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Ryan Burgess
Welcome to the 14th episode of the front end, happy hour, we have a special episode because we're recording at the React Rally conference in Salt Lake City. Since we're attending the conference, we thought it'd be suiting to talk about attending conferences and what the benefits are. We'll invite attendees of the conference to come and join us and tell us what they like about conferences and why they attend. So let's go around quickly around the table and give a brief introduction of today's panelists.

Ryan Anklam
So I'm Ryan anklam. I'm a senior software engineer at Netflix,

Jem Young
Jem Young, Senior Software Engineer at Netflix.

Ryan Burgess
And I'm Ryan Burgess, I'm a UI engineering manager at Netflix. In each episode of the front end, happier podcast, we like to choose a keyword that if it's mentioned at all, in the episode, we'll all take a drink. What did we decide today's episode keyword was gonna toss talks. So anytime we say the word talks, we'll all take a drink. Alright, let's get started. So I'm interested to hear even from both of you Why Why attend conferences in the first place?

Ryan Anklam
Yeah. So for me, I think, you know, I do learn a lot at conferences, but I don't really learn anything outside of what I can find on blog posts. But what I do take away from conferences, I get energized. And you know, when I'm when I go from a conference, I can't wait to get home and write some code and dig deeper into the things that I learned at a conference. So I think for me, it's mostly just coming away with enthusiasm to write code again.

Ryan Burgess
Yeah, I can buy that actually always, like get really pumped up on someone showing something that maybe if it was even something that you were interested in, like looking into more, but it's like, you're you're there, you're listening, you're like, oh, yeah, I really, it's like a reminder to like, look into something or try something. I love that.

Ryan Anklam
And it's easy to get into a rut, right in your day to day job. You're doing the same thing every day. And

Jem Young
I've heard that said before, there's nothing you can get at a conference, you can't get off a blog post or just reading a GitHub. But yeah, just the inspiration, the chance to bump into people and see what cool ideas they're working on. Networking is huge for me just you never know what person you're going to meet and like how they impact your future. So and being a JavaScript conferences are a fantastic way just to kind of increase your network and learn new things.

Ryan Anklam
It conferences worked out pretty good for you last year, didn't they?

Jem Young
They did. I was hired from this very conference last year. So

Ryan Burgess
Brian Holt, and I met you there and we're like, oh, man, we need this guy on our team. And yeah, not too long after.

Jem Young
And I'll say this, what annoys me outcome conferences when people are clearly there for recruiting? It's like, oh, you're an engineer?

Ryan Burgess
Are you in the market by chance? And guess what all companies are hiring for it.

Jem Young
All companies are hiring. But I'll say this, and this totally sounds like a Netflix bullet because we're all from Netflix. But you you too, were not pushy whatsoever. I didn't even know you guys were interested in me. I was like, like, hey, like, have a burger. I'm like, free food. Yeah, I'll always take free food. And in the end, I was like, these are cool, guys. I've worked with them in the future. And that's what happened. Like,

Ryan Burgess
that was the thing is we didn't really like it's not like we sought out and was like, Oh, we got to go find people and recruit them. It was like, Hey, that guy is great. Like, we should like talk to him more. And it was kind of like followed up with you after. So it wasn't like our plan thing. We're like, we need to, you know, seek out. So

Ryan Anklam
for me What's interesting, though, is, so I'm kind of a typical, I don't know if it's typical for engineer, but I'm definitely more of an introverted personality. And when we go to these conferences, I try to be a little bit more extroverted, and talk to more people. But by the end of the day, I am completely wiped, I'm way more wiped out than any other situation after conferences, because of all those conversations and meeting new people and going against everything my internal are telling me like, go hide in a corner.

Ryan Burgess
As an engineer, you're typically at your desk coding, and so right, you're not necessarily talking all the time.

Ryan Anklam
Are we missing the word talk here? Or is that a good one?

Ryan Burgess
How many times? Just once cheers. There's I think the three of us have attended quite a few conferences. I'm interested to know what are your favorite ones of all time? What are ones that you're you can think back to like, it was a really good conference.

