 Hello everyone and welcome to the conference. Oh my goodness. I'm so glad that we were able to do this even with the whole Pandemic thing happening here. I I know that this is not the ideal conditions for some kind of technical event But I'm still glad that we're able to have it together that being said I wanted to talk a little bit more about Technical communities today because this is something that I often don't normally talk about I don't normally give very technical talks But I think this is something that's really important for developers and non developers to know about talk about and just Understand and and really realize the value of what a community can bring so that being said a little introduction Get my computer set up here. My name is Cassidy Williams You can find me at Casadu for most platforms not Instagram because sadly a teenager took that from me You'll you'll find me Cassidy feel free to reach out anytime and I am a principal developer experience engineer at Netlify and My job is so fun. I haven't been there very long But I really love just being able to interact with developers a lot speak at events like this one Write blog posts and demos and stuff for people to build with and of course just work on Netlify altogether It's it's a really great team to be a part of that being said I haven't actually been at Netlify for very long This is something that's that's a relatively new role at the time. I've recorded this I think I just hit my two-month mark that being said I've been around a few different companies As you can see her on the slide there There are quite a few companies that have hopped around to I I first started out of college at Venmo Went from Venmo over to clarify went from clarify to L4 digital then to Amazon then to codepen then to react training into Netlify and All of these places were awesome places to work for at Venmo I was able to do a lot of developer relations work and also Work on their both back-end and front-end things and as awesome as it was it was it was a great place to work It was bought and it turned out that paypal the company that bought it They were probably going to be cutting some of the projects that I was involved with and I didn't really want to Have my projects be cut and so as I was Figuring out what to do I ended up switching over to clarify and that clarify I was doing developer relations was loving it was working on the website of things and had just an awesome time working on that team and Then kind of to my surprise I was really tired of living in New York City And it was a great place to be in but I was ready to try something new And so I ended up packing my bags and left clarify to go off to Seattle and work at a company called L4 digital L4 digital was a creative agency that was so fun to work for we had a laser cutter in the office and and Got to play around with 3d printers and also just work with some really interesting clients And I loved kind of doing that creative side of coding and I was doing some engineering management work as well And as much as I loved that they were bought I was part of another acquisition And unfortunately with the company that bought it L4 is no more it was absorbed into this big company And I decided you know with all the changes that they're making I guess it's time for me to move on to another role Then I went on to Amazon and with Amazon. I worked on Alexa I don't want my device to wake up in here and as as fun as it was to work on that team Oh, you know she woke up anyway As fun as it was to work on that team and I got to work with my sister as well Which was always great to be able to do it didn't really fit well with me I realized that I didn't like big companies and With some culture shifts in the company I just decided that Amazon wasn't for me and so I switched over to codepen the codepen team is awesome It's pretty much the exact opposite of Amazon size wise It was only eight people and I loved just doing straight engineering work building some awesome tools at codepen and and loved it And then with that I was realizing okay as much as I love coding. I kind of love speaking too I love being with developers and interacting with them more and as much as I loved codepen This was something that I really wanted to be a part of and so I ended up switching over to react training react training awesome company I was going to speak at Conferences and to give workshops and go to events pretty constantly. I was traveling all the time I traveled more than three times a month often and Don't get me wrong. I loved it But it was it was a lot of traveling and a lot of teaching and I really loved being able to interact with developers and then coronavirus hit and and unfortunately React training they had to lay off all staff and and it's something that we didn't expect But it's something that had to be done and after doing some rapid interviewing and reaching out to the network That's how I ended up at Netlify and I'm doing again developer experience engineering here Which is part of the DevRel umbrella with a little more coding here and there and and I absolutely love it all this being said To give you this very very fast overview of my career history Plans are not real Is as much as I've loved all of my different jobs that I've been at and being able to have the variety of Experiences that I've had I've never planned on switching companies. I've never planned on going into a company saying okay I'm going to be here for a year and then I'll switch. I've never Wanted to leave a place and and this is something that just happens factors outside of your control can suddenly topple your career plans at a moment's notice and This is especially true for everyone now because of the pandemic This is this is something that really a lot of people right now are Realizing because you don't know if your job will be at risk You don't know if your whole company will be at risk. You you don't know all of these things and and plans Fall through all the time and it's sad sometimes. It's frustrating sometimes, but When something falls through this is a quote from Kelly Howie She's the author of build your dream network when something falls through don't lose the relationship when you have an employer that falls through an internship that falls through a job offer that falls through a Role that falls through you shouldn't lose the relationships that you have in those given companies and in your given communities And I think that this quote is very very powerful because it really emphasizes the importance of people Oftentimes when we are working on such technical projects and coding day in and day out it's Sometimes easy to forget the human side of things and it's it's sometimes easy to forget the Communication that you have to have with people the the relationships that you have to build with people and This is this is really the core of what I want to talk about today is being a part of your community You should really embrace your community throughout my career of highs and lows wanting to learn and grow I've really learned that a community is the thing that will Keep me around in the industry as a whole whether whether you are in tech or in some other industry This this could really apply to all sorts of things if you have a community that is around you that will stick around and a community that supports you you are more likely to stay in that industry and Throughout throughout my career Just in this past this past season of the pandemic when react training fell through my network Is what helps me get interviews when I was moving from New York to Seattle I was nervous because I didn't know anybody in Seattle, but I knew people who knew people in Seattle It's it's something that people don't often consider when they're trying to move up the career ladder and trying to be the best Technical person that they can be we kind of just focus on the code We try to just learn as much as we can and when and build as much as we can and that being said The best way to learn and my humble opinion is to teach your community It's not just about