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Lyndsey Padget

Lyndsey Padget
   

Solutions Architect at VMLY&R Kansas City

Lyndsey is a technology leader with nearly 20 years of software and web development experience at both mega-corporations and startups. She enjoys sharing in-depth knowledge on topics such as Git & release management, MERN stack development, microservices & REST, test-driven development, agile & kanban, healthy teams, diversity & inclusion, public speaking, and more. Lyndsey is involved in local organizations that encourage women, young and old, to explore careers in math and science. She believes that the difference between a good software engineer and a great one often has little to do with code.

Presentations

Master Git in a Day

9:00 AM MDT

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that Git is the most popular source control management in development shops today. And for good reason; its power overshadows tools you may have used in the past, such as Subversion or Team Foundations. While most developers and companies know this, making the switch can be painful. It’s all too common to lose code or introduce bugs because of difficulties merging or resolving conflicts. But fear not - it is possible to get comfortable with Git.

After a brief overview of concepts and capabilities, we’ll walk through exercises to simulate realistic scenarios. We’ll resolve conflicts, squash commits, stomp on other people’s code, fix mistakes, tag our commits, and more. All exercises will be performed on the command line, so you’ll truly understand what’s happening without the aid of GUI-based tools.

Productivity Master Class

9:00 AM MDT

If you think that successful individuals in our field are just talented or lucky, you’re only partially right. More importantly, they are very good at focusing on the right things, making them extremely efficient. We often blame others for our inability to focus, but the truth is that we allow outside forces to drain our time and attention, leaving us time-crunched and stressed.

This session will highlight many popular productivity strategies, many of which can be applied in your home as well as in your office! Whether your issue is email or chat addiction, incessant meetings, procrastination, general disorganization, or poor estimation skills… this course is for you. Reclaim your time, your career, and your life by training yourself how to focus on what matters.

How to be an Awesome Ally

11:00 AM MDT

Most of us want tech to be an equitable and inclusive place where everyone feels comfortable. But it can be intimidating - or even frustrating - when it feels like the target is always moving. The things that didn’t seem like a problem yesterday suddenly are, and we’re not sure what we should be doing instead.

Rather than approaching this subject with anger or blame, we will instead focus on understanding and practical advice you can use to make your workplace more enjoyable and welcoming to all. At the end of this session, there will be a significant amount of time for Q&A, where we can have an open dialogue about how to become better allies.

The 10 Types of Difficult Coworkers (and How to Handle Them)

1:00 PM MDT

This session will help you approach difficult people and situations with more empathy, and more importantly, discover practical tips on how to diffuse their effect on you and your happiness.

Does it seem like no matter what you do, you can’t make your boss happy? How about your nit-picky teammate who tears your code apart whenever they have the chance? Or the direct report who won’t do anything without you explicitly asking? When you have to work closely with these kinds of people every day, those annoying personality traits can make your life miserable. By peeling back the labels we assign to people, we will strive to understand what makes them tick. This session will help you approach difficult people and situations with more empathy, and more importantly, discover practical tips on how to diffuse their effect on you and your happiness.

Badassary 101

3:00 PM MDT

Would Chuck Norris ask you to come hear him speak at a conference? No, he wouldn't. He would TELL you that you're coming, and then roundhouse kick you in the face if you gave him any more lip.

“What would Chuck Norris do?” is a philosophy this session will cover in depth. Other topics include: badass vs a-hole, human duck typing, the art of [not] caring, instrumentality, and what your facial hair says about you. You won't learn any new code in this session, but you might unleash a Pandora's box of awesomeness that will change the way you interact with your coworkers forever.