Jem Young
I really like React Rally. I mean, we're here now second year in a row. I think it's fantastic. It's just you can tell the organizers who put this together really are passionate about it, and they care about showing everybody a good time. And last year I speaking at it, and they sent me a handwritten note at the end, which is just like above and beyond

Ryan Burgess
so cool. Thank you know, like you get handwritten notes ever. Oh, no, no.

Jem Young
And I've been to like a few conferences where it's just clearly three they're in it for the money because that not all companies are nonprofit, or they're in it for the notoriety. It's like, look at us. We're at a concert or a conference. Look how cool we are. But React Rally is like completely egoless and they're just, they want everybody have a good time. and learn something and it comes through. Yeah, so definitely React Rally. And it's

Ryan Burgess
a lot of work. Yeah, maybe people make money for putting on conferences, but it's a lot of work. I'm sure it's not worth the amount of hours that people put in. They're doing it for because they want to and and it does come across that is like, both Matt and Jamison do a really good job

Jem Young
of that. Totally.

Ryan Anklam
Yeah. So for me, I have two that stick out my mind as far as my favorite conferences of all time, and one's probably going to date me a little bit. And it's Adobe MAX in 2004. It wasn't Adobe MAX. I'm sorry. It was Macromedia Max in 2004. And it was actually in Salt Lake City. And it was the first conference I ever went to. I didn't really know what to expect. And this is back when I was a ColdFusion. developer. So I mean, that's goes way back. And yeah, you know, I went to that conference. And I couldn't believe how much I learned from it, and how much inspiration I got from it. So that one will always stick out just because it was my first and I came home came away from that with just so much energy and new ideas. And the other one is probably going to be O'Reilly fluid calm. I think it was 2014, maybe 2013. I don't remember what it was when I first when I first learned about React I saw, I think was Pete hunt. Talk about it there. And obviously I've just been kind of known to be in love with with the framework ever since then. So that that one sticks out because it's definitely shaped my career for since then. Yeah, that

Ryan Burgess
was awesome. Actually, you and I first met each other that that? Yeah, that was really cool.

Ryan Anklam
Well, I wasn't going to say it. But that's really why it was.

Ryan Burgess
So I think one of my favorite, it will probably date me as well is. It's called FITC. It was originally called Flash in the can. So it was really focused around flash. So yes, that dates me a bit for writing flash. But it was an awesome conference. And it still is it's an amazing conference. It's now just now that's not focused on Flash, it's kind of focused on, you know, front end and JavaScript. And I remember they're even mean like design talks here. There's a lot of good things to see and hear there. One thing that I always found was just how inspirational like afterwards I just all I wanted to do was go and code. And it was, I think it was my first conference was the very first time I went to it was when it was when it was called Flash in the can. So really good one it was in Toronto really loved it. I would like to actually attend it again, and maybe even speak at at one time, I think that would be a good one to speak at. So

Jem Young
squad goals, squad goals. Yeah.

Ryan Burgess
We talked a lot about the like benefits to conferences and like attending them. What are some negatives? Like, there is some negatives to it. So I'd be interested to know what you both think of that. Yeah. So

Ryan Anklam
I think one of the negatives for me who is being a more introverted person, and having to be at a conference and kind of flip that around and try to be a little bit more extroverted and talk to people. At the end of the day, I am completely exhausted. And like, I have nothing left in the tank after a conference, especially when I'm meeting a lot of really cool people and having a lot of conversations I'm just done after conference.

Jem Young
I'm totally with you on that. It's it's weird. And it took me a long time to figure out what it was like, why am I so tired, like I didn't physically do anything today. But if you're introverted, talking to people and like interacting, like physically takes a toll deal. It's just proven fact that a lot of engineers are introverted. So,

Ryan Burgess
but also I think your day to day is your energy spent on coding and so you're not, you know, you're not talking all the time, like you'll you'll interact with other engineers and people on your team. But it's not a full day of talking and, and also listening, you're sitting there listening that's tiring is like trying to pay attention and everything like that, too. I would also be interested to know is what about like, we kind of talked about networking? Is it good for conferences to try and like facilitate that? And like force networking? What, what are your thoughts on those?

