many different adventures, as well as my share of misadventures. People, good luck, and well-timed opportunities have all played a role in the overall trajectory of my professional life, and much of it in ways I couldn't have dreamed when I was first starting out.
These twists and turns have allowed me to work for startups, meet my idols, travel the world speaking at conferences, start my own company, and a few years ago, they even allowed me to travel around the entire country for a year, working and living with my family in an RV, ultimately going to all of the lower 48 states.
I want to tell you more about that trip, and everything it taught me about seeing my career--and life--as an adventure. I hope that hearing a little about my adventures will inspire you in your own, help you to see your career in a different light, and encourage you to join in on your own adventure already in progress.
About Jonathan
Jonathan "J." Tower is a Microsoft MVP, frequent speaker, and business owner with twenty years of software industry experience. He loves solving problems and all the creative aspects of software development, as well as sharing what he's learned with others and helping to build technology community.
His current technology interests include software architecture, .NET Core, JavaScript frameworks, web APIs, and a few different mobile app technologies.
J. lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan with his wife and children, where he turned his passion for the tech community into the Beer City Code conference.
Software GR Presents Rachael McQuater: Seeking System Zen w/ Universal TypeScript
Tuesday, November 20, 2018
6pm - 8pm
Atomic Object, 1034 Wealthy St. SE, Grand Rapids
Seeking System Zen w/ Universal TypeScript
Every codebase is a living, breathing thing. How do we take care of one? What leverage can a language give us in our task? Let me take you on our statically-, structurally- typed journey to holistic system health and harmony using universal Typescript.
TypeScript’s powerful structural type system, when used universally across our application:
* Encodes domain constraints and invariants right into our types, where they’re checked by our editor instead of our test suite;
* Quickly reveals code health issues, and guides us through the resultant refactoring;
* Eliminates the cognitive load of switching between client and server languages;
* Just plain reduces our chances of hurting ourselves while realizing JavaScript’s powerful, but dangerously flexible, backend potential.
We built a codebase that self-tests, that speaks to us when it’s feeling tension or wants to be refactored, that guides us toward solutions that cut with the grain. Now, we have a holistically healthy, robust app that responds instantly to complex, changing problem spaces.
And it’s a hell of a lot of fun to work with.
About Rachael
Rachael McQuater is a Software Consultant and Developer at Atomic Object who is excited about building beautiful software that closely models real-world problem domains. She and her colleagues at Atomic are exploring new ways to build more robust, powerful, easy-to-write web applications with TypeScript.
Software GR Presents Joe Chrysler: React Native
Tuesday, October 23, 2018
6pm - 8pm
Atomic Object, 1034 Wealthy St. SE, Grand Rapids
React Native
3 Languages, 2 Platforms, 1 Framework, Go!
Live-reloading, UI snapshot testing, and excellent escape hatches make React Native the first cross-platform development framework that's worth recommending. Drop by and learn why cross-platform no longer means lowest common denominator.
In this interactive conversation, I'll show you how to build fast, fluid mobile interfaces with Yoga and Storybook, how to make your text editor enforce business logic with TypeScript and Redux, and how easy it is to drop down to native code with React Native bridges when you need to leverage the full power of each platform. This conversation will be part talk, part live demo, and part conversation, so come ready with a smartphone, a question, and a smile. It'll be fun. 🙂
About Joe
Joe is a developer with Atomic Object, currently focused on building cross-platform mobile apps with React Native and TypeScript, and cloud backends with AWS Lambda and Cognito. To get away from all that JavaScript, he spends a lot of time trying to improve the developer experience on his projects with Makefiles, Bash, and Markdown. Ask him how he uses Alexa to water his horses.