being a part of a community and and shouting around and saying I'm here It's about teaching and giving back to they do say that the best way to learn is to teach and a few years ago Personally I decided to make my first online class for beginner web dev So it was just a very basic HTML and CSS course and I made it with my sister and Even though it was just HTML and CSS is something that I've been using since I was a young teenager I learned so much in the process about What it is in theory and in practice and different things that I had used before but never really understood why I used it before just by making this course for other people and It really kind of opened my eyes to how much you can learn by teaching and since then I've taught a few other online courses And of course I worked at react training. I was teaching courses in person and online and When you teach when you show people how to do something you understand a topic that much deeper So yes, you can say oh, I have no time for People I have no time for building friendships in the office. I have no time for for building out of network I want to build my apps But really when you teach your community when you work on things that can be shared with others This is something that can teach you deeper than you could ever imagine the whole concept of learning in public is really really important Alongside the online courses that I built I've built a lot of tutorials for projects I was building and by writing the tutorial at the exact same time as building a project I Understood my project at a much deeper level than I would have if I were just building it Another thing that I started doing was I started a technical newsletter that I've been sending It's it's hard to believe almost three years now where I've just been sending technical interview questions every single week where Others can practice interview questions And I can practice them too and we can learn from each other to see how people solve different things and it has Different web dev articles and stuff. I promise this isn't meant to be a shameless plug This is just something that I've done where it started as a thing where I was like Oh, maybe this could be useful to people where now it's such an invaluable resource to myself But also to others where we can learn from each other and I've learned so much just from Asking a question that I might struggle to solve and then trying to solve it But then seeing how others might solve it and and kind of gathering resources where you kind of Open up your newsletters of the week or your Twitter or your hacker news or whatever and have tons of tabs open of tabs That you might read someday to now if I'm giving links to other people That kind of forces me to read those articles and to understand the content of those articles and learn the contents much much better They there's so many different things that you can do to kind of pay it forward into your community That will teach you so much better and it's all about kind of giving and taking There's this great quote by Aaron Newkirk. She's the CMO over at local crate the smartest people I know start building relationships before they quote-unquote need them and This is this is something that's so true, especially in the technical field where we should build Relationships with people and be a giver not a taker Before before you ever want to reach out to people you you want to be able to be that person Where you can offer something to the community to make it grow to make it flourish I don't know if any of you have seen parks and rec that it's such a funny show But there's there's a scene with Leslie nope where she is trying to plan for a festival and they need they need the police department to be able to provide security at this festival and They keep almost asking Favors and they keep kind of holding back and never actually asking a favor and then eventually Another character Ben goes and asks the favor for her and says hey, would you be able to do this and the police chief said You know for Leslie nope. Yes, she gets whatever favor she wants and when Ben asks why he says because for Leslie nope She's doing these she's asking these favors for other people She's asking not from a selfish perspective But to to help things and that's not to say that you should never be selfish of course But to have that sort of attitude to be a giver first and not a taker first is really really key Often when people network with others whether you're at an event online or offline or you're even emailing or interacting with Twitter They immediately think how can I get the most out of this relationship? And you can kind of tell that right away this this kind of this kind of attitude leads to really awkward mentorship proposals Side note don't do that. Don't just go up to a person and say will you be my mentor as I'm sure That that has worked for some people, but it doesn't really foster a relationship. It's just saying hey, will you be my mentor? Here's a series of questions. You can it's robotic. You can gauge my progress over time I hope you get something out of this like I will it's it's something that you don't want to do it Being someone who is a taker first it leads to unrealistic asks and honestly eventually people start kind of Screening your emails and calls because they know that you're the kind of person who will always ask things and never give back You don't want people to even have the slightest bit of dread when they see a message from you This also goes out to you managers out there You don't want to be that person that says hey Can you talk and then gives no context for the meeting and gives someone stress for the rest of the day? You always want to be the person where when people see a message from you They're enthusiastic about what you might be asking whether it's a give or a take You want to be the person that passes along job leads shares information connects with others Connects others together and helps people grow You want to be the person where when people hear from you They're delighted to hear from you because it has something to do with the community And if you are doing an ask where it might be for your personal self they're happy to ask to give to that ask because you're the one who has given first and I don't want people to step all over you This isn't the kind of thing where you should say yes to absolutely everything and just kind of let people ask you for unrealistic things be discerning and be rational about what you accept but Be as much of a giver as you can because that is What a community is about a community is a give and take and if you only take that's not Community building that's just building yourself for what if again when plans aren't real and you're kind of only taking things for yourself if your job falls through if a Pandemic happens if the unthinkable happens you want people to be there who can be your support and You get that support because you support the community first So all this being said Be the community member you want to see in the world as cheesy as the quote sounds being able to Teach others to give technically so that way you can learn technically to be the person that fosters a community where people want to say Oh, I bet that they'd be interested in this technical project or oh, I bet that they would enjoy this Being the person that people think of because you have already thought of them is such a rewarding thing And it's something that fosters a wonderful community that people want to be a part of and that people Grow you want to be able to lift as you climb where as you move up in your career ladder and and in a given Community you want to help people grow along with you so that way there's always room for more and people are always paying it forward So that being said I want to thank you so much for coming today for having me This is this is one of those events that I'm I'm so proud to be a part of and I'm so glad that I was able to share this time With you and be among so many other amazing speakers and thank you so much. I hope to see you on the internet