Should New Devs Attend Tech Conferences?

The thought to this question really had me thinking today when I came across an ad for the Live!360 event in Orlando, FL. I’ve been thinking long and hard about attending one of these events ever since I took part in a few of the webinars during the pandemic. As I’ve talked more and more about the event with my friends and family, the constant question that I kept getting was: “Aren’t you still rather new into developing? Aren’t these events for established developers?” These questions had me looking online at the agenda to find out and honestly I decided to share my thoughts about the answers to these questions.

So the long and short answer to whether or not these events are for established developers is: it depends entirely on the event There are special events out there that frankly, if a new developer was to attend the event the information may go right over their head. Topic May in fact be to advanced for a fresher to grasp but it may still be worth having been exposed to those topics. But where I think the benefit comes is when you attend a generalized conference. These conferences may be dealing with a particular technology or language that you’re interested in and generally have seminars and workshops for all levels. I feel that these are the events worth attending because it offers learning opportunities from experts in the field that you may not get from your company, school, or other online resources. Take, for example, Live!360. The event focuses around the Microsoft Technologies like .NET Core, SQL, Visual Studio, Blazor, etc… So for anyone interested in those technologies, this is a great event. You would become exposed to new concepts that are just beginning to emerge and with something like .NET Core that has a new release pretty much every year, you get heads-up on what is about to come. Many of the lectures and workshops are focused on developers of all skill levels with something for everyone. I use this particular event because I’m a newer Full Stack .NET Developer, so it would make sense to attend. But there are other events for other technologies. You have but to do your research.

So is there such thing as a developer being too new for these events. Yes and no. It depends entirely on the event you want to attend and what your understanding of the technologies that are being discussed at the event. When my friends ask if they should attend as well I say that if you have a good understanding of the fundamentals and the means to attend the event (I clarify the “means” because attending some of these events can get pricey) then I would absolutely recommend going. The knowledge you’d gain, the skills you’d learn, and the connections you can achieve through the in-person networking are absolutely priceless.

I’d recommend to anyone to try to attend one of these events at least once during their career.

I’m interested in what you think. Leave your thoughts in the comments below and if you’ve been to a conference either as an established developer or a new developer, please tell me what your experience was like.