Maximizing Your Potential in Tech Interviews: The Three Cs to Success

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The economy is terrible, layoffs are everywhere, and interviewing is hard. Job searching is exhausting and stressful, so how do you overcome all of that? All you need is a plan!


Whether it’s overcoming nerves or learning to communicate your technical experience more effectively, we all have our struggles. What you can’t do is let them hold you back! In this talk, learn how to leverage the three C’s (Connections, Communication, and Confidence) to gain a competitive advantage during your interviews. By embracing this strategy, you’ll be prepared to crush your next interview and get that offer!

This talk has been presented at TechLead Conference 2024, check out the latest edition of this Tech Conference.

FAQ

To stand out in a competitive tech job market, job seekers should focus on building connections, creating content to showcase their skills, and maintaining a strong personal brand. Networking and leveraging existing relationships can significantly improve job prospects.

The three C's to interview success are Connections, Confidence, and Communication. Building strong connections, showing confidence in your abilities, and effectively communicating your skills and experiences are crucial for succeeding in tech interviews.

Content creation acts as a form of first-round interviewing at scale. By creating and sharing content related to your field, you can demonstrate your knowledge and skills, making you more attractive to potential employers. It's more engaging and validating than a traditional resume.

Job seekers can build confidence for interviews by preparing thoroughly, practicing common interview questions, and focusing on their strengths. Taking notes of positive feedback and learning to say no when necessary can also help build confidence.

Soft skills are crucial in tech interviews because they differentiate candidates who may have similar technical skills. Communication, teamwork, and adaptability are examples of soft skills that can set a candidate apart and are often valued by employers.

Personal branding is highly significant in the tech industry as it helps you stand out and be recognized for your expertise. A strong personal brand can lead to job opportunities, as it showcases your skills, contributions to the community, and professional reputation.

Job seekers can effectively communicate their skills by preparing a personal tagline, discussing three detailed projects, and highlighting three soft and three hard skills relevant to the job. Tailoring these elements to the specific role can make a strong impression during the interview.

If laid off, job seekers should leverage their network by reaching out on social media and other platforms to let people know they are looking for opportunities. Building and maintaining connections can lead to new job prospects and support during the job search process.

The tech industry is experiencing significant layoffs, with more than 191,000 workers at US-based tech companies laid off in mass job cuts in 2023. This trend has continued into 2024, with nearly 53,000 layoffs already reported.

Connections are extremely important in the tech industry. Applying blindly often doesn't work, and having someone to vouch for your skills and fit can make a significant difference. Networking and building relationships can lead to job opportunities that might not be available otherwise.

James Q Quick
James Q Quick
21 min
15 Jun, 2024

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Video Summary and Transcription
To maximize your potential for success in tech interviews, it is crucial to have a well-planned approach. The three C's to interview success are connections, confidence, and communication. Connections play a significant role in job search and personal branding is important. Building a personal brand and making connections can have a significant impact on your career. Content creation, confidence building, effective communication, and preparation are key for success in technical interviews.

1. Tech Interview Success

Short description:

Let's talk about tech interviews and how to maximize your potential for success. Layoffs in the tech industry have increased drastically in recent years, with thousands of workers being affected. This has led to a highly competitive job market, where applicants are vying for limited opportunities. To succeed in this environment, it is crucial to have a well-planned approach to tech interviews.

Let's talk about tech interviews and how to maximize your potential for success. Now we'll have to start by addressing the elephant in the room, which is layoffs. And I've kind of followed the Crunchbase tech tracker this year and last year to kind of see how many jobs and what companies have been affected. And according to this, more than 191,000 workers at US-based tech companies were laid off in mass job cuts in 2023.

And this is by far kind of the scariest time that I've ever seen in my 10-plus-year career with layoffs happening almost every other day. Now interestingly, you can get into some of these numbers and kind of see just how many were cut in different years. 2023, again, 191,000. 2024, already 50- almost 53,000. And this includes some major companies like Amazon and Alphabet and Microsoft and Meta, et cetera. And even more personally, there's a ton of layoffs that have happened at companies that I have personal connections with. So I have friends at each of these companies that have been affected by layoffs just this year. And the most frustrating thing about this, or one of the most difficult things about this, is that means there's that many more people now applying for the jobs that are available. So what this looks like is if you're applying for a job now, you're having to compete with people that have been laid off from some of the top tech companies in the world. And so we start to see stories like this. We see people applying for 50, 100, 200 jobs. And just in case this isn't big enough for you to see, this person applied for 200 jobs and the past five weeks got 10 responses and only had three phone interviews. And the reality is when you apply for jobs, often what you hear is nothing. You hear silence. And honestly, that is incredibly exhausting. It's defeating. It has you asking questions like, why should I even keep applying if I'm not hearing anything back? Are there are there even any jobs left for me to potentially get an interview for? And how am I going to compete with all of these people that are also competing for the same jobs?

