February 15th 2017

Timings

  • 18:30 – Turn up, have a drink, a snack, and a chat.
  • 19:00 – “What Makes a Senior Developer?” - Ashley Broadley
  • 19:25 – Mid session interval
  • 19:30 – “Behaviour Driven Development & Behat: Telling stories through code” - Matt Brunt
  • 20:30 – Pop over the road to Headrow House pub

Please RSVP on so we get an idea of numbers, and please, tell your friends!

February’s event is at Futurelabs.

There will be some bottles of beer, coffee, soft drinks, and pizza provided. This is our second month at Futurelabs in an attempt to open the event up to a wider audience who may not be comfortable meeting in a pub; So, please, if you know anyone who might be interested in attending who previously didn’t want to, let them know. We want to be accessible for all.

The Talks

Behaviour Driven Development & Behat: Telling stories through code - Matt Brunt

Stories? Scenarios? BDD? Are these just more words in the ever-growing list of jargon that developers have to know? Or are they something more important than new terms to memorise?

In this session we’ll look at how BDD fits into the software development work-flow, how to tell user stories through features, and how to automate them in Behat.

These techniques will help to ensure you’re writing well designed and tested software that focuses on what the users want from a system.

Matt is Senior Software Engineer at Viva IT Limited. Mentoring a team and fostering a culture of sharing, learning, openness and quality. Player of tabletop and RPG games, Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master. Flier of fast first-person-view quadcopters. Lover of jaffa cakes.

Matt Brunt on Twitter: @brunty

What Makes a Senior Developer? - Ashley Broadley

We’re going to have an open discussion, hosted by Ashley Broadley who will bring his experiences to the table, to talk about what qualities and skills you need to gain the title of “Senior”. How does this vary between companies and environments? What are some tangible things you can do to become one? Have a think, bring your experiences and ideas and we’ll see what we get.

Ash is a Principle Engineer at Sky Betting & Gaming, and on twitter @ls12styler

Competition!

Sign up to this event on Meetup and turn up on the night, we’ll pull your name out of a hat (it may be an electronic hat). What can you win? Some good old fashioned programming books provided by our sponsors. Not very competitive, admittedly, but you stand a good chance of winning!

Sponsors

Our sponsors make this monthly event possible, so please take the time to check them out, and thank them for their support.

  • Futurelabs – Are a not-for-profit formed to help provide a focal point for tech start-up and scale-up businesses in and around Leeds. Futurelabs offer hot desking, fixed desk space or larger office spaces for tech businesses at very reasonable prices.
  • Inviqa – With offices in Leeds and across the UK and Europe Inviqa helps pioneering brands and organisations to engage, convert and retain their customers through digital innovation. If you’re looking for a developer role have a look at their careers page.
  • Sky Betting & Gaming – A tech company born out of Sky, and are aiming to be the UK’s best digital business. 1000+ colleagues, developing some of the country’s biggest brands in online betting and gaming. Their careers page provides great detail as to the working environment and range of work available across the technology stack.
  • Quidco/Maple Syrup Media – Maple Syrup Media built its reputation as cashback pioneers with Quidco. They’ve since consolidated their credentials in the UK with grocery and travel specific ventures, CheckoutSmart and EarnAway. Their teams are based in London, Sheffield, Berlin, Paris and Durban – check out their careers page

Please RSVP on so we get an idea of numbers, and please, tell your friends!