Jem Young
I think it's a good idea. I historically, just in my experience, conferences that have some sort of social interaction feature, do are a lot better, because we're fine here at this conference. Because there's like 10 people from Netflix. So you, we all know each other. But if you're here writing solo, as I was last year, I didn't know a single soul here in Utah or anywhere. And it was good to have networking, because I met a lot of cool people that I just normally would have met and I'm still friends with them today. Hell, I think we're hiring one of those people that I met last year. So I think it's good that conferences do that. And a special shout out to Scotland jass where they did one of the best socials I've ever been to, which was a Scotch tasting in Scotland. It was phenomenal. Yeah, that's amazing. I said, it's not even my birthday, but it might as well be because this is like one of the best things I've ever done in my life. And it was totally just non committal. You can come if you want to, but I met a lot of good friends there. But I don't like if they're like, Hey, make friends with the person next to you. You know, I don't want that force interaction. But optional interaction I think is always good.

Ryan Burgess
I think that's the problem too. Sometimes I think it can be it can be a bad excuse. means when it's forced on you, right? And it's like pushed too hard. I think it's great for conferences to try and facilitate that. But if it's really pushed on you, I think that's it, I find it hard

Ryan Anklam
to make it completely optional. At least, if it's not optional, you force it. For me, I get a ton of anxiety going into that situation. And that's going to actually have the complete opposite effect, right? Instead of going out meeting people, I'm just gonna try to go find a corner to hide. And because of all the anxiety of being forced upon this social situation that I'm not ready for,

Ryan Burgess
I feel like the networking isn't as good at that point, either. Like, I want it to just be natural. I don't want it to be forced upon. Like, yes, there are times like when I actually do make a point. Like, Jem, you said about even that this conference is a bunch of us from Netflix, there's times when I'll just kind of wander off on my own, and go talk to just random people because I want to hear about the work that they're doing. And, you know, talk about some of the stuff that we're doing at Netflix and just kind of meet people. So there's times when I'll just kind of force myself to do it. But that's also my choice. But I don't want someone else forcing me to do that.

Jem Young
Yeah. What do you so going in that same vein? What are your thoughts about alcohol at conferences? Because I know it's very, it's a very polarizing topic.

Ryan Burgess
Oh, that's a really good question. I feel that does help loosen you up to talk? I mean, we're a front end Happy Hour podcasts. And so I do think, you know, it can maybe alienate people to oh, we missed the talk. Yes. Cheers. Again, slower this

Ryan Anklam
year, I think anything alcohol related, should be an extracurricular activity organized by attendees of the conference, it shouldn't be supported directly by the conference. I think that, like you said, it would alienate people. And, you know, if people want to drink, that's their choice, but they should have to go do that on their own separate, separate from the conference. So

Ryan Burgess
I mean, I've been at conferences where the like, there's companies that will have like, host after parties and things. Yeah, that's no, that's, that's fine, too, is completely optional. I don't think it's a bad thing. But I think you can alienate people. So you just have to be aware of it and think about those things is, you know, being prepared as a conference, someone who's organizing it, they have to be aware of those things. Yeah,

Jem Young
give. Scotland just did really well, because they did whiskey jazz. They also did highchair. So it's like, go on a hike. Or you can do the whiskey tasting, but like, You're not obligated to do either.

Ryan Burgess
I want to do both.

Ryan Anklam
I was gonna say I would want to do both, though. That would suck.

Jem Young
Yeah, I Ollie this guy's I'm such a terrible lazy person. But

Ryan Burgess
I mean, I would much rather this

Ryan Anklam
guy. Scotland. Yeah,

Jem Young
yeah.

Ryan Burgess
No, that's a good point. I would probably that would have been my choice for sure. What about like companies, encouraging engineers to attend conferences? What do you think? Sure. Is that something that companies should be doing and encouraging their engineers to attend conferences?

Ryan Anklam
Yes. For sure, I was. Actually I was trying to remember that quote, that went around the internet for a while ago, I forgot what it was. But the gist of the quote was, you know, what, if I train my engineers in some of the conferences, and they leave, and the like I said, Well, what if you don't, and they stay, right?