And so a key takeaway is there's not many opportunities out there or there's not as many as there used to be. So when you get that chance, you have to absolutely make the most of it. And how do you get the most out of your opportunities? What starts with a plan? And that's what I want to walk you through today, a plan to optimize and maximize your potential for success in tech interviews. So my name is James Kuik. I am a developer speaker and teacher, and I've done some combination of these things professionally for about 10 years. My wife and I have been married for almost nine years. About a year ago, we welcomed our daughter into the world. And as of a few days or a couple of weeks ago, we now have a one year old, which has really changed the way that we work or try to work at home. And so when I think about having now a one year old and continuing to raise our daughter, I think about stability in our careers. And it had me reflecting on, again, how to have the most potential success in interviews.

2. The Three C's to Interview Success

Short description:

In this talk, we'll discuss the three C's to interview success: connections, confidence, and communication. It's important to note that this is not about technical interviews or live coding problems. Instead, we'll focus on interviews in the tech industry. One key takeaway is the importance of acting on feedback and tangible action plans. Additionally, building and managing relationships is crucial for success in the field. I'll share my own experience starting my career at Microsoft and meeting a recruiter on campus.

Like any good talk that I do, I started by asking on Twitter what people's thoughts were. And I asked simply, what's the number one thing that had an impact on helping you get your last job? And I said, I'll start. It's content. I've been a content creator for almost 10 years, the majority of my career. And I do that full time for myself, which I'm really privileged to do.

Now, this is a tweet. There's a QR code that you can scan and go and contribute to this tweet. I would love to hear from you. What are the reasons that you've gotten your jobs in the past? What has helped you most? And there's already a ton of good comments there that we will include some of in this talk. So you get to see some of the examples from other people that they've posted as well.

So throughout this talk, we're going to talk about the three C's to interview success. This is going to be connections. This is confidence. And this is communication. Now, I do want to caveat one thing. This is not about solving the technical interviews. This is not about whiteboarding or live coding problems. This is about interviews in tech. Anything specific to live coding is going to be a whole different topic, something we're not going to cover in this talk.

Now, one of the things I also like to bring up is a lot of people watch talks like this. So they get feedback from people and they hear feedback, but they don't act on it. So my request to you is as you hear tangible things that can make a difference for you or tangible action plans that you can take in your potential search for your next job, whenever that may be, whether it's now or in the near future, please make sure to actually act on these things. I have a couple of specific takeaways that most people won't do, but I swear, if you do these things, they will have a significant impact on your potential for getting that next job.

So let's start by talking about connections. Now, I took a class in college for engineering management and a quote stuck with me that I will always remember. And the quote is relationship management is the key to success. And that has certainly played true in my career. Now, I started my career fresh out of college at Microsoft, one of the top tech companies in the world. And I got to meet one of the recruiters on campus when they were actively recruiting at my university.

3. The Power of Connections in Job Search

Short description:

I had the opportunity to meet a recruiter on campus who eventually advocated for me to get multiple interviews and helped me secure my first role at Microsoft. Later, my connections played a significant part in getting job offers at Auth0 and PlanetScale. These examples demonstrate the importance of connections in the job search process. Applying blindly is no longer effective.

And I got to meet one of the recruiters on campus when they were actively recruiting at my university. Now, I guess I made a good impression with this recruiter and I ended up having my first interview for a software engineer role. Didn't do very well in that interview, so I actually didn't get that job. But my recruiter liked me enough to advocate for me to get another interview for another role, which was a technical account manager role. Now, I'll come back to the interview details of that in a little bit. But just know I did not get that job either. I was actually rejected and interviewing with a bunch of different people and we were sent back to our hotel in a limousine, which is a really weird mix. So I didn't get that job, but my recruiter liked me enough and knew that I would be a good fit for Microsoft. So that person advocated for me for a third interview, which is for a technical evangelist role. And that is where I found my first role, fresh out of college, working for one of the top tech companies in the world in an amazing job that I knew nothing about. But I had that one person, that one connection that could advocate for me to get me to that process.

