NTR Lab @ GDG DevFest Siberia 2018

GDG DevFest Siberia 2018 took place on November the 23rd-25th in Novosibirsk, Russia.

GDG DevFest Siberia is a part of the IT conference series around the world for developers, managers and students. It is organized by the non-profit community Google Developers Group.

Novosibirsk is neighboring city of Tomsk, so our colleagues went by car. It’s always interesting to hear their impressions.

Coffee is an important part of GDG DevFest for Max (PM)

Max Ivankin, Project Manager:

There were both interesting reports at the conference and some so boring they put you to sleep, hence the coffee. But in general, I liked the conference and learned a lot of useful and new things.

Especially I liked presentations on the track Hype. Alexey Kataev from Skyeng gave it very clearly and also a detailed speech about team efficiency evaluation in his company and how they came to this. For me as for PM, this is a very valuable experience, so I was glad to get the working materials and templates that Alexey shared with everyone.

In addition, the report “Acquiring skills” by Nikita Prokopov was useful, it is practical psychology, with a transparent presentation to listeners. Nikita divided a programmer’s development process into stages and described the values and actions at each stage. But for me, the most valuable thing in his report is the vertical links between the stages and the mistakes that he warned people going through these steps would make.

In my opinion: such conferences are a must-go – they broaden the horizons not only in the technological plane, but also improves professional (not-tech) skills. And, of course, the communication and exchange of experience!

Aleksandr (PM), Victor (Programmer) and Lyudmila (QA) are closely watching the technologies

Lyudmila Pavlova, Quality Assurance Engineer:

DevFest was only my second event of this kind and I was mostly impressed with a “Need more CSS secrets” presentation, which showed me CSS from another prospective. Anna Selezniova presented “Gestural Language” about convenient ways of interaction in a browser that might help in developing a better product.

The talk “Team efficiency evaluation” gave me food for thought as a member of a team and made me think how I can personally invest in my team’s efficiency. Being at the very beginning of my career I’m eager to get new skills and knowledge, so the “Acquiring skills” report was practical and gave good advice on how we can acquire new skills and how to develop ourselves. I came back to work inspired and full of energy!

Victor (Programmer) in front of the conference location

Victor Aliev, Programmer:

How I spent my time at DevFest.

I liked these presentations the most:

– “Even More CSS Secrets” presentation: amazingly informative report. It showed and explained tricks with CSS that were not basics, but let you achieve impressive effects.

– “Thoughtful Refactoring” presentation: nothing revolutionary, just an interesting discussion of a sore subject with an intelligent person.

– “Acquiring Skills” presentation: an interesting lecture on professional growth. The speaker explained the causes of common problems in development teams arising between specialists of different levels and dispelled some myths using available examples.

It is worth to go, because it is:

– Acquaintance with new technologies and trends: in 3 days you can get a cut of popular technologies and practices in the industry that would take more than half a year of work in the office.

– A fresh look from the outside: you can look at examples of building workflow and solving familiar problems by other teams and apply this knowledge in yourself.

– The charge of professional enthusiasm: communication with other specialists motivates me to compete, while the discovery of new areas to explore spurs a desire for self-education.

Andrey (Programmer) enjoys his first IT conference

Andrey Kernichniy, Programmer:

For me it was the first trip to an IT conference, which left a lot of pleasant impressions.

It was very interesting to listen to reports about web development. Especially memorable presentations were Alexey Kataev’s “Team efficiency evaluation” and Maxim Salnikov’s “Service workers: using accumulated knowledge for the bright future of PWA.” The latest report made it possible to learn something new from the web world. In general, the conference had a very pleasant atmosphere.

Igor (Programmer) thinking about developing something great

Igor Ivanov, Programmer:

I would like to highlight the presentation by Ivan Bakaidov “Wheelchair ramp for the web.” It addressed the problem of accessibility of web applications for people with disabilities and the solutions are simply and clearly covered. It was very useful to take a look at the use of interfaces by users from this angle.

In general, the conference reports were useful both from a practical point of view, new techniques and technologies in the frontend, and from the point of view of the development of the outlook, i.e., understanding the direction of development.

I support Max’s opinion: it is imperative to attend such conferences.

Aleksandr (PM) looking to conquer new heights