As we look forward to our upcoming internal and annual conference, Wix Engineering Conference 2023, we are often asked by the community - "Why". Why do we keep choosing to invest the time, effort and attention into crafting a full day of professional talks and practical workshops by and for our own developers?
We believe the following explains why we do what we do:
An internal conference, not a public event
An internal conference enables us to focus on the most relevant topics for our developers, which brings the most value and the best learning experience for our Wix Engineers. In addition to that in public conferences you cater to a wide audience which tends to dilute the talks. In the Wix Engineering conference we focus on the most advanced topics that are highly relevant to our developers.
Our developers’ growth
Our annual gathering provides a unique opportunity to enhance internal professional growth by promoting and highlighting continuous learning. The Wix Engineering Conference gives our developers the time and space to learn about the latest industry trends, new tech stacks, and innovative development practices.
As the conference’s content is consumed and created by our developers, it is also a unique opportunity to share their experiences and lessons learned with their peers in a safe environment. They can also build relationships with colleagues from different guilds and teams. Furthermore, by taking an active part and going up on stage, developers can enhance their communication and presentation skills. These skills are essential for advancing in their career path.
// Take a quick glimpse at Wix Engineering Conference 2021:
Investment in our own culture
The Wix Engineering Conference is more than just an internal event - it's an investment in our employees and in the future of our own engineering culture. By dedicating a full day to knowledge enrichment and providing our developers with opportunities for growth and increased internal awareness, we’re setting the stage for continued organizational innovation.
Internal awareness, focus and fun
We also see the Wix Engineering Conference as a unique opportunity for our development teams to come together and broaden their understanding and awareness of other internal engineering activities, teams projects and focuses. And yes, having fun along the way.
Honoring our industry thought leaders
As a playground for growth and learning, the Wix Engineering Conference has been graced by the presence of many well known thought leaders from the industry. These leaders have provided us with a unique perspective on the challenges and opportunities facing the industry, and have inspired our engineers to continue pushing the boundaries of what is possible. Here are just some of the industry leaders we had to honor to learn from during past Wix Engineering Conferences:
Jun Rao, Co-Founder, Confluent - Leveraging Data in Motion in a Cloud-first World
In his talk, Jun Rao, Co-Founder, Confluent, shared the story behind Kafka and presented some use cases of how global companies transitioned from `data-at-rest` to an `event-driven real-time` architecture. He also explained how making Kafka Cloud native can create new opportunities for building a single system of record. By exploring these concepts, Rao demonstrated how Kafka has become a foundational technology for powering modern data-driven applications:
Dan North - Beyond Developer
In this talk with us, Dan explored the skills and characteristics that define the modern lead developer and suggests ways you can grow them for your professional growth:
Roy Rapoport - No: Insubordination in Service of Resiliency and Safety
In this discussion, Roy addressed the role of insubordination in healthy organizations as the "defiance of authority or refusal to obey orders" and explained how it can be an intentional method of building up organizational resiliency and creating safer environments for decision making. Roy drew from his own 30 years of experience as a pain in the neck to the people managing him and talked about principles, perspectives, and both effective and hilariously ineffective examples of this:
Conclusion
It was Dr. Seuss who said: "The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go". We believe that the same goes with organizations. The more an organization learns, the more it is capable to achieve and to grow. That is the reason why the Wix Engineering Conference is such an important event. And this is the reason why we invest so much time and effort into it.
Want to see more?
This year, for the first time, we will share news and updates from behind-the-scenes of getting ready for the Wix Engineering Conference 2023. You can visit our new Wix Engineering Conference blog where you can find interviews and insightful talks from last years' events, featuring: Adi Mor, Yonatan Mevorach, Gili Bernshtein, Shay Sofer, Natan Silnitsky and many more to come.
More of Wix Engineering's updates and insights:
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