Developers who move fast still need to do it together
At MS Build, Ryan is joined by Cassidy Williams, Senior Director of Developer Advocacy at GitHub and former Stack Overflow Podcast host, to discuss how agentic coding is shifting dev work towards higher-level strategy while increasing decision fatigue; why human taste, community feedback, and mentorship are becoming more essential than ever for developer careers; and the new GitHub Copilot announcements coming out of Microsoft, including the new GitHub Copilot app.
Episode notes:
This episode was recorded at Microsoft Build. You can learn more about what they announced at the show and what’s new at GitHub here.
Listen to our other episodes recorded at Build on agentic workflows and responsible AI.
Connect with Cassidy on LinkedIn and X.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
851: The Future of VS Code and Copilot
Wes and Scott talk with Cassidy Williams and Harald Kirschner about exciting new features in VS Code and GitHub Copilot, including custom instructions, UI/UX improvements, and the future of AI and Copilot within different editors.
Show Notes 00:00 Welcome to Syntax!
00:32 Cassidy’s keynote at GitHub Universe
03:23 New Copilot features
04:55 Use cases for prompt engineering
09:20 UI and UX enhancements
19:18 Copilot Extensions
20:38 Brought to you by Sentry.io
21:26 Multi-line suggestions?
27:00 How do you develop new ideas in this space? GitHub Next
35:42 Copilot in Xcode GitHub Copilot code completion in Xcode is now available in public preview
39:16 VS Code experimental features @code
Hit us up on Socials! Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads
Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads
Scott: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads
Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads
Replay - Memes, Streams & Software with Cassidy Williams
On this Screaming in the Cloud replay, we’re looking back to our conversation with Cassidy Williams, a Senior Director of Developer Advocacy at GitHub and the co-founder and chief product officer of Cosynd, Inc. Prior to these positions, she worked as the principal developer experience engineer at Netlify, an instructor and senior engineer at React Training, director of outreach at cKeys, a senior software engineer at CodePen, head of developer voice programs at Amazon, and a software engineer at Venmo, among other positions. Join Corey and Cassidy as they reflect on what Netlify is and what a developer experience engineer does, how JavaScript started off as a toy language and why everything that can be built with JavaScript will be moving forward, the benefits of using low-code development tools, how discovering TikTok helped Cassidy drum up a major following on social media, how Cassidy's humor is never directed at people or organizations and why that's the case, the differences between recording a podcast and live streaming on Twitch from the speaker's point of view, and more.
Show Highlights
(0:00) Intro
(0:22) Backblaze sponsor read
(0:49) What is Netlify and its role of a principal developer experience engineer
(2:50) Is JavaScript the future?
(7:46) Using low-code tools for web development
(12:12) Having a goofy internet presence in a serious field
(17:23) Social platforms as a means to teach
(24:50) Twitch streaming and its inherent challenges
(28:16) Cassidy’s online coursework and how she answers, “So, what do you do?”
(32:12) Unique ways of tracking Twitter followers
(37:15) Where you can find more from Cassidy
About Cassidy Williams
Cassidy is a Senior Director of Developer Advocacy at GitHub. She's worked for several other places, including Netlify, CodePen, Amazon, and Venmo, and she's had the honor of working with various non-profits, including cKeys and Hacker Fund as their Director of Outreach. She's active in the developer community, and was one of Glamour Magazine's 35 Women Under 35 Changing the Tech Industry and LinkedIn's Top Professionals 35 & Under. As an avid speaker, Cassidy has participated in several events including the Grace Hopper Celebration for Women in Computing, TEDx, the United Nations, and dozens of other technical events. She wants to inspire generations of STEM students to be the best they can be, and her favorite quote is from Helen Keller: "One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar." She loves mechanical keyboards and karaoke.
Links
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@cassidoo
Newsletter: https://cassidoo.co/newsletter/
Scrimba: https://scrimba.com/teachers/cassidoo
Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/user/cassidywilliams/
Skillshare: https://www.skillshare.com/user/cassidoo
O’Reilly: https://www.oreilly.com/pub/au/6339
Personal website: https://cassidoo.co
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cassidoo
GitHub: https://github.com/cassidoo
CodePen: https://codepen.io/cassidoo/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cassidoo
Original Episode
https://www.lastweekinaws.com/podcast/screaming-in-the-cloud/memes-streams-software-with-cassidy-williams/
Sponsor
Backblaze: https://www.backblaze.com/
Become a better coder...with this one weird click
Go get your copy of They Key here.
Our frequent collaborator, Cassidy Williams of Netlify, helped design the key and joined this episode to share her love for all things mechanical keyboard.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Memes, Streams & Software with Cassidy Williams
About Cassidy
Cassidy is a Principal Developer Experience Engineer at Netlify. She's worked for several other places, including CodePen, Amazon, and Venmo, and she's had the honor of working with various non-profits, including cKeys and Hacker Fund as their Director of Outreach. She's active in the developer community, and one of Glamour Magazine's 35 Women Under 35 Changing the Tech Industry and LinkedIn's Top Professionals 35 & Under. As an avid speaker, Cassidy has participated in several events including the Grace Hopper Celebration for Women in Computing, TEDx, the United Nations, and dozens of other technical events. She wants to inspire generations of STEM students to be the best they can be, and her favorite quote is from Helen Keller: "One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar." She loves mechanical keyboards and karaoke.
