Epic Web Conf - You can just do things

I went into the Epic Web Conf event not knowing what to expect. This year I’m looking for events to attend to learn, network, and experience the tech community. I wasn’t sure if this would be the right one for me, though.

• Did I fit into the “Epic” brand, even though I haven’t taken any of the courses?
• Is this a good time and place to travel, given the current climate?
• Will I be able to meet folks given that I (like many engineers) am a bit socially awkward and know basically no one at the conference?

Ultimately I decided to give it a go and I’m so glad that I did. In short, it has easily risen to the top of my list of favorite events, and it is something that I plan to go to again.

I wanted to share a few of the things from my experience at the conference, but if you’re looking for a high-level “is this conference for me?” or “was this worth the time and money to attend?” decision I’ll make it easy for you and say up front: Absolutely. (note: I got a free ticket to the conf for submitting a recorded talk, but I self-paid for my travel for this one and have young kids, so the time and money are BIG factors).

If you’re looking for something deeply technical, or about a specific tech stack or framework, then this might not be for you (although React was, unsurprisingly, heavily represented). But if you’re looking for somewhere to get motivated, network with a ton of incredible folks throughout the industry, and nerd out about topics pervasive throughout web development like AI (in a non-AI-cringe way), accessibility, or design systems, then this is absolutely an event you should prioritize. If you’re interested in more details, I’m sharing them below!

Place

Salt Lake City is an interesting location for this event. While it is centrally located, affordable to access, and visually stunning, the region’s cultural and political landscape differs from my own environment, which initially gave me some pause about traveling there. The area is known for its strong religious culture, and as someone with a different life perspective, I was initially unsure how I might feel in such a context.

However, those reservations quickly dissolved as the event started. There were attendees from all over the globe, bringing together professionals from numerous backgrounds and experiences. The event cultivated an incredibly welcoming atmosphere that genuinely embraced participants across all levels of professional development, ensuring everyone felt valued and included.

I’m always a bit skeptical of whether the messaging around an event or place as being “welcome to everyone” is actually the case. I am a woman in tech and have found that there’s a difference between what places say and what actually happens. But this was absolutely an event where I felt welcome, despite knowing relatively few folks involved prior to attending.

Vibes

Kent C. Dodds and the amazing team at Zero Slope put on an incredible event. I already mentioned the inclusivity, but there were some small details surrounding the event that made it truly unique.

For one, among the swag for attendees was a mini one-wheel toy to use in a mini skate park. The skate park was made up of tech deck toys (aka, the original millennial fidget toy), and it was a delightful space to hang out and chat while decorating our one-wheels with our favorite sponsor stickers.

The sponsor interaction was awesome. One of my favorites that I chatted with was Sentry, who I already use heavily at work and love the product. Whoever is doing the swag at Sentry deserves a raise. A Sentry-themed Bug Tracer board game?? Seriously, incredible.

The conference had an ample amount of breaks. Sometimes the hallway track is even better than the rest of the conference, since that is where you get a chance to meet other folks. It felt like a good mix of longer talks and shorter talks, with enough breaks to get up and stretch and not feel numb from sitting for an entire day.

There were also plenty of party events. The night before the talks had a pre-party hosted by Mux, with an open bar and a very cool atmosphere at Squatter’s Pub near the venue. This was a very cool opportunity to meet folks and hang out before the conference.

Top-left: Kent C. Dodds, Top-right: Shruti Kapoor, Annie Sexton, Marisa Morby, Bottom-left: Josh Cirre, Bottom-right: Daniel Shin

The night of the conference there was another party, this time at the hotel with board games, a DJ, and karaoke. Kent did a phenomenal “Lost in the Woods” from Frozen II. Apparently Jason Lengstorf was in an emo band for over 10 years and had the vocals to prove it (I need to find out which band this was). It felt like Michael Bublé was actually in the room singing when Josh Cirre did his rendition of “Just haven’t met you yet”. Roxy Rodriguez-Becker took on a very ambitious pick in “Take On Me” and absolutely crushed it. And Daniel Shin had excellent picks and surprised us all with his “Hello” from Adele. This was the perfect way to end the conference and we all hung out late into the night until our voices were hoarse from singing along together.

Workshop

I took Kent C. Dodds’ React Server Components workshop on a bit of a whim. I haven’t personally spent much time learning about server generated components and thought that sitting in a room for 8 hours dedicated to it would be way to get myself to get deeper into it.

It had been a long while since I had spent much time in a classroom setting, but I felt that the overall pace of the course and breaks were super good. It was invaluable having Kent there to answer questions while working through the material and the Epic Web app we used for learning was ridiculously cool.

While I did learn a bit about deciding between client and server-side generated components and how to build them (from scratch, without JSX!), my biggest takeaway from the workshop was actually the way that Kent approached debugging and pulling something apart to deeply inspect it. We used custom import maps and components serialized without JSX and really got to explore what is passed back and forth between the server and the client, which was very interesting and a new way of thinking about problems which itself was valuable enough for the entire course.

