Codemotion & JOnTheBeach: Can Engineers Save The Planet Talk - Part 2

Delivering the talk 🚀

In a previous post, we explained how the idea of creating "Can Engineers Save the Planet?" was born. Also, we detailed the process of designing and giving shape to the talk. Now is the moment to explain, how we delivered the talk, starting with Codemotion.

Codemotion

You are probably already familiar with Codemotion, but in case of you are not, we're going to explain it a little. Codemotion is one of the biggest IT communities worldwide, and here below you can find some numbers about how 2023 edition went:

• +70 talks from +90 speakers

• 7 different tracks

• +1.800 attendees

• 42 sponsors

The organizers have published a short recap video of the 2023 edition. We recommend watching it to form your own idea about what the importance of the event.

Can Engineers Save the Planet?

We visited the venue the day before our talk to check the stage, we thought it would be good to keep our nervousness under control. We attended a fantastic live coding session made by Stanimira Vlaeva, and we noticed how big the screen on the stage was. Just like a movie theater!

The following day, it was our turn. We did a sound check and everything was ready to go! We delivered our talk to approximately 55-60 attendees, including some Celonaut (which is how we call ourselves, BTW you can become one too) who were supporting us (thanks buddies)

Even though we were nervous, the nervousness disappeared as the session progressed. As a curiosity, near our feet there was a status monitor, counting down the remaining time to finish the talk on time. Changing from Green - Yellow - Red. But in the end, we managed to finish on time. After the talk, some people surrounded us, asking questions about Process Mining and Celonis, and we received good feedback from the audience, so we can conclude it was a successful experience. For us and Celonis as a company.

Of course you can check how it went yourself since the [talk was recorded] (in Spanish).

The Booth Experience

At Codemotion there are many booths for all the companies sponsoring the event. All of them organized activities to attract the developer's attention (wheels of fortune, hooks to pick up toys, quizzes with prizes...).

One of our objectives was also to let the developer community know more about our company:

• Our presence in Madrid with our impressive Hub.

• Our desire to actively support the tech community in Madrid by offering our office's auditorium for meetups (at no cost, we even pay for the food).

• Our positions as a leader in the Process Mining Tools, and our contribution to creating a new Software Category.

• Our open job positions, and our culture.

A well-organized group of Celonauts participated by turns organizing events to attract the developers. Our Codemotion's Celonauts team shared a lot of energy and effort, was amazing to see all of us working together and gathering the developer's feedback.

These are some facts we all learned (and we gathered in a funny quiz the second day, giving clues about all of them):

• The developer community doesn't know yet about Process Mining, and this impacted me, especially from Data Mining Engineers

• Many Back&Front developers thought there are no opportunities for them in Celonis, they thought we only need Data Engineers (we need people to create the tools, not only people using the tools)

• Many of them don't know about the term “decacorn”. (Hint: it's 10 times larger than a unicorn)

• The most inquisitive ones got fascinated with the tool (they let us show it), Front/Back Developers, and Data engineers.

Other Talks

Codemotion was held in a large movie theater, each hour 5 conferences were held, so you must choose which room to go to.

There were many interesting talks those days, I was present at these ones:

Cooking a big DX (by Alvaro Navarro)

Impressive Tips&Tricks to enhance the developer Experience (specially opening your APIs to other communities). Based on the Spotify experience, but could be applied internally too. Cooking a big DX.

Turning Awareness into Action: How to Make a Real Difference in Accessibility (by Mathilde Buenerd)

Introducing the main problems to work with accessibility (of course, front), and the impressive work to enable real accessibility for everyone. Turning Awareness into Action: How to Make a Real Difference in Accessibility.

GraalVM - the virtual machine for all your programs (by Jorge Hidalgo)

It solved many questions about the usage of GraalVM (of course, Java) but opened it to other languages. So interesting how to optimize your apps and its impact into the performance. GraalVM - the virtual machine for all your programs.

The Junior Developer Crisis (by Rory McElearney)

I agree with Rory about his exposition of the problems to access the first job for a Junior Developer (not all that glitters is gold), how to start, select and decide your role. The Junior Developer Crisis.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

The experience of being a speaker at Codemotion included a dinner with all the speakers of the event. This dinner was held at the end of the first day, so there were people who had already delivered their session and others waiting to deliver it the next day (as was my case).

It was quite an experience to go to dinner and share my feelings with all the other speakers. At dinner, there were about 50 people. Many of them were veteran speakers, who are practically full-time dedicated to speaking engagements and outreach. In fact, several had already met at previous events so they were eager to catch up, talking about their latest talks. On the other side, there were people like me who were attending as speakers for the first time at a major event and were nervous because their turn would come the next day.

Sharing those feelings with other speakers was a huge boost of energy. With those of them who had already delivered their session that day (exultant, rested, sure of themselves and already liberated), and with those who would do it the next day (nervous, wanting to go to the hotel soon to continue rehearsing or rereading, not at all sure of themselves, with a great impostor syndrome 😉).

Out of that dinner grew our “small speaker support group” the next day. We all turn to each other's talks to give each other encouragement and feedback. We felt like a group that was beginning to walk in this world, and not so alone anymore.

I felt privileged for the support (and the resources) I received from Celonis to prepare and deliver my session. I learned that other speakers had come in their car, completely independently, and they prepared everything without any support from their company's communication department.

We will never forget that many speakers are doing their best to attend, being their organizers, giving everything on the way (maximum respect).

I encourage all the Celonauts to suggest a speech at an event and ask for help in the organization, you will feel supported all the way.

What's next?

Definitively, for Nico and me (Jesús) attending Codemotion as speakers was an incredible experience, and we could say we enjoyed every minute as if it were the last one. This is not only about preparing and delivering a talk. We also had the chance to meet people we never met before due to the pandemic, or having the opportunity to talk with people we follow or who follow us on social networks.

Even staying at the boot was a rewarding experience. I have to recognize that before the event we thought it would not be the most exciting activity you can do in an event like this, but we were totally wrong. We met new people, and we had fun preparing games and having talks spreading our culture and values, not only as individuals, also as a company.

In the end, presenting a talk in front of a big audience is not different at all from presenting a talk in front of your local community. As soon as the talk starts, all the nervousness disappears, and feeling supported by colleagues and friends is also helpful. Especially for Jesus, who had to deliver the talk at JOTB a few days later. Delivering the talk at Codemotion before was a key milestone to get ready for the next event. It allowed saying with confidence "I'm ready for this, let's go for it!".

But this doesn’t end with Codemotion. As is mentioned, on the following day, Jesus Maria went to Málaga, to deliver in JOnTheBeach the talk, but this time alone and in English.

Do you want to know how did it go? Then stay tuned and wait for the next post.

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Blog contributors include:

• Jesus Maria Villar, Senior Software Engineer

• Nicolas Robledo Mamblona, Senior Software Engineer

Jesus & Nico

Senior Software Engineers