My Very, Dope GopherCon Experience
I can honestly say that GopherCon 2019 was the best conference experience I’ve had since I entered the industry in 2016. Truthfully, conferences are the reason why I’ve even progressed in my career so fast. In less than 3 years I’ve moved into a Site Reliability Engineer position for a good company and I’ve already passed a lot of my peers with similar experience-level (and more at times) in pay. And I owe a lot of that to my personal influences in technology who have really pushed me to this point.
The Secret a lot of Engineers Don’t Understand…
Saying you work in “tech” is about more than just slamming in code everyday. When you embrace everything that comes with working in technology it instantly becomes a very rewarding experience. But, if you treat your career in technology like “it’s just a job” than you will get “just a job” results.
When I got into tech in 2016 I came in as a outsider trying to understand what it means to “work in tech”. I took a look at every layer of the stack trying to form some concept of what it would be like if I got a job as a Front-End Developer, Graphic Designer, or some “ninja”, of every potential job posting I saw. And during that research stage I understood how important it would be to expose myself to these people who really work in tech everyday to get honest takes on what it would be like, whether it involved the actual technology or some just aspect of working in the industry.
From Github and Slack Channels to Meet-ups and YouTube videos, I can honestly say that conferences are the best place to really experience the “culture” of technology. Everyone is typically the best version of themselves as you could imagine. You’re not at work (maybe some remote work…lol), typically you’re away from home (vacation on the company’s dime? Sure, why not!), and you get to fully indulge in one of your favorite subject’s, TECHNOLOGY!!!
There’s no reason to not have a great time at a conference! Yet, in my short-time in technology, I see engineers short-change themselves on these dope experiences all too often.
I can honestly say that I’ve always came out of conferences a better developer than I was coming in.
What company do you work for?
What projects are you working on?
What tools are you using?
How do you learn a new language?
What do you do do?
All questions I would ask anybody I would bump into. I got so much knowledge from great engineers so early in my career. Granted, I couldn’t apply all of it immediately, but I applied enough of it to level up very quickly.
Conferences are always great places to get better at whatever you’re looking to get better at in your career.
What made GopherCon stand-out?
The community is definitely one of the best programming communities I’ve experienced since Rails was ruling the world! The reality is that a lot of us really don’t always know what the hell we’re doing when we try to execute some idea we had at 1 am in the morning. So it’s important for us to be able to lean on an understandable community. The Gopher community has a great sense of this and does a great job of accepting diverse thought in the community.
Because of this, you get to meet a spectrum of Golang developers with a range of experience spanning 0–10 years who are all very fervent about the language. The more surprising thing is how many attendees you will encounter who may not even use the language at their 9 to 5.
So many developers in the community use Golang as their language of choice, rather than just a job requirement. And as a person who loves culture, I know something is good when people dedicate their free time, and even money, just to experience what something has to offer. Golang has built a unique community of developers who look for joy (and performance) when they program. This isn’t to say that Golang doesn’t have it’s fair share of headaches (package management anybody?), but I'm saying people are more apt to deal with headaches when they’re coming from a good place.
Down and Dirty or Nice and Simple?
One aspect of Golang that I’ve always loved is how accessible it’s been no matter what your experience with software development is. Granted, no framework has came and catapulted the language to the relevance the likes of Rails or React, but the tools people are building with it are really changing the industry.
A framework may eventually come but I don’t think anyone in the community is waiting on it because the language itself is so great to write with already. Because of this, the language lends itself to a diverse array of thought when it comes to where the language should go to next and the conference does a good job at capturing this. From demos of (Tiny)Go running on a drone to conversations about the state of the language, the organizers do a great job of capturing what a makes the future of the language so exciting.
Whether the talk was very technical or very welcoming, all the speakers did a great job of showcasing what has made the Golang community so great.
“Sometimes I like talking to people…”
You can’t have a great community without great people. Remember what I said earlier about people being their best selves at conferences? I don’t think I’ve left a conference with more friends than I have after GopherCon.
Whether it was sharing experiences about Go with developers at lunch from across the world or bull riding at Double-Deuce in downtown San Diego to blow-off steam from the conference, there was a personality for me to engage whatever part of nerdiness I felt like entertaining. Granted, at first it’s always going to be a little awkward (especially if you’re a black person who came by themselves…lol) but, eventually you’ll fall into a conversation with somebody.
And everybody’s cool! I’m sure there was a asshole around there somewhere but I didn’t run across them while I was there so I have to give the community a A+. I honestly just dipped my toe in Go less than a year ago, but in the short time I’ve been using the language I’ve learned so much about programming and it’s relationship with the system. Which is an expectation the language makes you embrace because of it’s structured methodologies.
Yet, regardless of how much understanding I still have to gain about the language, the community is just happy I’m there trying to get better!
It’s like finding your new favorite restaurant!
It’s safe to say I’m coming back! I really enjoyed my time at GopherCon! I met some dope people, I learned a shit ton of things about Go, and I came back home feeling more motivated than ever!
For anyone who’s even remotely into Go, I highly recommend you invest in going to GopherCon 2020. There’s no telling where the language is going to go over the next year, but all signs point to it continuing to grow so I’m sure it’s going to be even bigger next year! It really was a good time, San Diego was the perfect host city, and there’s a lot to be gained from hanging out with some of the dopest developers you’ll get an opportunity to kick it with.
