I have been applying to CFPs (Call For Papers) for tech conferences off and on for the last 5 years unsuccessfully. Honestly I had all but given up and just settled for the media passes and going to cover conferences instead (whilst I cried inside). However that is no longer the case! I have been invited to speak at APIDays at San Francisco July 16th – 17th.
What Will I Speak About?
My talk is titled “Building Scalable APIs From The Beginning” and will be focused on the algorithmic and architechtural best practices needed to build enterprise level APIs from scratch instead of refactoring and redoing design down the line when experiencing rapid or hypergrowth.
What Is APIDays?
APIDays is the world’s leading API conference series. 15,000 attendees, 40 events, 1,350 speakers, 11 countries is what they advertise on their website. I also was invited to contribute to their API influencer program APIScene, where I will be providing blog content about API best practices.
How Did You Land It?
Well I kind of owe a lot of it to my best friend Tae’lur Alexis because she introduced me to the website CFPLand. She kept getting picked for conferences and I was like “Yo where are finding all these CFPs?”. You have to love Twitter I swear. Anywho I went on there and APIDays was the first one I applied for, I didn’t hear anything back so I assumed I wasn’t going to get picked then a couple weeks ago I got my offer email. My advice to those looking to speak at tech conferences is to use resources such as CFPLand and just submit until your wrists hurt. Make sure you pick conferences where your talk will provide value to the demographic that will be attending and speak only on things you know. I will upload my talk to my YouTube channel after I present and if you are in the Bay Area and want to meet up while I am in town July 14th – July 18th email me at jyrone.parker@gmail.com to link up with me or DM me on Twitter.