7 ms·
So you want to speak at software conferences?
- hibikir 11mo agoHe's pretty right on the "get bored" bits. I have few friends that are doing a lot of conferences every year after, say, year 6, and they are people whose circumstances lead them to not wanting to spend much time at home, for one reason or another. At that point it's like a job with 30% travel: You either have few attachments, or are trying to avoid the ones you have.
- hinkley 11mo agoI had a coworker in Seattle who commuted from the far side of Steven’s pass every day. That was a 2 hour trip each way. I desperately wanted to know what was up with her home life. Some introverts can use a long solo car trip to wind themselves up to deal with people or decompress afterward so they don’t take it out on their family. Others find it all too stressful and just makes it worse. But that’s like 20 minutes for me. I can’t imagine two hours. We didn’t drive that long to get to grandma’s house.
- ghaff 11mo agoI had about a 90 minute commute (by train or car/subway) at one point--about half the time because I did a lot of traveling. But couldn't have handled that long-term. Latterly, I had about a 2 hour commute into a city office--but rarely.
- chrisweekly 11mo agoInteresting take; thanks for sharing. One minor tangent (aiming for helpfulness, not pedantry), "I have few" reads as "I don't have many" (emphasizes the low number), whereas "I have a few" emphasizes the fact there's more than one -- which from context was clearly your intent. HTH!
- JoshTriplett 11mo ago> people whose circumstances lead them to not wanting to spend much time at home, for one reason or another. At that point it's like a job with 30% travel: You either have few attachments, or are trying to avoid the ones you have. Or a couple loves to travel and conferences are a good excuse.
- ghaff 11mo agoIn semi-retirement, I very selectively pick a few conferences to travel to in locations I want to be, at appropriate times of year, in interesting venues. Definitely less than I used to do.
- thetrumanshow 11mo ago>> Write a talk nobody else could do; tell a story nobody else can tell. Figure out what your audience is going to learn, and why you’re the best person to teach them that. That's an extremely high bar, no?
- SatvikBeri 11mo agoIt's doable if you pick a very focused topic. In my first year of using Julia, I gave a talk on gradually adding Julia to a large Python codebase. Very few people could give a similar talk because (1) Julia is a fairly niche language, (2) most of the people who understood Julia <> Python interop knew it too well, and had forgotten all the common beginner challenges.
- ilc 11mo agoNo, it means you have something unique to say. The bar is there, but it is lower than you expect. If you have a truly unique point of view to express, that brings some value to the table, slots will open up. And I've spoken at plenty of conferences. :) Not always in the glamour rooms/slots. But... I did have one talk fill a room out the door. That was a talk on a difficult/controversial topic, and by then... I was probably about as expert as they came on the issue. I didn't start with that though. I just started with a simple point of view talk. And I'd argue the second version of that talk is still one of the best I've given in my life.
- johannes1234321 11mo agoThat doesn't mean every talk has to be unique and special. An "introduction to XYZ" talk may have a bunch of equally valid speakers, which all naturally provide a slightly different angle and there is a bunch of factors going in the decision about who gets the slot. Some talks are plain craftswork, not unique experiences and still very worthwhile.
- ilc 11mo agoIt can. But I don't want to compete for my slot with others who can give the same talk, or a talk that is similar. I want to make the conference committee choose between "Do we want ilc's talk on X." or "Do we want foo's talk on Y." If we are both discussing the same thing, if I'm unknown, I will lose. OTOH, if I have something interesting to talk about... I have 2 routes to "victory". "ilc gives great talks, he gets good grades and is working on his skills." and "Man that's a damn cool topic. We want that at our conference, even if ilc isn't the BEST speaker, the combo is better." I didn't start out as the best presenter. I learned. But I always knew I had to have an interesting topic, something that made it worth them giving me a slot.
- ValentineC 11mo ago> Finally, watch out for events that put video of their sessions online. Having a couple of YouTube links of you doing your thing in front of a live, appreciate audience can make all the difference when a programme committee is looking at a handful of talks and can only accept one of them. This, very much this. I run a paid, one-day, mid-sized conference every year, and with only so many slots, we find it very, very difficult to risk choosing people who don't have videos of themselves speaking. A short meetup talk or a lightning talk at a different conference could make all the difference towards being selected, because we need to know that you're vaguely capable of conveying what you want to share to the audience.