Now, after going from Microsoft and doing software engineering at FedEx, I was ready to get back into creating content and developer evangelism or advocacy. And so I applied for a job at Auth0. Now, at this point, I had already been creating content and had some friends in the community that were other content creators and were connected to the hiring manager at Auth0. So by the time I applied, my then manager, hiring manager was able to ask a few different people about me and then vouch for my credibility, what I had given to the community, my abilities as a content creator, etc. So I like to think that my connections played a significant part in that role as well.

Now, while I was at Auth0, I had a director who I really enjoyed, who left for a company called PlanetScale. And I ended up following that person and another person from my team to PlanetScale. And by the time I did that, I didn't really have to go through an interview process because I had that relationship with my former manager. It kind of spoke for itself. And I didn't really have a traditional interview. I just had a conversation where they were more selling me on joining PlanetScale. So in all three of these examples for finding jobs in my career, they came from connections that I've had. And I know what you're thinking. Wow, this person isn't capable of getting a job on their own without connections. And yeah, that may be true. Or maybe it's proof to the fact that connections actually make a difference. And I think there's one important takeaway from this is that applying blindly just doesn't work anymore. Just sending in a resume on LinkedIn just doesn't work. It's not enough.

4. The Importance of Personal Brand and Connections

Short description:

Having connections played a significant role in many people's examples, such as getting recommendations from previous coworkers, being friends with a hiring manager, or having a referral. At PlanetScale, the speaker experienced a sudden job loss in a brief meeting with the CEO. However, the speaker's strong brand and active presence on Twitter led to numerous job opportunities without traditional interviews. The speaker emphasizes the importance of not just who you know, but who knows you, highlighting the value of their personal brand.

And I saw this example from many people in the tweets. Roberta Wool's got a recommendation from those he'd worked with before. Raphael was friends with a hiring manager. One person sent a single email to one of my previous employers. Again, an existing connection. Alex's track record and Andres had a referral again, going back to the connections and the respect that they had earned with the people that they knew. And that's huge.

Now, I want to tell you another quick story about my time at PlanetScale. When I was there, I got a random invite to meet with the CEO for a 15 minute conversation, and I messaged him the night before the day of, hey, anything I need to prepare? And I showed up to this meeting and HR was there and they said, you no longer work at PlanetScale. I was let go in a 15 minutes, actually it was more like five, Zoom meeting where the CEO popped in for all of two minutes, said, you no longer work here and left. And that's pretty devastating. And it's honestly pretty representative of what a lot of us are going through right now, or have gone through in the last six months or year, unfortunately.

But fortunately for me, I had a lot to lean on. And what I did was post on Twitter to say, Hey, I've just been let go. I don't know what's next for me, but if you're hiring in these types of roles, please reach out to me. And I was very fortunate to be in a position where my inbox was flooded with opportunities. Hey, we have this role. Hey, we'd love for you to come work with us. Hey, blah, blah, blah. And these types of messages didn't seem like I would have to go through a traditional interview process. It seemed like I was already somewhat vetted. And the reason that's the case and the major benefit that I had, and the thing that I had to fall back on at that point was my brand and what I've learned about my brand or brands in general, but specific to me, my brand is the most valuable asset I will ever own. It has led to opportunities, more opportunities than I ever could have imagined, and hopefully we'll continue to do so.

And thinking about brand, I think a lot about a very stereotypical quote. It's not about what you know, it's about who you know. And that is true, but I also came across a slightly different variation of this quote, which reads, it's not what you know or who you know, but who knows you? And I think about that from a brand perspective. My brand is, is how people know me. It's who knows me. It's the trust that people have in the things that I've built and the community and the value that I've provided back to the community. So what happens is when I go to a conference, when I go to an event, I know people or to put it the other way, people know me, and that's a huge benefit for me in my career.

5. Building Personal Brand and Making Connections

Short description:

Building a personal brand and making connections can have a significant impact on your career. Start by having coffee chats and meeting random people to expand your network. Attend events, both virtual and in person, to network and learn. Utilize social media to build connections and create content that showcases your skills. Content creation can serve as a first round interview at scale, allowing others to see your abilities in action.

