Hack Your Career: WeRise
Tags: technology, careers, resumewriting, publicspeaking
Published: 2018-07-20 16:12:04

---
title: Hack Your Career: WeRise
published: true
tags: technology,careers,resume-writing,public-speaking
canonical_url: https://blog.jeremylikness.com/hack-your-career-werise-7595277c6bb9
---

#### A guide for professional developers from a dude with decades of experience getting paid for code.

In December of 2017 I received an invitation to return to speak at the [WeRise Technology Conference](https://werise.tech/), hosted by [Women who Code in Atlanta](https://www.womenwhocode.com/atl). I was extremely excited and pleased because I had a very positive experience [last year](https://github.com/JeremyLikness/docker-we-rise). I wanted to do a different style talk for this conference and decided instead of focusing on a technology, I would instead share some career advice based on my professional developer experience.

![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1024/1*goU65-ncH-F_GnxYoHIHaw.png)

I am thankful the WeRise organizers were willing to invest in recording and publishing the presentations. You can view my presentation here:

> [Watch the full video of the presentation here](https://www.recallact.com/presentation/hack-your-career-tips-and-tricks-20-year-veteran)

I’ve been coding professionally since 1994, have served in both individual contributor and manager roles. During that time I personally reviewed thousands of resumes and hired dozens of developers.

> Learning how to Hack Our Careers at [@jeremylikness](http://twitter.com/jeremylikness "Twitter profile for @jeremylikness") 's presentation. #werisetech #wwcodeatl #pride2018
> 
>  — [@WeRiseConf](https://twitter.com/WeRiseConf/status/1010246975936237568)


I have a much easier time now dealing with [impostor syndrome](https://www.hanselman.com/blog/ImAPhonyAreYou.aspx) before talks than I did earlier in my career because I’ve learned to focus more on the audience and what I can share than making it about me. My career talk was different from my typical sessions because it was a soft skills presentation and I wasn’t sure how it would be received. I was also very sensitive to the fact that the event is focused on women in technology, so it was important to me this message wasn’t received as a lecture or soap box but sincere sharing with a desire to help and drive dialog around topics people may disagree with or have different views based on their personal experiences.

Here is the full deck from my talk:

> [Hack Your Career: Tips and Tricks from a 20-Year Veteran](https://jlikme.blob.core.windows.net/presentations/HackYourCareer.pdf)

All of the images in the deck are pictures of me or that I have personally taken. It’s one of the rare opportunities to see me with hair. As I experienced the year before, the audience was warm and welcoming and reacted to the talk almost instantly.

> Jeremy starting off the 3:45pm talk @ #WeRiseTech with laughter! You got us hanging on your every word! I think you have done this before, Jeremy?!? [@jeremylikness](http://twitter.com/jeremylikness "Twitter profile for @jeremylikness") #Pride2018 #WomenInTech
> 
>  — [@iTYLLIC](https://twitter.com/iTYLLIC/status/1010251049154818049)

I received some great feedback …

> [@jeremylikness](http://twitter.com/jeremylikness "Twitter profile for @jeremylikness") rocked as speaker at [@WeRiseConf](http://twitter.com/WeRiseConf "Twitter profile for @WeRiseConf") ! Totally awesome !!! #werisetech
> 
>  — [@paularbuchanan](https://twitter.com/paularbuchanan/status/1010263780310298626)

…although Paula may be biased because of the shirt I picked to wear.

> ⁦[@jeremylikness](http://twitter.com/jeremylikness "Twitter profile for @jeremylikness")⁩ has the coolest t-shirt ever! #WeRiseTech #LetsTalkData
> 
>  — [@paularbuchanan](https://twitter.com/paularbuchanan/status/1010148954045116416)

My first “real” programming was using [6502 assembly](https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/6502_Assembly) on a [Commodore 64](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64), and I’ll never forget the language or the fun I had creating code on a 64 kilobyte machine. I still think the most fun I had as a developer was when [Silverlight](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Silverlight)was released. Although Silverlight is now, too, a platform for the history books, I won’t forget the exciting challenges I faced learning the platform inside and out to provide cutting edge line of business solutions. It should be no surprise I find a way to work it into every talk.

> Wise career advice from [@jeremylikness](http://twitter.com/jeremylikness "Twitter profile for @jeremylikness") #WeRiseTech #Pride2018
> 
>  — [@dangconniedang](https://twitter.com/dangconniedang/status/1010295073525895168)

This was a nice tweet posted the day after the talk. In addition to her kind words, the screenshot summarizes my career hacking tips quite well.

> Day 2: Enjoyed [@jeremylikness](http://twitter.com/jeremylikness "Twitter profile for @jeremylikness") talk as always, you always are on point! Awesomeness! I'll miss you &amp; best wishes in Seattle at Microsoft...so excited for you!!! #weriseconf #developerlife
> 
>  — [@tmott13](https://twitter.com/tmott13/status/1010354333404327936)

I admit it may seem awkward for a speaker to post a lot of “self-praising” tweets. This is really my equivalent of a “win wall.” If I’m ever insecure going into a talk, I remind myself first why I do it, and second what the feedback from other talks has been. I had no idea how this talk would be received, so the positive support and feedback is great inspiration for future talks.

> [@paularbuchanan](http://twitter.com/paularbuchanan "Twitter profile for @paularbuchanan") [@jeremylikness](http://twitter.com/jeremylikness "Twitter profile for @jeremylikness") [@WeRiseConf](http://twitter.com/WeRiseConf "Twitter profile for @WeRiseConf") [@jeremylikness](http://twitter.com/jeremylikness "Twitter profile for @jeremylikness") is very inspiring and has awesome career advice
> 
>  — [@TShinaprayoon](https://twitter.com/TShinaprayoon/status/1010362065297530880)

Overall it was an incredible experience and I highly recommend this conference to anyone who is able to travel to the Atlanta area.

Regards,

![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/197/1*KwXn3ElS7vnWIk8lNVhBsA.gif)

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