Jem Young
That's a good quote,

Ryan Burgess
that is really good. Like, you're getting energized, and, you know, making someone really learn something new outside of their job. And so that could actually help them stay motivated at the company they're at, yes, they might meet someone at a conference that, you know, lures them away, and just talking about some great work a new company that they can go to, yeah, that can happen. At any point that can happen in an email that can happen over LinkedIn, it happens, it's so I think, if you're trying to avoid that, as a company, that's like a horrible idea. And

Ryan Anklam
if you hold them back, and they're on any sort of social media, they're gonna see people tweeting about the conference, and they're gonna want to go join a company that lets their employees go to those conferences.

Ryan Burgess
I think there can be negatives, though, to where I feel if people are going to too many conferences, and they're not necessarily I mean, that takes away from their day to day job. That's what you're hired for. You're not hired to go to conferences, same thing with speaking at them is, I think there's a balance of being I think they're great. And I always encourage people on our team to attend them speak at them. But I think there is times when it can become too much. So I think there's a balance of it, too. I think even just I always say like, to engineers is like you should attend at least one conference a year. I think that to me is like bare minimum, you should at least have

Jem Young
one. And I think if you're if you're going to a conference and you're afraid your your employees are going to leave or another company like that says something bad about your company, not that they're going to leave, you should make it so your company's attractive, and if they want to leave for different career path, like they want to go work on in the medical field or something like that's fine. Like that's nothing you can do about that. But if they're leaving because the engineers, the other company, are friendlier, and just, everything's better. Well, you should look at your own company. At that point,

Ryan Burgess
you should probably look at the whole culture and before worrying about that, at that point. The three of us actually have all spoken at conferences. I'm interested to know who should be paying for that. Should it be your company paying for your like flights hotels? Everything like that, or should the conference be paid for that?

Jem Young
Hmm, that's tough. I'm gonna say the conference should pay though. Yeah. Because I think that the general rule of Netflix speaking engagements is what is Netflix getting out of that of you going? So? And the same same goes to the the conference, like, what's the conference getting out of say? Ryan anklam speaking, and they're getting something out of it, because they accepted it for a reason. Right. So the benefit mostly lies in the conference. I fully encourage everybody to speak at least one meetup or conference. Like I think it's just a good, it's a good soft skill to develop over your career, like public speaking, but it's stressful. But yeah, it is. It's worth it. It's worth it.

Ryan Burgess
It feels really good. And it also I think it's sparked a lot of really good conversations, too. Because every time I mean, I see it all the time is even if I'm not speaking, but there's been times where I've spoken a conference, and you get off stage and like people just swarm you with like, hey, I want to talk more about that, or they have questions. And I think I've had some really good conversations with people like, just because of that.

Ryan Anklam
I think that conferences should definitely pay for speakers, especially a for profit conference. You know, where the line gets great a little bit is the smaller conferences that aren't making money and really don't have the funds have paid for speakers. But you know, at that point, should they really be a conference or, you know, it's kind of hard to draw that line of who should definitely be paying for it. At that point. If

Ryan Burgess
you're charging people for tickets to go sees people speak, that then that speaker should be compensated, at least for their flight and the Kotel, especially our guests, especially if they're flying there. I don't really care too much about receiving payment for that. Because it's, you know, it's challenging me, I mean, but it's a lot of work. It is like putting making a talk. Cheers just said the word. Cheers. It is good. And it's something that I enjoy doing. And it's a lot of extra work. But I do feel that I shouldn't have to be paying for paying for that or anything like that. Now that we've shared some of our thoughts on conference, let's go find people around at React Rally and ask them what their thoughts are on conferences and kind of understand why they attend conferences. Welcome to the podcast. Do you want to give us a brief introduction of yourself what you do? And actually what your favorite Happy Hour beverages?

Tasha Alfano
Yeah, definitely. Thanks for having me on Ryan. My name is Tasha. I am a software engineer at Alteryx. In Boulder, Colorado, I work with React and JavaScript primarily work on a team that builds widgets for internal use within our product. Alteryx check it out. My favorite Happy Hour beverage would have to be either a Kolsch beer or old fashioned if I'm feeling like right on like a cocktail.