And it makes me think back to college and especially freshman year of college, I had one of my friends, Reggie, who made it his mission to meet everyone on campus that he absolutely could. He would go and introduce himself to everyone he came across to the point where we showed up to an intramural basketball game. We showed up to a frat party. He always knew someone at those events. And more importantly, there was always someone at those events that knew him. And I think about that as his brand. And I think about that from the people who know you and how much impact that can have.

Now I'm talking about a brand that I personally have been building over the course of 10 years. So the obvious question, if you're not at that point, is how do you get started? And here's a couple of tangible things that you can get started doing right now that can have a significant impact on raising awareness for who you are and what you do. The first thing is to have coffee chats. Now, coffee chats are super easy to do. You reach out to someone, you say, hey, I'd love to know more about the job that you do, the company you work at or whatever the topic is. Would you be interested in joining me for 15 minutes now? Conveniently, most people are excited to talk about themselves and they're flattered. And what you can do with this is just meet random people. That's a benefit. But you can also do this at companies that you may be applying to so that by the time you apply, you can send them a message to say, hey, the conversation we had where you told me about working at X company in this job made me so excited. I applied for this role. Now that's a small connection, but it is a connection of someone that knows who you are and your excitement for the job.

The other thing is attending events, whether it's virtual or being in person, the networking opportunities, the learning opportunities, and the ability for you to just be a part of the conversation that's happening in person or virtual is astronomically important. And it's a huge reason that I continue to do events like this and events in person. Lastly, you can go through and spend time on social media as up and down as good and bad as social media can be. It is absolutely a benefit in your career. But the big takeaway is to never apply without a connection, build some sort of connection with every opportunity that you apply for. And one of the things that we haven't mentioned yet that's played a huge part of my career is content creation. And a good friend of mine, Taylor Destin says the content, that content creation is first round interviewing at scale. If you want to know that I know some JavaScript, go look at a video. If you want to know that I know how to communicate a technical topic, go look at a video. My content speaks for itself. And on Twitter, my friend Joshua Barrios said this very well as well. It's like if you were posting videos about swinging a bat in baseball or shooting threes in basketball, someone may see you and they can have validity in knowing that you can do that task.

6. Content Creation and Confidence Building

Short description:

Create content that is your own, share your journey and experiences, and engage with your audience. Build confidence by changing how you talk about yourself and practicing for presentations. Confidence is a skill that comes with preparation.

Now, several other people contributed with content answers. Content helped me secure two jobs. YouTube got me a job at Microsoft. Well optimized website and blog posts, content and community engagement. And then Vincent from App Right also said, even if you're not in DevRel, make content. It's more interesting than a resume. And I think more validating. Now, Richard said connections and building in public. Mel said a well optimized website and blog posts. I realize I have that one twice. Engagement online networking, a person and then Taylor and Sean Day iterated reiterated content and relationships. Whatever it is that you do or whatever content that you may create, make sure that it's your own. My friend Ellie has turned her coffee chats and other things into live streams. Our friend Joshua Barrios has turned his unemployment journey into a journey in public. Similarly, my friend Joe Privet decided to share his job hunting when he was doing this a few months ago. Whatever it is, find out what your take is and start sharing today. Specifically, pick a topic, pick a platform and post once a day for 30 days. You'll see dramatic increase in your ability to communicate and the awareness that people have of what you do.

Now, next up is confidence, and it may shock you to know that every time I step on stage or do a talk, I get nervous every single time. I've been doing this professionally for over 10 years, and every single time I still get nervous, but I have enough experience to know I'm going to make it through it and I'm going to really settle in and the first few seconds. So the big thing I want you to think about, though, is if you show up like this with a lot of self-doubt is if you don't believe in yourself, why should I, why would I believe in you if you don't? And things to keep an eye out for is how you talk about yourself, because how you talk about yourself changes how you perceive yourself. So you should avoid using phrases like, I just, I barely, or, oh, it was easy. It wasn't a big deal. You're already underselling yourself. So if you show up and talk about yourself in this way, I'm not going to believe in you. And I think most people will react and say, I'm not naturally confident. I'm more naturally this person. I'm not naturally confident. But the thing you need to know is that confidence is a practice skill and practice or confidence comes with preparation. So here's a couple of specific things you can do to build your confidence.

