REFACTR.TECH 2021
2021-08-18..2021-08-20
-- online --
[REFACTR.TECH 2019, REFACTR.TECH 2021, REFACTR.TECH 2022, REFACTR.TECH 2023]
who it's for
accessibility engineers, frontend developers, engineering managers, developer experience engineers, open source maintainers, embedded and IoT developers, cloud developers, engineering leaders
topics
mentorship and sponsorship tactics; ESP32 with FreeRTOS; TensorFlow Lite for Microcontrollers; open source community governance; unit component and end-to-end testing; Cypress and visual testing; AWS fundamentals (EC2 S3 Lambda IAM); antiracist hiring and retention metrics; automated alt text and dataset bias; ARIA roles and attributes; WCAG 2.1 and assistive technology testing; design-system accessible components
| title | author | length |
|---|---|---|
| Mentorship + Sponsorship with Lara Hogan | Lara Hogan | 43m |
Argues that sponsorship increases likelihood to ask for raises and stretch assignments and drives promotions more directly than mentorship or coaching, citing… | ||
| Microcontrollers (MCUs), Cloud, and a Chance of AI with Tara Walker | Tara Walker | 28m |
Claims that IoT jobs grew 1994% and that tiny MCUs can run real AI; demo builds and flashes an ESP32 with ESP-IDF using C/C++ and FreeRTOS, configures Wi‑Fi… | ||
| Building Open Source Communities with Tierney Cyren | Tierney Cyren | 17m |
Lessons from Node.js, io.js, Tent and MyBB condense into concrete rules: a single small PR to fix markdown links grows into a long‑term contributor and a job… | ||
| Effective Testing Approaches for your Application with Cecelia Martinez | Cecelia Martinez | 20m |
Defines testing by goals and architecture and prescribes concrete tradeoffs: use unit and API tests for complex business logic, component tests for internal… | ||
| Where to Start with AWS as a Developer with Sam Julien | Sam Julien | 30m |
Practical roadmap: start with EC2 for servers, S3 for static files, and AWS Lambda for serverless functions, use Route 53 for DNS and RDS or DynamoDB for… | ||
| Beyond Performative Racial Equity with Nicole Sanchez & Albrey Bristo-Brown | Nicole Sanchez, Albrey Bristo-Brown | 44m |
Claims that matter: one organizer runs a race conversation every 2.8 days across 40 companies and reports $3.8 billion pledged after George Floyd with only ~7%… | ||
| FAULT TEXT: The Adversities in Automated Alternative Text with Henri Helvetica | Henri Helvetica | 22m |
Web images number 3.2 billion uploads a day while 2.2 billion people have visual impairments, yet automated alt text fails: ImageNet scraped 15 million photos… | ||
| Accessibility isn't hard; getting people to see it's easy can be with Sarrah Vesselov | Sarrah Vesselov | 19m |
Argues that accessibility is table stakes, not a special project, and gives concrete practices: adopt WCAG AA as a baseline, embed accessibility in the Lattice… | ||
| ARIA: A Grande Method Of Accessible Markup with Chris DeMars | Chris DeMars | 25m |
ARIA provides attributes that let assistive tech understand nonsemantic widgets so complex interfaces become usable by people with disabilities, and the talk… | ||
| Accessible Components with Homer Gaines | Homer Gaines | 22m |
Covers WCAG 2.1 POUR and gives concrete guidance: build components with semantics first, prefer native buttons for actions and links for navigation, always use… | ||
| Shapeshifters: The #1 UX Mistake You Don't Know You're Making with Sophia Prater | Sophia Prater | 26m |
Argues that inconsistent representations of the same domain entities cause avoidable cognitive load and extra dev work, using concrete audits of Meetup (cards… | ||
| Gatekeepers and Difficulty Anchors with Mekka Okereke | Mekka Okereke | 25m |
Proposes using difficulty anchors: select senior engineers (architects, principal engineers) who have institutional credibility and capacity for… | ||
| 7 Secrets of Highly Successful Developers with Kim Maida | Kim Maida | 20m |
Seven concrete practices: compare only to your past self and track wins; set 3‑month goals you can finish and revisit; share wins with your boss and publicly… | ||
| Taking charge: how to own your career path with Katie Wilde | Katie Wilde | 21m |
Three concrete moves: find your career ikigai by shifting tasks you do now toward what pays and what you enjoy, build an IC path by leading without managing… | ||
| The Interview: What History & Science Can Teach Us About Hiring with Jason Wong | Jason Wong | 27m |
Job interviews start with Thomas Edison’s 1921 questionnaire and earlier Woodworth Personal Data Sheet personality screens (116 yes/no items), and decades of… | ||
| Keeping up with the Caldwells with Tia and Nick Caldwell | Tia Caldwell, Nick Caldwell | 24m |
Roundtable-style agenda that delivers numbers, tools and tactics: cites 74% reported increased burnout, reports 60% would accept a 10% pay cut to stay remote… | ||
| Algorithmic Bias: Data as a Weapon with Ayodele Odubela | Ayodele Odubela | 28m |
Built a drone weapon‑recognition system using millimeter wave sensors that auto‑positions to suspected firearms and includes stance detection but stakeholders… | ||
| nothing matches | ||