Episode 175: Famous devs at conferences and becoming obsolete

Soft Skills Engineering

In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

1. Hi Dave and Jamison, thanks for the awesome show.

   How should I conduct myself at software conferences when my dev community heroes are in the midst?

   I recently attended a conference where one of my developer heroes was in attendance and I was really looking forward to meeting them. I couldn’t muster up the courage to introduce myself. What do you do in these situations to break the ice and not come off as a creeper or a nuisance? It’s a weird feeling to hear someone’s voice on a podcast every week or read their blog posts and feel like you are best friends with them while knowing that the other person has no idea who you are. Am I overthinking this?

2. Recent new listener here and I must say that I love the show and to keep up the good work. My question can possibly be answered with the standard soft skills answer BUT I have my reservations about quitting my job. I work at a consultancy doing work in a niche web development framework that interfaces with an old monolith ERP system that I’m just not excited by but I am very good at creating web applications in.

   I know eventually these skills will become obsolete, and I had a new job opportunity recently that I decided not to take. Am I being stupid?

   Should I stay in the niche and hope I can get a newer job in the future where they just accept I can learn new tools?