7. Building Confidence and Effective Communication

Short description:

Take notes of positive feedback to remember your accomplishments. Learn to say no confidently in interviews, admitting when you don't know something but can draw parallels. Control the conversation by discussing topics that excite you. Communication is key, know who you are and communicate effectively. Prepare a tagline and be well-versed in three projects to discuss in-depth during interviews.

One is to take notes, write it down. Anytime you get a positive piece of feedback, you get a positive message on Twitter. You get a positive piece of feedback from a manager or you create a tweet and it goes well, jot that down, put it in a folder that you can refer back to, to remember the good things that you've done. Because over time, it's really hard to keep up with those.

Another piece of advice is to learn to say no. And specifically in interviews, I think it's natural for us to worry or be scared to say, no, I don't know a certain thing. But if you have the confidence to say, no, I don't know that thing that you're asking about, but I do have this knowledge in a similar field that I can draw parallels to that tells a very strong story because the biggest mistake you can make in interviewing with me is telling me, you know, something and explain it incorrectly versus just saying, you don't know it to begin with.

The other thing that leads to confidence is the fact that you get to control the conversation. Remember you get to control what the answers are that you give, which means you get to navigate the conversation to things that you feel most comfortable with. And those things should be things that you are excited about, things that you can talk about, regardless of the situation. A lot of people comment that they don't think they could do public speaking, but then you talk to them and they love to talk about their favorite TV show or their favorite framework or something. In an interview scenario, you should be putting yourself in a situation to talk about those things that get you excited. And that's where passion, I think plays into this.

Now the last section is about communication. And I told you I would mention the interview at Microsoft where I was asked to say, where do I see myself in five years? And I talked about showing up to a barber shop and the conversations and having connections. And I realized looking back at that, that was a terrible answer for a technical job that I was applying for, but it did lead to my next job, which was technical evangelism, which was a lot about relationships. So although I gave a wrong answer for one job, I gave kind of the right answer for another. And I think the important thing is in this case is to know who you are, know what you're about, and then have a plan of how to communicate that. And I'm going to make this really easy to you. Here is a cheat sheet of things that you should be well versed in before going into an interview. One is the tagline. What is it specific about you that's different than everybody else? For me, it's that I'm a teacher. I'm a teacher at heart. So if you bring me on your team, I'm going to make your team better because I'm a teacher at heart. That's very personal to me. It inspires all the content that I do. What is your tagline? What is your why? What is your separator from everyone else? Another thing you should have is three projects that you've worked on that you can talk about in depth, in detail to answer almost any question that you get asked.

8. Preparing for Technical Interviews

Short description:

Your tagline, your why, and what sets you apart are important. Prepare three in-depth projects to discuss. Soft skills are crucial in technical interviews. Base technical knowledge is expected, but soft skills differentiate candidates. Leverage connections, show confidence, and communicate effectively for interview success.

That's very personal to me. It inspires all the content that I do. What is your tagline? What is your why? What is your separator from everyone else? Another thing you should have is three projects that you've worked on that you can talk about in depth, in detail to answer almost any question that you get asked.

Then lastly, we have three soft skills and three hard skills that you can bring to the table that you want to focus on. And remember, these are subject to change based on the role. If you're applying for a react job, react as a hard skill is very important. If you're applying for a view job, view as a hard skill is very important.

Now this may seem controversial, but it's actually something I believe in more and more than it's the belief that soft skills are even more important than hard skills. Now the reality is hard skills are a requirement for the job, but those are the things that are going to be more or less standard that other candidates are going to have as well. So I firmly believe that soft skills are the differentiator between people for technical interviews because everyone is going to have a base level of hard technical knowledge.

Interestingly, only one answer related to hard skills. When I talked about how or asked on Twitter, how people got their last job. And it was this one about being a God at programming. It's not something I would advocate for because I think that setting yourself up for failure, but only one person really referenced their technical skills and more people focused on content, communication, etc.

So as we recap, the three C's to interview success, leverage your connections because applying blindly just doesn't work anymore. Show up with confidence because if you don't believe in yourself, I won't and they won't either and focus on communicating the right things based on the job and use that cheat sheet to prepare those details leading into it. So you make sure that you focus on the right thing. And by using connections, confidence and communication, you can drastically change your level of success and tech interviews. Thank you.

