Boulder Ruby September 2024 Presentation Night
Join us at our monthly gathering where we present topics of interest to Rubyists and aspiring programmers.
Doors open at 6:00pm, where you can hangout and socialize with other Boulder Ruby members.
We also have a zoom at https://github.zoom.us/j/97330732657?pwd=WE9VbGNobmJwbnJ4OCtFWmtVR1BxUT09 if you want to join online.
At 6:30, we do announcements before getting to our presentations.
==================================
Talk 1: Automating Accessibility: How I Saved My Company $1M by Erica McDevitt from The Colorado Legislative Council
Description:
As developers, we have a goal of providing content that is consumable by all, regardless of their abilities, yet only 3% of current internet content is fully accessible. It can be hard for many companies to find the time, resources, and knowledge to modify their HTML into accessible HTML.
State Legislation was passed requiring some websites be fully accessible by 7/1/2025. Non-compliant sites run the risk of a costly lawsuit. Hiring a third party company for the task costs an average of $160 per page. Using a Ruby script to automate this process saved my company a minimum of $1M. Imagine what it might save yours!
This talk will ease you into the process of traversing and modifying an HTML document with Ruby. The result will be beautifully accessible, screen-reader friendly, and keyboard navigable HTML.
Bio:
Erica McDevitt is a Ruby on Rails engineer for the Colorado Legislative Council. She has professional experience with C++ and Ruby on Rails, along with a variety of other languages and libraries that she has incorporated into her skill set.
Erica enjoys applying her background in mathematics to create more efficient and scalable programs. When she's not programming, she can often be found in the Rocky Mountains, camping, trail running, or biking with her husband and two young boys.
==================================
Talk 2: Being A Senior Engineer by Jesse Spevack from Stripe
Description:
In this talk, Jesse Spevack, a Senior Engineer at Stripe, will share key observations and lessons learned from his journey in the tech industry. Whether you're an early-career developer or looking to advance to the next level, this talk will demystify what it means to be a Senior Engineer. Jesse will provide actionable insights on ownership, mentorship, transparency, and the balance of technical and non-technical skills essential for career growth. Join us to gain practical tips and strategies to elevate your engineering career!
Bio:
Jesse is a Senior Engineer at Stripe, a fintech company with a mission to grow the GDP of the Internet. He works on Stripe's risk systems and writes mostly Sorbet flavored Ruby. Before joining Stipe, Jesse worked at Ibotta, a cash back for shopping app built in Denver, CO. Prior to that Jesse was an educator and made his way to software engineering by way of Turing. He's a dad of twins, a marathoner, and writes verynormal.info.
==================================
If you would like to present at this meeting, or at upcoming events, reach out to the organizers on this meetup or ping us at @boulderruby (https://twitter.com/boulderruby) on Twitter.