Blog

NDC Minnesota has been a favorite tech conference of Omnitech’s for some time now. In recent years, the conference (like many others) went virtual. Despite this format, NDC remained engaging, and our engineers who attended had a fun time. This year, NDC was back to an in-person event. We were excited to send four engineers (AJ, Brian, Brock, and Dakota) for another round of workshops, networking, and learning from other talented developers.

A Week of Learning

The week was a whirlwind of activity. Each morning started with a keynote from some well-known and influential speakers, including Anjuan Simmons (GitHub), Billy Hollis (Next Version Systems), Laura Bell (SafeStack), and Richard Campbell (.NET Rocks). The rest of the days were filled with workshops covering a wide range of topics: from hands-on technical training with popular frameworks to softer skills that help developers manage their time and interactions on a day-to-day basis. Of these workshops, our engineers went to a handful that were particularly interesting.

• TypeScript Power Users
• Building a scalable backend with Akka.NET
• From Zero to Hero: Effective testing in C#
• Building an event-sourced system in C#
• The Burnout Resistance Workshop
• Build your first machine learning model on AWS
• Simple by Design: Declutter Your Architecture, Code, and Test

Beyond the Sessions

Outside of the main conference, there was still a lot going on. During the day, there were lunches and breaks that allowed time for talking with other developers, asking questions of the session speakers, and simply supplying space to absorb all the new information. There was also a dinner and comedy show on two evenings that provided a break from learning and some incredibly fun entertainment.

Our engineers’ takeaways

NDC was a great learning experience allowing me to be exposed to different technologies that I don’t get to see firsthand through work. Seeing emerging technologies and collaborating with developers from around the globe was an eye-opening experience. ~AJ

This was my first time attending NDC. The quality of the speakers was top-notch. Participating in multi-day workshops gave us time to absorb some content, give it some thought, and go back to ask more questions. The conversations during meals and breaks found us visiting with maintainers for open-source tools that we use and people with hands-on experience with the topics we are learning about. I would definitely recommend this conference. ~Brian

Like Brian, this was also my first time attending NDC, but it also happened to be my first developer conference in general. Because there were so many great workshops and sessions to choose from, I had a tough time narrowing down exactly what I wanted to attend. However, I eventually settled on ones that would either bring immediate value to my existing day-to-day work or help prepare me for new projects coming down the pipe. After attending NDC, I can confidently say that both workshops I took part in filled both of those requirements and I can already see some of that new knowledge and experience being incorporated into my work. Lastly, it was also a wonderful opportunity to spend some additional time with some of my Omnitech team members, which allowed me to get to know each of them a little better! ~Brock

I had a blast at NDC. It’s such a cool experience to be surrounded by so many other developers who are passionate about learning. I can’t wait to try out all the new things I discovered. ~Dakota

Until Next Time

We love NDC. It’s a great conference with an atmosphere focused on learning and development. If you’re interested in watching the keynote sessions from NDC, they can be found on NDC’s YouTube channel. If you’re interested in attending NDC Minnesota 2023, we highly recommend it. Maybe we’ll see you there!