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What led you to software engineering? I was raised in the ecosphere of tech because my dad is a software engineer at IBM, and my mom was a designer there, too. My dad always encouraged me to join STEM and take a look at computer science — however, I was convinced I wanted to be a medical doctor. In my first year of college, I declared a biology major and quickly realized I was not too fond of it. In my second semester, I switched to an actuarial science major where I took Introduction to Computer Science, and the rest is history. In my second year of college, I declared a computer science major and began my journey from there.
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And lastly, invest in the right resources for learning. When I started my journey, I didn't know which platforms worked for me to learn. Now, I have a few trusted platforms such as Frontend Masters, Free Code Camp, or Level Up Tutorials that I go to when I need to learn a new skill.
You're currently working as a software engineer at Spotify. What does a typical day of yours look like there?I begin my day answering emails. Then we have a team breakfast and a standup remotely as we're all still remote at Spotify. After that, we might have a web tech sync with the other squads in our business unit. The day usually includes some form of pair or mob programming, depending on the work stream. 
My team always has Fika, a traditional Swedish coffee break, scheduled every afternoon. Every couple of Fridays, we have team games planned to release some stress. 
Also, I tend to have a lot of free time to focus, which is nice but makes for a boring answer to this question!
Do you have some rituals or tools that keep you focused and goal-oriented?I'll admit that I've been struggling with staying motivated in the time of remote work. I've been remote with Spotify since onboarding a year ago, but my team is wonderful, and they help me when I'm down.
Apart from that, I use Todoist to keep track of my tasks, and, naturally, I listen to Spotify while working. But other than that, not really. Maybe I should adopt some new tools to keep me on track!
My current favorite Spotify playlist is Brand New Chill: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DX6uQnoHESB3u?si=380263b3c853442e
I also love Chillout Daily: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7ozIozDp260fjNOZy1yzRG?si=66d6c839ec9b458a
You wrote a book called De-coding the Technical Interview. What was the impulse to do it?I wanted to give the community a manual of the essentials of computer science knowledge to ace the technical interviews. The book covers data structures like stacks, queues, or linked lists, tackles algorithms, and deals with systems design. You'll also learn about the interview process from start to finish, get tips on how to submit an amazing take-home project, or understand how to problem solve. You'll also gain knowledge on the frontend coding skills needed to excel at a frontend interview.
If you could stress one piece of advice on surviving a technical interview, which would it be?Do not lie your way through an interview. If you don't know the answer to something, just admit it. There's no shame in admitting you don't know the answer to something. There is shame in faking it and pretending like you do know the answer.
What's the single best practice everyone who writes code should follow?Remember that while you are technically writing code for computers, you're also writing it for humans. Your code should be readable and have as little complexity as possible without sacrificing accessibility or performance.
In addition to the book, you co-host the Ladybug Podcast. What inspired you to enter this field, and what are the podcast's main topics?We talk about everything tech and career on the podcast, from Java and GraphQL to how to start a business and cross-cultural communication. The podcast is a way for me and my co-hosts to share our experiences in tech, having taken different paths. And I'm really glad for doing it — it has allowed me to meet so many incredible people, learn many new things, and support my dream of teaching.
What pieces of your work are you most proud of?My technical interview book was a huge feat for me as well as my courses with LinkedIn Learning on building a tech resume. I enjoy creating things that help other people advance their careers, so I'm also proud of my courses with Frontend Masters on design systems and CSS.

