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Kerri Miller is a Software Developer and Team Lead based in the Pacific Northwest. She has worked at enterprise companies, international ad agencies, boutique consultancies, start-ups, mentors and teaches students. She currently is a Senior Backend Engineer at Gitlab, and also works for Ruby Together on RubyGems.org and Bundler. While that is all factually true, it doesn't actually describe an actual person. Kerri has an insatiable curiosity, having worked as a lighting designer, marionette puppeteer, sous chef, and farm hand. She attended college to study performance production, was once a semi-professional poker player, has strong opinions about keycaps, knows some sweet yoyo tricks, and enjoys melting hot glass with a blowtorch to create beads, cane, and murrini. Asked to describe herself in two words, she thought a bit and replied "lackwit gadabout."
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In her keynote address titled *If You Can Move It, It Isn't Broken* at RubyConf 2020, Kerri Miller, a Senior Backend Engineer at GitLab, explores the themes of ambition, resilience, and storytelling within the software development community. Key Points Discussed: - **Community Engagement:** Kerri emphasizes the importance of community in software development, reflecting on the supportive environment of the Ruby community, which welcomes diverse experiences. - **The Journey of Learning:** Kerri draws parallels between personal ambition in software engineering and real-world challenges faced, such as her experience in motorcycle riding. She highlights how achieving mastery comes with its share of resilience and ambiguity. - **Storytelling as a Tool:** She discusses how sharing stories fosters collaboration and learning, encouraging attendees to reflect on their journeys and draw lessons from their experiences. The narrative is crucial in shaping community connections and reinforcing shared experiences. - **Ambitious Projects:** Kerri defines ambitious systems in software engineering as complex and often difficult to complete, leading to feelings of uncertainty regarding project completion. - **Embracing Failure:** She reminds developers that nobody is immune to making mistakes and that acknowledging failures can lead to growth and new insights, contrasting the pressure for perfection in technical work. Significant Examples: - **Personal Anecdote:** Kerri shares a story of a motorcycle riding mishap where she humorously remarked "if you can move it, it isn't broken" while indicating deeper themes of resilience and learning from failures. - **Traffic Signals Analogy:** This example illustrates the challenges faced with integrating new technology (LEDs) into established systems and acknowledges the biases against change that exist within the tech industry. Conclusion & Takeaways: - The journey to mastery in software development involves resilience, personal storytelling, and an understanding of complexities that come with ambitious projects. - Attendees are urged to capture their stories and share them within the community, as these narratives can inspire and connect others in the field. Kerri encourages all attendees to reflect on their unique experiences and the lessons learned from their personal journeys, reinforcing that community is built on shared stories and learning from both successes and failures.
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