Links:
Netlify: https://www.netlify.com/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@cassidoo
Newsletter: https://cassidoo.co/newsletter/
Scrimba: https://scrimba.com/teachers/cassidoo
Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/user/cassidywilliams/
Skillshare: https://www.skillshare.com/user/cassidoo
O’Reilly: https://www.oreilly.com/pub/au/6339
Personal website: https://cassidoo.co
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cassidoo
GitHub: https://github.com/cassidoo
CodePen: https://codepen.io/cassidoo/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cassidoo
S16:E3 - How to create content and build communities ( Cassidy Williams)
In this episode, we talk about content creation and building communities with Cassidy Williams, principal developer and experience engineer at Netlify. Cassidy talks about her strategy for doing internships, the intersection of content and community, and where she draws inspiration from.
Show Links
Partner with Dev & CodeNewbie! (sponsor)
Cassidy Williams
rendezvous with cassidoo
Cassidy Williams Twitch
Netlify
I love being a woman on the internet
freeCodeCamp
.NET
Hackathon
Black Girls Code
Women Innovate Mobile
Mums who Code
CodePen
React
React Training
Bruno Mars
Hackathon Hackers
Ladies Storm Hackathons
Cassidy Williams
Cassidy likes making memes, dreams, and software. But actually though, she's a Principal Developer Experience Engineer at Netlify, and makes developer-friendly content across the internet to help people learn and laugh.
It Ain't Real Till You Break Prod
Cassidy helps to write The Overflow newsletter and is two months into a new gig as a Principal Developer Experience Engineer at Netlify. That's where she broke Prod, but it turned out ok.
We chat about Hey what it means for software engineers when prominent coders are arguing with big mobile platforms about the fees that the owners of the OS collect. What's old is new again.
Bot armies are farming gold in World of Warcraft, which takes us down a wandering path of wondering how often people have access to powerful computers, but limited access to money they can spend on essentials.
Last but not least, we try to dissect a great question from our Software Engineering Stack Exchange: ways to explain code when told it doesn't make sense.
Shout out to our lifeboat badge winner of the week, "wizard", who answered the following question: is there an equivalent method to C's scanf in Java.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Do You Believe in Life After Keyboards?
Tilde Club: It’s your chance to LARP as a 70s sys admin!
What you do on your computer is your business. Don’t be tricked by scammers.
Paul makes the mistake of sharing his Anxiety Box on This American Life
Sara’s favorite Kanye tweet is available, beautifully framed, for only $75.
cKeys is an amazing Seattle non-profit that teaches folks how to make their own keyboards!
When we recorded this episode Cassidy worked at CodePen, but not she works at React Training, so check them out.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
The future of programming and defining success as a software engineer
On this episode Abadesi talks to Cassidy Williams. Cassidy is a great follow on social media and is a software engineer at CodePen. Prior to CodePen, she worked for Venmo, Amazon, Clarify and others. She is a true maker and a huge mechanical keyboard nerd (which you hear a bit about on the show).
In this episode they discuss...
How she got to where she is today, including lessons learned from working at big and small companies
“It gets more political the more you go up the career ladder. At CodePen, we only have eight people, so you can’t really be promoted, and past Cassidy’s mind might be blown that she can’t be promoted and she’s okay with that.”
Cassidy talks her personal career trajectory and how she learned “the hard way” that big money at big companies isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. She talks a bit about working at Amazon and why it didn’t work out for her and explains why it’s just as valuable to know what you don’t want to do as knowing what you do want to do. She also talks about some of the differences between working at a big company and a small company.
Her personal definition of success as a software engineer
“My definition of success is having the flexibility to build whatever I want. Right now I’m building for CodePen but because my job is so flexible I’m able to build things outside of work. Someday I would love to be able to not have to work and build things for fun, whether for money or not. I love building things in general, whether it be keyboards, code, or Legos.”
Cassidy says that she used to be obsessed with “climbing the career ladder” and explains why that’s no longer the case for her. She says that she would go into jobs with the intention of collecting titles and experience in order to make a case for a promotion. She’s realized now though that being at the top is less important to her than the freedom to be able to create and do the things she loves.
The future of programming
“When I first started using React, it seemed magical, but over time it has changed to be a lot more granular and less magical. That is a very interesting metaphor for a lot of things that are happening in the tech industry.“
She talks through some of the trends in software engineering, including how programming for the web has changed over the past few years. She explains how and why languages and the way that programmers use them have evolved over time.
“People want to be more granular with their coding and engineering practices. A lot of people want to get to the core of adding more low-level and theoretical computer science practices to web development.”
Why she loves mechanical keyboards so much
“It’s so fun to be able to build something that is both pretty and functional. Typing on them is actually really fun. Typing on a mechanical keyboard feels like actually accomplishing something. When you feel that tactical feedback, it’s great.“
While doing the interview, Cassidy mentions that she had nine different mechanical keyboards sitting next to her. She waxes poetic on the virtues of using and building mechanical keyboards, including a breakdown of some of her favorite builds. She also talks about some of her other favorite non-keyboard products as well.
We’ll be back next week so be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Breaker, Overcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Big thanks to Copper for their support. 😸
Companies and Products Mentioned In This Episode
Bear — A beautiful, flexible, writing app for notes and prose.
Sennheiser HD 6xx— Cassidy’s favorite headphones.