Job: Elixir + Nerves + Security

I have a role for a swedish intermediate/senior Elixir developer.

The role is based in Sweden (no exceptions, compliance reasons). Stockholm is preferred, flexible on-site is preferred but they can be open for remote for the right candidate.

The company is a small security product company making large moves. They are taking their cloud platform from Ruby and Go to Elixir. And they are developing hardware projects with Nerves. Significant experience with Elixir is required. Ideally involving Phoenix and Ecto, kind of standard. Experience in Nerves is a big plus, experience in Ruby and Go for the purposes of the migration are beneficial but not necessary.

I have worked with the company in a consulting capacity and now help them recruit for this role. I really like working with them. They have a scrappy approach and a lively culture in a field that is often suffocatingly boring. They are happy to support the community and ecosystem.

Again, Sweden only for now.

Moisture management mastery

It happened. I wondered if it would. I am completely unconcerned about public speaking.

There is a bag of asterisks included to pour on this reflection. There are many things that could ratchet up my concern again. Stakes, would my performance have major consequences? Magnitude, how many people am I going to be speaking to? Ambitions, what do I want the presentation to be? Preparation, in proportion to my ambitions how much have I prepared, how comfortable am I with the material? Context, how safe does the crowd feel, do I feel at home or am I stepping into a mystery-crowd or perhaps even a somewhat antagonistic circumstance?

I spoke at a BEAM meetup. So Erlang and Elixir people. Meetups are a good lab for speaking and presentations. Stakes are mild. This one has a very friendly community. I feel super comfortable speaking about BEAM stuff. My prep was very low but I felt great about the plan and the material was essentially improvised based on my outline. I think it went well. People seemed to enjoy it. I mostly did the meetup to remind the Stockholm BEAM crowd about Goatmire Elixir and they seemed well aware so that was awesome.

I need to give a hand to Roberto and Erik that put it on. Everyone talks a good community game of course. But Roberto, being deep in Erlang, takes special effort to try and get Elixir speakers and get the Elixir folks to show. Erik has always, in every interaction we've had, been consistently focused on the community and ecosystem as a whole rather than in parts. I can only applaud their approach. It was also satisfying to be able to point new-comers to this meetup and be confident that they'd be welcomed with open arms.

Back to the speaking. The realization that I was never nervous is satisfying. This has been creeping up for a while. I get less and less nervous. I was a little bit stressed to get my slides in order and a bit miffed that I failed to transfer some photos of the hardware. I made it work. But that's the practical bits. If my concerns for going to a conference and speaking are only about putting together the material, preparing well enough and bringing the gear I need that is a massive improvement. I think I'll still have my mouth go dry before getting up on a larger stage. And I bet I will be nervous again when I make more complex presentations and need to cross my fingers and just hope it doesn't break on me.

It has definitely been about the reps. I've just done this a bunch of times now and the novelty of getting mic'ed up, doing tech-check, hearing the introduction, that's all familiar at this point so it doesn't build nervousness.

This is how everything works of course. You want to do system architecture or software design? Try, in the small, in the large, in any opportunity you get. Get the reps in. But the visceral, physical reaction of my body to standing in front of a crowd. The dry mouth, the sweat, the tension. That felt inherent to public speaking for me. It is wild to realize it has faded. I don't recall my mouth even drying up on me for the Code BEAM SF talk.

If you want to do the thing. Try it. Repeatedly.

What have you learned that you didn't think you'd manage? You can get to me on the Fediverse where I'm @lawik@fosstodon.org or by responding to this email to lars@underjord.io.

Thank you for reading. I appreciate you.

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