Workshops on related topic

React Performance Debugging Masterclass
React Summit 2023React Summit 2023
170 min
React Performance Debugging Masterclass
Top Content
Featured Workshop
Ivan Akulov
Ivan Akulov
Ivan’s first attempts at performance debugging were chaotic. He would see a slow interaction, try a random optimization, see that it didn't help, and keep trying other optimizations until he found the right one (or gave up).
Back then, Ivan didn’t know how to use performance devtools well. He would do a recording in Chrome DevTools or React Profiler, poke around it, try clicking random things, and then close it in frustration a few minutes later. Now, Ivan knows exactly where and what to look for. And in this workshop, Ivan will teach you that too.
Here’s how this is going to work. We’ll take a slow app → debug it (using tools like Chrome DevTools, React Profiler, and why-did-you-render) → pinpoint the bottleneck → and then repeat, several times more. We won’t talk about the solutions (in 90% of the cases, it’s just the ol’ regular useMemo() or memo()). But we’ll talk about everything that comes before – and learn how to analyze any React performance problem, step by step.
(Note: This workshop is best suited for engineers who are already familiar with how useMemo() and memo() work – but want to get better at using the performance tools around React. Also, we’ll be covering interaction performance, not load speed, so you won’t hear a word about Lighthouse 🤐)
Next.js 13: Data Fetching Strategies
React Day Berlin 2022React Day Berlin 2022
53 min
Next.js 13: Data Fetching Strategies
Top Content
Workshop
Alice De Mauro
Alice De Mauro
- Introduction- Prerequisites for the workshop- Fetching strategies: fundamentals- Fetching strategies – hands-on: fetch API, cache (static VS dynamic), revalidate, suspense (parallel data fetching)- Test your build and serve it on Vercel- Future: Server components VS Client components- Workshop easter egg (unrelated to the topic, calling out accessibility)- Wrapping up
React Performance Debugging
React Advanced 2023React Advanced 2023
148 min
React Performance Debugging
Workshop
Ivan Akulov
Ivan Akulov
Ivan’s first attempts at performance debugging were chaotic. He would see a slow interaction, try a random optimization, see that it didn't help, and keep trying other optimizations until he found the right one (or gave up).
Back then, Ivan didn’t know how to use performance devtools well. He would do a recording in Chrome DevTools or React Profiler, poke around it, try clicking random things, and then close it in frustration a few minutes later. Now, Ivan knows exactly where and what to look for. And in this workshop, Ivan will teach you that too.
Here’s how this is going to work. We’ll take a slow app → debug it (using tools like Chrome DevTools, React Profiler, and why-did-you-render) → pinpoint the bottleneck → and then repeat, several times more. We won’t talk about the solutions (in 90% of the cases, it’s just the ol’ regular useMemo() or memo()). But we’ll talk about everything that comes before – and learn how to analyze any React performance problem, step by step.
(Note: This workshop is best suited for engineers who are already familiar with how useMemo() and memo() work – but want to get better at using the performance tools around React. Also, we’ll be covering interaction performance, not load speed, so you won’t hear a word about Lighthouse 🤐)
Building WebApps That Light Up the Internet with QwikCity
JSNation 2023JSNation 2023
170 min
Building WebApps That Light Up the Internet with QwikCity
WorkshopFree
Miško Hevery
Miško Hevery
Building instant-on web applications at scale have been elusive. Real-world sites need tracking, analytics, and complex user interfaces and interactions. We always start with the best intentions but end up with a less-than-ideal site.
QwikCity is a new meta-framework that allows you to build large-scale applications with constant startup-up performance. We will look at how to build a QwikCity application and what makes it unique. The workshop will show you how to set up a QwikCitp project. How routing works with layout. The demo application will fetch data and present it to the user in an editable form. And finally, how one can use authentication. All of the basic parts for any large-scale applications.
Along the way, we will also look at what makes Qwik unique, and how resumability enables constant startup performance no matter the application complexity.
High-performance Next.js
React Summit 2022React Summit 2022
50 min
High-performance Next.js
Workshop
Michele Riva
Michele Riva
Next.js is a compelling framework that makes many tasks effortless by providing many out-of-the-box solutions. But as soon as our app needs to scale, it is essential to maintain high performance without compromising maintenance and server costs. In this workshop, we will see how to analyze Next.js performances, resources usage, how to scale it, and how to make the right decisions while writing the application architecture.
Maximize App Performance by Optimizing Web Fonts
Vue.js London 2023Vue.js London 2023
49 min
Maximize App Performance by Optimizing Web Fonts
WorkshopFree
Lazar Nikolov
Lazar Nikolov
You've just landed on a web page and you try to click a certain element, but just before you do, an ad loads on top of it and you end up clicking that thing instead.
That…that’s a layout shift. Everyone, developers and users alike, know that layout shifts are bad. And the later they happen, the more disruptive they are to users. In this workshop we're going to look into how web fonts cause layout shifts and explore a few strategies of loading web fonts without causing big layout shifts.
Table of Contents:What’s CLS and how it’s calculated?How fonts can cause CLS?Font loading strategies for minimizing CLSRecap and conclusion