EP 01 - From Founder to Founder: The Origin of the Carolina Code Conference

Episode Summary

This week on the Carolina Code Cast, host Barry Jones chats with Joel Taddei, Senior Backend Engineer at Zapier. During the episode, Barry and Joel talk about the origin of the Carolina Code Conference. They discuss how the conference has grown from an idea in 2018 to being what it is today, the challenges and successes of organizing the conference including the selection process for speakers and finding suitable venues, memories from past conferences, how people can get involved, and more.

“I saw a need for this conference and what started as an idea turned into something that people really benefited from. I’m very proud of that.”
- Joel Taddei

Episode Notes

Highlights from this week’s conversation include:

• The founding of the Carolina Code Conference (0:04)

• Seeing the need for a conference like this (2:17)

• The challenges of organizing a free conference (10:03)

• Lessons learned from the early days of the conference (11:07)

• Securing a venue (16:25)

• How the conference has grown in popularity (19:11)

• What’s next for the conference in the future? (23:45)

• The speaker selection process (27:44)

• Networking opportunities (33:21)

• Memories from past conferences (42:32)

• Reviving the conference and building momentum (47:27)

Carolina Code Cast is a podcast that covers a wide variety of topics in the coding and data space. Learn more about this year’s Carolina Code Conference at carolina.codes.