Ryan Burgess
So what what, why do you attend conferences? What are the benefits that you get out of conferences,

Tasha Alfano
I think the coming to conferences is really important to break up your normal day to day activity, because you can come really stuck in, you know, the stack that you've selected, or maybe the technologies that we've chosen or the frameworks or libraries that we've chosen for testing and things like that. And it's really good to hear what other people are doing. I just love the presentations that everyone gives so you can get some ideas to take back with you learn some best practices and meet some cool people to

Ryan Burgess
great what was your favorite talk this React Rally?

Tasha Alfano
I mean hearing from the Facebook guys like how to build React is really sweet. The know something about Yeah, just a little bit like I think they might know what they're talking about. That one was really awesome. Today. They're all really great. Maybe next year I can I can join them or something.

Ryan Burgess
Yes, we need to see a tarsha talk. That would be good. Where can people get in touch with you like on Twitter? What's your Twitter handler?

Tasha Alfano
I'm on Twitter at Tosh Alfano. Um, and yeah, check me out there.

Ryan Burgess
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining us.

Tasha Alfano
Thanks, Ryan. Thanks for having me.

Ryan Burgess
All right. So we're here with Sumana, Quinn, and Ryan, you want to give a brief introduction of who you are, what you do and what your favorite Happy Hour beverages?

Sumana Mohan
Hi, my name is Sumana. I work at Netflix. I'm a senior UI engineer. I work on the acquisition team. My favorite happier beverage would probably be coffee.

Quinn Daniels
Hi, my name is Quinn. I work at Northwestern Mutual as a developer, this is my first conference and my favorite Happy Hour beverage probably spotted cow.

Ryan Anklam
Nice choice

Ryan Wachholz
call. Good call. Hi, Ryan. I also work at Northwestern Mutual. I'm a front end engineer. And when it comes to happy hour, I prefer just a nice maker's mark on the rocks.

Ryan Burgess
Right on those are all good choices. All three of your attending the conference. Why do you come to conferences? What do you get out of it? What are the benefits? Crane? I mean, you're being first conference. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that too.

Quinn Daniels
Yeah, so this is my first conference and I didn't really know what to expect. But I'd say my first takeaway is just Meeting new people and getting their, their energy of how excited they are about the technologies and kind of re energizing my interest in the technologies.

Sumana Mohan
Yeah, I agree like meeting new people and then learning a lot of new stuff and kind of getting away with the routine that you do every day.

Ryan Wachholz
Yeah, and kind of to add to that, so Northwestern Mutual is 150 plus year old company. It's very old. It's fun to see new and fresh perspectives, you know, whether it's inside of work outside of work, just seeing people in the industry, the way you interact, deal with technology deal with the life with inside work. It's fun to just get a fresh perspective,

Ryan Burgess
which since we're at React Rally, What all did you like the best about this conference?

Quinn Daniels
I'll start Yeah. Since I'm, we're fairly new to react. We have we're switching over some applications right now. But I'm fairly new to it. There was one on the common mistakes that you make when switching over to react. So that would probably be my favorite.

Ryan Anklam
Yeah, that was a good talk. I mean, I nodded my head at a lot of those things, when we started implementing, and we made a lot of the same same mistakes, too.

Ryan Burgess
And we still do make mistakes. I feel like it's still such one that you learn from.

Sumana Mohan
Yeah, I agree with that. Like when we ported over all our pages. We were using React for the first time as well. So we made a lot of mistakes on registration. So we learned a lot of that on the next page that we worked on. So

Ryan Wachholz
yeah, and myself, I like hearing other people's struggles, scenarios, success stories, technology that adds on to react that, you know, unless if you're not completely immersed in the technology, you don't readily hear about it. And it's fun to see those perspectives and learn about,

Ryan Anklam
yeah, that's something we can take advantage take for granted in Silicon Valley, too, right? We get all this stuff constantly coming at us. But if you're not in that kind of situation all the time, you have to kind of reach out to get get a lot of that stuff.