- ekjhgkejhgk 11mo agoThank you for the thought you put into this. It's really frustrating when a speaker has an accent so strong it's unintelligible.
- NooneAtAll3 11mo agodo you record and post videos of your own?
- Aachen 11mo agoThe conference typically does it anyway, and otherwise you can ask a friend in the audience, or make a new friend who's willing to, or put a tiny tripod somewhere with your phone in camera-from-lockscreen mode. The point is showing that you can present on stage, so audio is most important I'd assume. It doesn't have to be amazing quality/angle
- NooneAtAll3 11mo agoI'm not asking "do you think how good you are in your own criteria" I'm asking "with such demands do you give back as well by recording and publishing talks people give to you?"
- Aachen 11mo agoI don't want videos of me online. Would an audio recording + slides suffice in your opinion? Or would you doubt it was really live in front of a sufficiently large audience? Idk how common fraud here would be
- bronxasaur 11mo agoI feel like while this is a great start for how to get practice giving talks, it could do with some expansion on how to make a great presentation.
- simeonGriggs 11mo agoI wrote a bit about this in my blog post on the same topic: https://www.simeongriggs.dev/how-to-give-a-great-conference-talk#s-874ac23bf0ad https://www.simeongriggs.dev/how-to-give-a-great-conference-...
- simonw 11mo agoOne tip I've found really useful over the past few years is to always try and include a "STAR moment" in a talk - where STAR stands for "Something They'll Always Remember". Effectively it means try and have at least one memorable surprise or gimmick in your talk. If someone watches a dozen talks at a conference you want them to be able to say "Oh, I remember your talk, it was the one with ..." when they meet you in the corridor. I deployed my pelican on a bicycle benchmark as a STAR moment last year and it was really effective: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jun/6/six-months-in-llms/ https://simonwillison.net/2025/Jun/6/six-months-in-llms/ At PyCon a couple of years ago I used a vibe-coded counter of the number of times I said "AI" out loud: https://simonwillison.net/2024/Jul/14/pycon/#pycon-2024.043.jpeg https://simonwillison.net/2024/Jul/14/pycon/#pycon-2024.043....
- tonyedwardspz 11mo agoYup. This. As long as people remember you for something positive, you'll get a second speaking slot. Personally it rapping and wigs. They both go down surprisingly well at tech confs!
- macintux 11mo agoI haven't checked these links for a very long time, but some presentation resources I accumulated when I was frequently giving talks: https://gist.github.com/macintux/5354837 https://gist.github.com/macintux/5354837
- ChrisMarshallNY 11mo agoI’ve been doing public speaking for my entire adult life, but not for a living. That said, it’s not my strong suit. Others are far better at it than I am. This is one of those areas where folks can make money/satisfy ego, so there’s a ton of competition. I’m not competitive, and am not interested in making money doing this kind of thing, so I don’t really try. I do appreciate folks that are good at it, though; especially when I want to learn. A skilled orator can make learning a lot more fun, and can be very motivating.
- 2rsf 11mo ago> That said, it’s not my strong suit. Others are far better at it than I am. I don't know you, and I feel the same about my public speaking but I suspenct that there's a lot of imposter syndrom in that
- ChrisMarshallNY 11mo agoI’m comfortable doing it, and generally receive positive responses, but I’m not “a natural.” If I have something that I need to “get just right,” like a class or main speaker gig, I have to practice a lot, and can come across as a bit “stiff.” If I don’t practice, I do well, but not predictably so, which makes me a bit of a “wildcard.” I know quite a few folks that can walk up to a podium, in front of hundreds of people, at little notice, and knock it out of the park. They often practice. Steve Jobs was one of the best public speakers I ever heard, and I’m told that he used to practice for hours. I knew a woman (I’m friends with her ex) that used to regularly appear on TV, and keynote finance conferences. She has an “aw shucks,” casual style. Her (ex) husband told me that she’d practice before each gig for many hours. The folks that make it seem to be “natural,” at anything, generally practice a lot. I speak frequently, but it’s not structured practice.
