I recently participated in a tech talk series, sponsored by my consultancy Inrhythm and CODEOLIO, April 18, 2019.

It was honestly one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever done. My talk was on moving a Spring code base from Java to Kotlin. Naturally the doubts in my mind increased as the days led up to the event. “Are you an expert at Kotlin?”, “What makes you think people will respect your opinion on Kotlin?”. Naturally I wasn’t doing myself any favors with this kind of thinking and practice wasn’t helping either. But then I added my intro, “Evening I am Bryan Riley. A Lead Cloud Engineer for Inrhythm and Coach”. That intro made me reflect on my journey at Inrhythm. I started as mid level developer, in an area where I lacked experience and performance testing. Next I was tasked with interviewing possible new candidates. Then administration duties where I participated in practices to evolve the practice. Now I’m a lead and a coach, I’m responsible for people around me to keep evolving their skill sets. People look to me for technical advise. Inrhythm really supported me into the space I’m in now, and my path isn’t unique.

So the talk went great. I was nervous, until I said my first words. I even skipped applause and immediately started asking for questions. David Stefano, the organizer/creator of CODEOLIO, took over for a moment and the crowd applauded the presentation. I can’t thank him enough for that because I was really in the zone (lol). I can’t thank him and Inrhythm enough for the opportunity. Naturally since this talk went so well, I’m planning on doing another. For details on Inrhythm’s events, check their meetup page here. I can’t wait to see you there, let’s be more than developers.