Ryan Burgess
Well, like we even talked about is like you hear it in coffee shops, like you'll, you know, like you always hear that you'll probably hear more like finance and stuff like that. But it's like, yeah, we'll walk into a coffee shop and you hear the word JavaScript react and all that you hear at all. So it's interesting. Thank you, for all three of you for joining us. Where can people find you on Twitter?

Sumana Mohan
Yeah, you can find me on Twitter. I just read yesterday. So it's awesome. Well, no, underscore, Mohan.

Ryan Wachholz
And I'm still working on the Twitter thing. I kind of have an old account, but on GitHub, very little contribution, but walkie wa ch IE, that get on GitHub.

Ryan Anklam
Awesome. So first GitHub reference on here. Nice.

Quinn Daniels
Yeah, I'd say I only have GitHub right now. And it's AQ Daniels. Right now. It's like Ryan, I'm just getting started there.

Ryan Anklam
Definitely get on Twitter, because it's kind of like almost like a conference coming at you all the time. People are always tweeting new technologies and things like that. That's kind of where

Ryan Burgess
my feed is always like, new technology,

Ryan Wachholz
Twitter. I'm not a contributor. And I have just not right account yet. So I'm working on like a tech focused Twitter account. So that's good advice, guys.

Ryan Burgess
Awesome. Great.

Ryan Anklam
Thank you. All right. Thanks.

Ryan Burgess
All right. Thank you all for joining us. Henry. You want to give start the introductions,

Henry Zhu
everyone. I'm Henry Zhu, work at Behance doing JavaScript and also work on Babel and other open source projects in my free time.

Hani Ahir
Hi, everyone. My name is Hani. I'm on the front end recruiting team here at Facebook. My favorite beverage is matcha tea latte.

Brian Tice
Hi, I'm Brian Tice. I'm a front end developer for Chartbeat. In New York, and see favorite beverage probably I have to say, a Manhattan. I'm pretty good. With Knob Creek.

Albert Toledo
Hello, my name is Albert Toledo. I'm a front end engineer at Chartbeat. Also, in the favorite beverage. I guess it changes depending on the time but since I moved to Brooklyn, I'm really into cold brew. So

Ryan Burgess
yes, there's some good choices there for sure. And Brooklyn. So since we're attending React Rally, we're asking everyone, why do you attend conferences? What are the benefits you get out of it?

Henry Zhu
Yeah, I guess I'll start I actually haven't been to that many conferences. I've only been to the last jazz comp and this, I think it's a good way to just meet people are in a lot of people that you know, online through like Twitter and open source and then like, finally meet them in real life. So it's a good opportunity to just meet people and learn more about React or whatever conference here.

Hani Ahir
So this is actually my first conference as well. It's really interesting as a recruiter to be at a conference, and it's just amazing, the the community behind react and how much it's grown. I've been on the team for almost three years now. So it's just it's just amazing to see a technology that Facebook created and just meet developers from different companies and what they're working on.

Ryan Burgess
That's awesome. Yeah. Have

Ryan Anklam
you had a chance to check out our recruiting episode yet?

Ryan Burgess
No, I haven't. So we do have a episode that we had actually two Netflix recruiters on and we talked about, like recruiting for engineers and They kind of interesting. It was good to hear their perspective too. So yeah, definitely check that out. I'd love to hear what you think of it. Okay.

Brian Tice
Yeah. So as far as for conferences, I think one of the most interesting things to me is with something that's as young as, like React, you kind of have this acknowledgment of that nobody in this is an expert, do you have people that have built the platform and things like that, but they even in those situations, it's only been around for a year, and it's constantly evolving. So it's this acknowledgment of like, we're all in this together, kind of learning something new. And that's like, it's a really cool experience to be able to be in a conference like that. So

Albert Toledo
yeah, I kind of agree with everybody else. But I mean, I've been out of college for one year, and this is my only, like, front end, or even more like Industry Focus conference, I used to go to a bunch of like, research conferences when I was in school. And this is definitely so much more fun and more practical and more humorous environment.