- 2rsf 11mo agoI suppose it's a combination, some people are more comfortable speaking and improvising on the spot but everyone needs to practice. I can add to your list a CEO of a big bank, he speaks freely and it's a pleasent to listen to him, but I heard that he practice using a private instructor as well
- runamuck 11mo agoPublic speaking plus blog posts did more for my career than my advanced engineering degrees. They lead to my past three places of employment. I did a talk or wrote a blog post, posted it to LI and then the decision makers reached out to me. This got me employment at workplaces I loved. I only write/ talk about things I enjoy, and they needed people with skills in the topics I wrote/ talk about. Perfect fit. I highly recommend this approach.
- emil-lp 11mo agoPerhaps your advanced engineering degrees enabled you to do public speaking and blogging?
- jakesgates 11mo agoWhat is LI?
- YouAreWRONGtoo 11mo ago[dead]
- sapphirebreeze 11mo ago[flagged]
- rmason 11mo agoI have run a ColdFusion users group in East Lansing for the past twenty five years. I have helped many first time speakers and this is some outstanding advice. Although I have never done it myself I can also recommend Toastmasters. Seen some speakers soar after attending this group for a year. You wouldn't even think that it was the same person presenting. Having that experience of public speaking can also greatly accelerate your career.
- CPLX 11mo agoThe idea that East Lansing, Michigan, can support a regular gathering of ColdFusion users in 2025 is the most astonishing thing I've learned in quite some time. Consider me quite impressed.
- jcheng 11mo agoThey met tonight! This is so insane!
- cebert 11mo agormason- I love how supportive you are of tech groups in Michigan. I’m trying to organize an Anthropic meetup, and you helped provide some great advice. Your love of tech and community is evident.
- YouAreWRONGtoo 11mo agoFOMO is the only reason people attend conferences, which is why I visited a few to figure out whether I was missing out on anything. Speaking at a conference? Same story. You do it, because it's for "personal development", until it's pointless. Conferences have n00bs and PMs, not the experts, because they don't need to learn anything anymore.
- ValentineC 11mo ago> Conferences have n00bs and PMs, not the experts, because they don't need to learn anything anymore. The real experts never stop learning. Some of them go to conferences because that's one of the few times in the year they can hang out with each other, and find out what their community is up to.
- YouAreWRONGtoo 11mo ago[dead]
- em-bee 11mo agoactually, the primary reason to go to conferences is networking. meeting people, make connections. you go to talks that interest you so you can meet people that share your interest. same for giving presentations. you give presentations to promote an idea or work, to share something you have learned, to contribute to the community, and again, for networking. fomo? not at all. personal development? that's a bonus, but not the motivation.
- RomanPushkin 11mo agoThis year I spoke at HOPE - Hackers On Planet Earth. The topic was "Hacking ATMs: past and present". I really enjoyed it, it took a lot to prepare though. I haven't gotten any monetary benefit from it, but I would definitely do it again. HOPE is one of the best hacker conferences, and it's somehow [subjectively] friendlier than other. Feels like home, so if you're on hacker news, I guess you wanna speak at hacker conference or contribute to 2600? ^_^
- zipy124 11mo agoIf no one else is aware, Dylan is one of the best conference talkers in the industry. A rare combination of technical knowledge, experience and fantastic to watch if you ever get the chance.
- dylanbeattie 11mo agoThank you. Very kind of you to say so.
