How to belong to a community
Today, I want to talk about the social aspect of our industry. For the longest time, I thought that being an exceptional developer meant that I had to know and use as many technologies as possible. This can be a “burden” if you think about it. Let’s explore some solutions.
Navigate to "Social trainings" Social trainings
Most of the developers, including myself, are introverts. This is not surprising, since our joy is connected to intangible achievements like writing a “good library,” ensuring “your algorithm works,” or seeing that the “UX is improving.” To avoid burnout, we must collaborate, which requires some level of social connection. It’s easier if you are sympathetic to people. For me, this is a challenging aspect, and I constantly have to think about it because, most of the time, my facial expressions do not accurately reflect how I feel.
I’m blessed that my current employer supports courses to improve my social skills:
- ✨ Constructive feedback
- 🤗 Assertive communication
These helped me to communicate better with my colleagues. Teaching, mentoring, sharing my thoughts asking help.
Navigate to "Community event" Community event
Another solution is to attend social events, like participating in a conference. This has several benefits:
- 🧑🤝🧑 Face-to-face interactions
- 🤝 Meeting new people with the same interests
- 😎 Connecting with inspiring individuals
- 💻 Gaining a good overview of industry standards
- 🪇 Feeling the vibe
This is how I think about it, and I always try to get the most out of opportunities like this, such as JS Nation and React Summit this week. Even though the talks and speakers were not as enjoyable as last year, I enjoyed the event as a whole. I talked with people at booths, got familiar with their companies, and learned what they do. Some were more friendly than others, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that you have a good time because we only live once. I feel bad when I see someone standing in the middle of the hall like a lost little duckling 🐥 who lost its mother. C’mon.
Navigate to "My inspiring people" My inspiring people
My favorite talks and most inspiring people from the venues - not in any particular order:
- Mr.doob - Well-known maintainer of Three.js. He gave a talk about the upcoming WebGPU API and the future of Three.js/WebGL.
- Evan You - If you use Vite (like everybody on the planet), you probably know him. His talk was about the history of Vite and being a successful OSS maintainer.
- Fred K. Schott - I love Astro and working with it. Fred introduced the upcoming features of Astro.
- Scott Tolinski - Co-founder of Syntax.fm and one of the biggest celebrities at the conference. I had the honor of talking with him personally, although I behaved like a teenage fan.
- Anthony Fu - One of the most successful OSS maintainers. Creator of Vitest, UnoCSS, Slidev, and many more. He gave a talk about ESLint and its new configuration layout. Fortunately, I’ve already used it.
- Evan Bacon - Honestly, I did not know him before, but he is the creator of Expo Router. His introduction to the upcoming LLM integration was mind-blowing. So many opportunities and interesting uses for AI on the phone.
- Ryan Carniato - A Solid developer 🙂. I respect Ryan so much because of his work and passion for web development. His talk was a bit abstract for me, honestly. It was about the fluctuation of frontend development over the past couple of years.
- Mark Erikson - Creator of Redux Toolkit. I heard him last year and this year as well. Honestly, he did not convince me why I should use Redux in 2024, but I like his state management solution and respect his work.
- David Khourshid - Say “State Machines” three times and he will be summoned 🙂. I love working with State Machines and try to integrate them as much as possible into my work. It was an honor to meet him.
- Josh Goldberg - Creator of typescript-eslint and a passionate TypeScript user. His talks are usually full of passion. It’s always fun to listen to him.
- Siddharth Kshetrapal - He is not a well-known dev, but I heard his interesting talk last year. At this conference, he talked about practical accessibility and voice-over integrations.
- Atila Fassina - He was new to me, but working at CrabNebula deserves my attention. He gave an interesting talk about the pro features of SolidStart and why they are using it. Honestly, I feel the same.
Connecting with people gives me a productive feeling even though I am not working at all. After the conference, I feel much more confident and relaxed.