Ryan Burgess
That's great. And you find a new learning from it, then to at that point,

Albert Toledo
yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm learning a lot. And I mean, I learned a lot in the research conferences, too. But this is so much more like having to leave in the middle of the talk and go and build something because like, I just want to do the thing. I just so that's great. No, it

Ryan Burgess
always gets me hyped up to try new technologies.

Ryan Anklam
inspiration came up a lot when we were discussing this earlier, just get inspired by conferences,

Ryan Burgess
I'm interested to is like, We're all from different companies, like how do your companies feel about conferences? Do they encourage it? Or is it like you're allowed to go one or two a year? Like, how does it work at each of the companies.

Albert Toledo
So it charges you have a allowance for one conference a year, and is pretty encouraged? And I mean, there's no nothing against you going to more conferences, as long as you pay for it or do something that's all again, you get it for free? Yeah,

Brian Tice
I think that's the interesting things areas is being able to be able to get time off and like have the encouragement of trying to learn new things or participate more in this type of kind of open source culture that's very highly encouraged. And then, of course, we have the benefit of actually having one paid for per year. And then also, there's stuff that's happening locally in New York, then that's also encouraged. And of course, it's a lot cheaper to be able to do that. So it's more likely that those things will get funded then as well. So or, and there's also been cases in local things where Chartbeat will chip in for the conference as well be a sponsor for things. So yeah, that's always a nice benefit.

Ryan Burgess
Yeah, that is actually nice. And it's I even like the local idea, because it's always like better. It's like less time investment, less expense. Yeah, sure.

Hani Ahir
Right. Yeah. I mean, within Facebook, as you may know, open sources, a big part of our culture. So Stephanie, very encouraged within engineering to go out, go to conferences, if you're passionate about speaking, you know, getting involved in doing a presentation. Within recruiting. We usually go through two year. And it varies just depending on what our team is interested in. But it's always exciting to to meet people. And also it's, it's always in a different city. So it's a really great way to travel. Yeah, but we also host a lot of local tech talks, which is nice as well,

Ryan Burgess
which we attend very, I guess to do you find yourself going to mainly like technical conferences, or even some recruiting ones.

Hani Ahir
We so within recruiting, we do have a internal conference once a year, but I don't go to any external ones. No,

Henry Zhu
Henry. Yeah. So DNS is part of Adobe. And we also have one free Commons a year. And also I think, if you get selected to be a speaker, then if they don't cover the cost, they'll cover the cost for you as well. So

Ryan Burgess
yeah, it's nice speaking is always good. Yeah, like if you can get it covered. That's always good. Thank you all for joining us. Really appreciate you giving your input on conferences. Where can people get in touch with you like Twitter, Facebook, GitHub?

Henry Zhu
Yeah. So on Twitter, I'm left underscore pad. And I always always gets a few laughs and then on H, Zo on GitHub. Great.

Hani Ahir
I have a Twitter handle. It's at Hania here. So H A N i h I r,

Brian Tice
so I'm on Twitter, but I don't I haven't been using Twitter too much anymore, but so it's Brian Tice 99. That's yeah, one of those kind of Twitter handles. Anyhow, I'm also in GitHub, and I've made some contributions to the amp project and things like that. So you can kind of see some of the stuff that like how some of our analytic stuff works at Chartbeat based on how the code that we did in amp, which is a public open source thing, so you can check me out on there. It's just under bright Ice br It ice on GitHub, so you can check out some of that stuff there as

Ryan Burgess
well. Great, thanks.

Albert Toledo
I also don't really use Twitter that much but I'm trying to get become more active and it's Toledo Albert to Le do a lb RT and I used to have the same GitHub username but I get locked out because there's two factor authentication and after event swimming with my phone in my pocket. So I have Alberto Lita

Ryan Burgess
in But you should be like messaging GitHub, like, come on. Yeah, I

Albert Toledo
actually did. I need to wait six months before I can get my account back.

Ryan Burgess
Yeah. All right. Well, thank you all. Yeah.

Hani Ahir
It's funny. By the way, I'm almost also on LinkedIn, which is important. As well as Facebook, right? Yeah.

Ryan Burgess
I kind of figured you're on Facebook, at least.

Hani Ahir
Find me either way.