- WalterBright 11mo agoSome things I've learned over the years: 1. do not show a slide full of code. The font will be too small to read. Nobody will read it 2. don't read your slides to the audience. The audience can read 3. don't talk with your back to the audience 4. make your font as big as practical 5. 3 bullet points is ideal 6. add a picture now and then 7. don't bother with a copyright notice on every slide. It gets really old. Besides, you want people to steal your presentation! 8. avoid typing in code as part of the presentation, most of the time it won't work and it's boring watching somebody type 9. render the presentation as a pdf file, so any device can display it 10. email a copy of your presentation to the conference coordinator beforehand, put a copy on your laptop, and phone, and on a usb stick in your pocket. Arriving at the show without your presentation can be very embarrassing! 11. the anxiety goes away 12. don't worry about it. You're not running for President! Just have some fun with it
- WalterBright 11mo agoOh, one more thing. Keep on hand some of your previous presentations. Often, a speaker won't show up and the conference organizer is panicking and needs a replacement. Be first to volunteer your services! I've done that several times, and the results were always worthwhile. One time, I didn't have an extra talk with me, but I volunteered anyway and asked for a whiteboard and markers. Frankly, it was the best talk I ever gave. Unfortunately, it wasn't recorded. But it sure was fun! (I simply asked the audience what they wanted me to talk about.)
- ghaff 11mo agoI once got a panicked email from a conference organizer in Japan at about 3AM because a speaker was at another event and completely forgotten about this one. (Hey! Happens.) I was able to be like, no problem. Here's a presentation that works. And, if need be, I could have just done something on the fly instead.
- onion2k 11mo ago13. Have a message you're actually enthusiastic to tell people. The audience can quickly tell if someone is there because they want to talk about the topic they're presenting, and having a receptive audience makes it much easier to get on stage to talk about it. If the audience knows you're there because you want another line on your resume or because you're trying to sell them something the atmosphere can turn quite cold and that is a world of pain for a speaker.
- moralestapia 11mo ago>They have given up their time - and often a substantial amount of money - to hear what you have to say. They deserve your best shot, every time. Oh wow, this, 1,000x this!
- wyattjoh 11mo agoI struggled for a long time to figure out what would be "interesting enough" to give a talk about. Turns out that the way that we do different things in Next.js was not talked about enough. Did my first technical talk about some decisions and mechanisms that Next.js uses for dynamic detection and rendering and found a sweet spot.
- sbachman 11mo agoNever speak for free at events held at for-profit companies. They will try to convince you to work for free for the "exposure."
- Nextgrid 11mo agoIt's one of those few times where exposure is actually beneficial though.
- Kamilbenkirane 11mo agoThat's insightful! Thanks for sharing. I've been applying to conferences recently to present an open-source library I built (a unified client for AI providers), but I haven't gotten any responses yet. I think the project is solid—it basically lets you switch from OpenAI to Anthropic in one line of code—but I suspect my CFP (Call for Papers) abstracts are failing to hook the organizers. For those here who review CFPs: Do you prefer abstracts that focus on the "Technical How-To" (e.g., 'How to standardize I/O layers') or the "Story/Philosophy" (e.g., 'Why we need primitives, not frameworks')? I feel like I might be getting too technical too fast.
- braza 11mo agoI like the general idea, and I owe so much for the talks and bloposts. That said, I really miss the old deep boring technical talks with speakers with an attitude of "I do not care if you meet the tecnical (and probably cognitive in some several cases) requirements to be in this room". I used to go in talks in the late 2000s and the difference with talks now in the mid-2020s is that the speakers now are so good and well-crafted, the slides way more professional, and the storytelling is so compelling, and... that's the issue(?) for me. The strange loop maybe was the last bastion of tech conference where I could check in those kinds if speakers. There are so many aspects of topic accessibility and formatting that some of the open-ended parts of a technical argument or some not-said parts are not in the presentations anymore. Beforehand I used to go to some talks and literally take notes on 90% of the things, and back home I started to do some research about it, and eventually I learned 70% of it, and I started to have at least 2% that made some difference in my daily work. Now the talks are so well structured that I do not see most of the time the open-ended unsaid topic that could be an intellectual side quest, given how well the presenter placed it and made it uninteresting for me, or they do not talk about this open-ended aspect at all, and it never sparked my curiosity. Maybe it's not such a sophisticated analogy, but the old format would be like reading a book and piecing together a lot of not-explicit points from the author, and the other one is like having the same book in a cinematic experience with a well-crafted screenplay, costumes, dialog, and so on.
