As we are in full swing of conference season, how many conferences does your company let you attend/speak at? Does your company offer support when speaking at conferences?
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Top comments (8)
0 on company time for me sadly. Nature of the job though...
I would say attending more than 4 a year is pushing your luck with most employers as Im not sure how much benefit any more would provide.
As for talking, you are representing the company, so 🤷♀️
I usually attend 2-4 Conferences per year. Most of them are in my Country, though. Just once been to Amsterdam for Front-End-Love-Conf. Thankfully, employer pays for everything. We get 5-10 Days we can spend for learning purposes, be it conferences, workshops, seminars etc.
We don't have a set cutoff but unless representing your employer at conferences is part of your job description, there's definitely a limit to how many you can attend without cutting into what you're actually getting paid to do. Much more so if you're speaking -- preparing is a ton of work!
Last year got a little complicated: I had an abstract accepted at two conferences, changed jobs, and then had to take time off to go give my talk. My new employer did sponsor me for one of them, which was nice. This year I'm just attending a couple on the company dime.
I'm glad you still got sponsorship on a talk! Thanks for sharing your experience. I really understand now after doing 2 conference talks, it is a lot of time and effort that is put into them.
@molly_struve , @amcaplan , @laurieontech , @vaidehijoshi all of you are dev's that seem pretty active with conferences, what are your thoughts on the amount of conferences to attend/speak at?
It’s a personal and professional decision. Know what you and/or your company hopes to get out of your speaking or attending. Start off slow and add more if you feel comfortable, it’s easy to get overwhelmed.
I would agree with all of this! It's really up to the individual. My advice, go to conferences you are going to gain something from. Whether you are attending or speaking, make sure your are going to benefit from it in some way otherwise you will run yourself down and spend a lot of time and possibly money for no reason.
When it comes to speaking, it can be easy when you are doing CFPs to think you can handle a bunch and stack them up bc you have so much time to do everything. Well let me tell you, when all those conferences are suddenly right around the corner it can easily overwhelm you like Laurie mentioned. If you are applying to speak, especially giving new talks, do it slowly and pace yourself.
I bet @bethanyhaubert would have some good thoughts on this after her whirlwind world tour last year.