I’m considering taking the React course (despite already writing React professionally on the regular) just to see what else I may pick up.

Talks

Every single talk that I heard was fantastic and motivational in its own way, but there were a few that I know I will be referencing and sharing with folks once the recordings are out.

JavaScript: The Origin Story by Annie Sexton

Annie is a Developer Advocate for Fly.io. She doesn’t only make incredible content about engineering, she is also a comic book author!

Her talk went through the history of JavaScript and how it came to be where it is today. It was incredibly engaging (wow she’s a great speaker). One of my favorite parts was how she used pop culture references from different years to set the stage for what was occurring during each era.

She had a compelling argument for why understanding the history of development is important to more deeply understand the problems that you’re trying to solve.

Practical tips for betting on yourself by Aaron Francis

It is no surprise that Aaron Francis is a great speaker if you’re familiar with his content (and if you aren’t familiar, you should be!). His talk was incredibly polished and highly motivating.

I loved how he started the talk out by thanking his wife, who is a stay-at-home-mom to their four kids (under four!!). That was an incredibly classy move. I also deeply empathize with him given that I have three young kids of my own, including a set of twins.

He relayed his story of how he managed to keep moving after being laid off last year, and the incredible momentum he already had by being online. If you’re looking for practical tips on being more public in your journey, whatever that journey may be, about networking in a remote or online space, or getting motivated to do basically anything, I highly recommend listening to his talk. After all…

You can just do things

• Author Unknown¹

The Weird Web by Alex Anderson

Alex is a developer, speaker, and spaceship enthusiast.

I loved how unique this talk was, with an ample amount of very ambitious demos and a highlight of all the web APIs you probably didn’t know exist.

Alex shared demos of DMX for light and Midi for sound. He was like a magician pulling props out of his jacket to emphasize what incredible and weird things the web can do. I’m admittedly not much of a device tinkerer but was delighted to see all of the incredible things you can do with just a web browser.

Building accessible web apps by Shruti Kapoor

Shruti is an incredible content creator and web developer based out of Seattle, and one of my favorite people that I met at the conference. If there were a superlative for “Best Dressed” or “Best Introduction”, she would easily win them.

Her presentation emphasized the importance of accessibility, not just for folks with disabilities, but for every user. She did an excellent job showing practical examples of making something more accessible to screen reader or keyboard users.

Beyond Code Assist: Driving impact as a next-gen developer by Mark Techson

Mark Techson is an absolutely incredible human being. I wasn’t sure if he would remember me from our time doing Leet Heat together a few months back (it was a busy time!), but he welcomed me with a hug immediately. He is an excellent motivational speaker.

One of the best talks was really saved for last, and I’m so glad that he did this talk. It was about how the world for developers is changing with AI. And contrary to the outlook we are seeing a lot of folks share about how “software development is over”, he shared an optimistic and (more importantly) realistic bit of advice for folks that are embracing it within their workflow.

AI is here and it’s here to stay. If you played with AI when it first came out and wrote it off, it’s time to look at it again. Because it has gotten better. Fast.

Mark shared his advice to engineers in this space, that this is the time for us to embrace AI and learn how to leverage it within our workflows in a way that can make ourselves and the world better. This is a talk I will be sharing with any AI enthusiasts or doomers for a long time to come.

People

The two emcees of this event were Bree Hall and Taylor Desseyn. They were spectacularly dressed on theme in space suits, and they were a fantastic duo. They kept morale up and kept folks motivated through a long day of talks. If you’re looking for an emcee for a tech event in the future (or maybe even a birthday party?) they’re a great duo to hire.

Bree in particular was so fun to meet. She is a lovely human that clearly had deep technical knowledge and a knack for sharing it in an approachable way. She made these incredibly cute friendship bracelets which I will cherish for a very long time, and I can’t wait to reach out to her again to share in our love of crafting and stationary.

Meeting people at this conference was incredibly easy. I went into it knowing only a few folks (Mark Techson, and Annie Sexton, from my time on Leet Heat, as well as Jason Lengstorf and his wife Marisa Morby, from my time on Leet Heat and the Web Dev Challenge), and knowing that all of them were involved in talks or events, I felt pretty alone coming into the event.

Left-to-right: Me, Richard Choi, Leah Thompson, Roxy Rodriguez-Becker

However, it was very easy to meet new folks and I’m walking away with not only a few but at least a hundred new friends and connections. It was very easy to walk up to any group and jump into any conversation. And gosh, as a remote employee, I can’t believe how energizing it is to meet people in person and share a love of technology, which is something that you can’t really do in many spaces.

Final thoughts

I already spoiled my final thoughts in the beginning of this post, but want to reiterate that this is an event that I can’t wait to come to next year and to see grow in the future. If you’re looking for one of the best networking opportunities in tech, this is it. If you work in (or want to work in) web development in any capacity, regardless of technology or framework, this is the event for you.

I hope to see you next year!