- jghn 11mo ago> The strange loop maybe was the last bastion of tech conference where I could check in those kinds if speakers. Strange Loop was amazing. The vibes were perfect. And I've never been to another tech conference that I found to be so mind expanding. Most of the talks I'd attend had no practical utility in my daily life, but got me thinking about all sorts of what ifs and if/how I could apply some nugget of what they were saying to more practical applications.
- Cthulhu_ 11mo agoMy issue is that the next ladder rung involves going out and doing presentations at conferences and the like. However... I did that 10 years ago, it feels like I'm past that. A lot of things now feel like I've done them 10 years ago. Which makes me think, should I have been earning what I do now back then? It feels the wrong way around.
- raju 11mo agoThis is a great list. As someone who has spoken at hundreds of conferences, there's one piece of advise I give younger speakers, particularly those nervous about how the audience will receive them. Dylan alludes to this in a different context > Finally: respect your audience. Whether you’re talking to five people at a meetup, fifty at a community event, or five thousand at a huge international conference: those people are the reason you get to do this. They have given up their time - and often a substantial amount of money - to hear what you have to say. They deserve your best shot, every time This is the same thing I say except, them _choosing_ to attend your talk, and opting in to giving you their time and attention is a signal that they _want_ you to succeed. They are HOPING you deliver your message, and that your demos all work, and that you conclude well. If kept in mind, I believe this can help alleviate some of the anxiety. Sidebar: I've done this for a very long time and I still get nervous at the beginning of every talk. And I will be the first to admit—you WILL run into the occasional show off in the audience who is intent on demonstrating to you (and to the rest of room) how much smarter or more experienced they are than the speaker. That will happen—but it's an aberration.
- nosrednAhsoJ 11mo agoFellow speaker, and a large part of my "speaking with confidence" breakthrough was realizing this point exactly. The other key unlock for me was the realization that I was the ONLY one in the entire room who would know when I fumbled a word or didn't deliver the content on each slide absolutely perfectly.
- tristor 11mo agoI've given many talks at conferences, meetups, and otherwise. My number one piece of advice is to /really/ know your subject. Sometimes I am asked to present something I don't already intimately know, and it can be tempting to put together a presentation and learn just enough to present, but it's MUCH better to really go deep and learn the subject fully. Why? 1. Competence creates confidence, and confidence creates trust. 2. You can answer questions, pretty much any question, and if you can't you can let the audience know graciously without coming off as unknowledgable. 3. It makes it easier to present well, because you don't need to or are not tempted to read from the slides, you're telling a story or sharing information in a natural way, off the dome, using the slides only as a topic guide because you already fully understand everything about the subject. I have found this to be so important, that I sometimes /choose/ to present something I'm interested in but don't know well (with enough lead time) as a jumping off point to dig deep into it. I have long believed if you want to really understand something, the benchmark for having achieved competence is successfully teaching that subject to another person and seeing them succeed with it.
- indymike 11mo agoIf your presentation requires a custom software installation, give the audience the instructions as a hand out/script so you can focus on the important part. I once did a breakout about a Geo support in Django, but the presenter spent the entire time helping people install PostgreSQL with geo support for an entire morning. We never ran a single line of Django code when the presentation was over.
- bjoli 11mo agoI just wrote (with some AI help) a recently fast rrb tree implementation for c# [0]. I am waiting for the phone calls, but so far I have gotten nothing in 24h. Maybe if I figure out how to use docfx... [0]: https://github.com/bjoli/RrbList/tree/main/src/Collections https://github.com/bjoli/RrbList/tree/main/src/Collections
- stevenalowe 11mo agoGood article, just wanted to add that the time from idea to international speaker can be weeks/months, not necessarily years, depending on your niche
- dylanbeattie 11mo agoSure, it happens. Especially if somebody is already well known and respected in their field. But it is not common, and I find it frustrating how many people think they can fast-track their way to the bigger events. I've been on the committee that rejects their submissions and find myself having to diplomatically explain to them "you've never done this before, nobody has any idea who you are, you've done nothing to establish your credibility regarding this topic, and you were one of 1500 submissions for 50 available slots... sorry, kid, that's not how this works."
- stevenalowe 11mo agoI did not mean to imply that steps could be skipped, just that they can be orchestrated more rapidly in some niches where there are a lot of conferences