Ryan Burgess
Great. Thank you. All right. As we wrap up today's episode, we like to share pics of things that we like and have found interesting to share. Let's go around the table and share pics for this episode. Jam. What do you have for us?

Jem Young
Yeah, my first pick is a music pick. It's Tron Legacy soundtrack, reconfigured. I don't know if anybody knows this. But Tron Legacy soundtrack was originally done by Daft Punk. They're actually in the movie. You can see them. So the the original soundtrack is great. The reconfigures soundtrack is better because it's it's done by like so many famous electronic artists, and it's just fantastic coding music. It's one of my get down and just code picks. My next pick is that really software related, just funny. Emoji pedia.org. If you go there, it'll tell you the history of every emoji. And it'll show you what every emoji looks like, on different platforms. Oh, that's really? Um, yeah, so I picked pile of poop, because that's just the common emoji and it looks radically different on like, every single platform. It's funny. That's amazing. Yeah, it's just funny. Yeah, I didn't do any serious fixes.

Ryan Burgess
I like that. Ryan, what do

Ryan Anklam
you have? So my first pick is also a music pick. And it's the song you and me the flume remix by disclosure. I have always loved this song. But I've recently been reminded of it because of a Netflix original movie we have coming out called XO XL.

Ryan Burgess
I think it comes out tomorrow. Yes. And it's,

Ryan Anklam
it's, it's a pretty light movie. It's centered around the EDM scene. It's not the greatest movie ever made, but it's entertaining. And if you like EDM music, it's it's pretty good. And my second pick, it might be coming out of completely out of left field here, but it's um XAMPP Ste Zam S T, and their knee braces. And so I've got a long history of knee injuries, I've actually torn both of my ACLs. And because of that, I have some pretty serious arthritis in my left knee. And I'm also a runner, and those two things really don't go well together. And I've just started using one of their knee braces, and it's actually done a really, really good job of limiting the pain in my left knee after a run so it's actually changed my life for the better so I decided to make it a pic.

Ryan Burgess
Nice now it's a good one. No,

Jem Young
it's really bad for laughing here

Ryan Burgess
for my picks for this episode. First off, I kind of O'Brien hold some credit for this one. He is the V moda M 100 headphones. And I was in the market for new ones. I just purchased them and because he had said that how good they were, I love them. I've been using them for past couple weeks now. And just the sound quality on them is great. You do actually have to buy the extra padding for the or different padding for the headphone covers. The earpieces, the bigger size, the XL ones are like a lot more comfortable. But all in all great headphones really enjoy them. And then my second pick, it's a it is a music pick. It's something it's actually a live video or what's not live or it was live when dead most was recording it. But he put together a cover of Stranger Things. intro music, which is so badass, I'm really excited for the actual track to be done and released. Because that's gonna be really cool. I mean, I think that was one of my pics a few episodes ago. Stranger Things such a good show. And I love that intro music. So I'm really excited to actually see that released.

Jem Young
It's so popular. I've been just asking people here at the conference like oh, what's your fair enough? Like? So I was like, oh, some of the the girl and she's magic. And I'm like stranger thing like, Yeah, everybody says

Ryan Burgess
it's so good. I think it appeals to so many people too, which is really cool. It's like it's a little bit of sci fi but not too extreme. I love it. Yeah. So good one. I want to thank everyone who was a guest today on our episode and who's able to talk to us and tell us about their experiences at a conference. We hope everyone had a great time at React Rally. We all did. So that's great. Thank you all for listening to today's episode. Make sure to rate us on iTunes and Google Play and subscribe to the front end happy hour, podcasts on whatever podcast catcher you're using. Anything else you guys want to add.

Jem Young
Don't forget to send us tweets. We do all this on our own free time. So those tweets that saying like, Hey, we love your episode really motivated. So we always like send those out to everybody once they come in. So yeah, everybody that tweets us or send us emails. We really appreciate it. That's why

Ryan Burgess
we keep doing this as people keep giving us positive feedback. We're getting better and we're gonna keep continue Nigro so love it

Ryan Anklam
yep good tweets give me the tingles just like the straddle launch last week