Invest in your tech career with a full day of learning & networking. Held at the weekend so you don't have to ask for time off work.
Hear from Wellington's finest new talent and some of New Zealand's best technical speakers. Check out our programmes from 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2023.
Something for everyone, with presentations on the latest hot technologies, developing your career, and everything in-between.
Our tickets are free. Yes, free.
That's right, no charge.
We want everyone to be able to come.
A free one day Tech Conference organised by a team of volunteers for the benefit of the Wellington Tech community.
We'll have speakers across multiple subject tracks; you can leave your laptop at home.
As we've done every year,
we're breaking Code Camp into different subject tracks
to help delegates find the most interesting sessions.
For 2024 we've chosen these tracks.
Show us the code! Tell us why you think it's important, and what we need to know.
What does it take to build a rewarding career in tech, and how do we contribute to teams that succeed?
What's the latest hot technology that we need to be paying attention to?
If it's tech you think is cool (or fascinating or surprising) then we probably will too.
Careers & Teams
Careers & Teams
Hot & New
Cool & Fun
Security reviews are great, but sometimes you can be left feeling that ‘your code is bad and you should feel bad’. That's not the case though - pragmatism and collaboration is the path forward. In the end, both developers and security folk are after the same goals - secure, robust software.
Peter started PrivSec Consulting to bring high quality assurance and penetration testing to the NZ market back in 2021. He has previously worked for the Ministry of Justice as their Security Assurance Manager, and has worked for a range of NZ organisations, uplifting their security posture. He belives firmly in making security accessible and understandable, and lowering the barriers to having a good security posture.
This talk is a crash course in the OWASP Top Ten for developers (and why you should care), including a heap of real world examples and exploitation techniques for common software security vulnerabilities.
I'm a former software developer who has somehow ended up hacking things for a living. While breaking things is infinitely more fun (to me) than building things, the building is important. Cybersecurity commonly can feel diametrically opposed to sofware development; I'm here to show you that pragmatic security consultants exist who prioritise colloboration over confrontation.
People in tech often find it challenging to express themselves in public. I’ll share my personal story of overcoming fears and insecurities in public speaking, working strategies to develop the skills and confidence needed, as well as some insights I learned from experts and international speakers.
I am passionate about frontend. I am currently a frontend developer working with ReactJS at Timely Business Management Software. I have a growth mindset and a habit of constantly practising new technologies and applying gained skills.
We explore the spotty relationship between signals intelligence and communications privacy through a (very) condensed history of one of the NSA's most resounding failures: the Clipper chip.
Vera Connell is a (struggling) renaissance woman, equal parts technology enthusiast and neo-luddite. Raised in grey, windy Wellington, she walks the earth raining on parades and being generally skeptical. But in a fun way! :3
You're running late for the train again! Getting to the station out of breath, you see the train is still 5 mins away!! If only there was some way to get push notifications in real time indicating how far away the train is... Trying to learn a new technology can be intimidating and frustrating at times. How do you know what to Google when you don't even know what the question is you're trying to ask? Join this session to see someone with zero experience in app development talk about their journey in making their first Wear OS app!
Daniel is a Security Developer at PartsTrader Markets Limited, with a focus on application security, governance and risk compliance and upskilling people in all things security. He has a deep passion for learning, problem solving and will never turn down a good challenge. In Daniel's spare time you can catch him in the exam room trying to collect another AWS cert, on the hockey turf gasping for breath or trying to keep up his daily streak on Duolingo!
In this talk, I'll share my transformative journey from a secure role in a leading tech company to the challenges and triumphs as the CTO of an all-female-led early-stage startup. This narrative will explore the lessons learned in adapting to a lean, fast-paced environment, overcoming gender biases in tech, and the importance of building a culture of resilience and innovation. Attendees will gain insights into the unique trials and tribulations faced by tech leaders and the invaluable experiences that shape our approach to technology, leadership, and entrepreneurship.
As the current CTO of a pioneering, all-female-led tech startup, I bring a wealth of experience from my previous tenure of almost 8 years at a major tech corporation, where I honed my skills in innovation and leadership. I'm a mum, tech-nerd, and engineer passionate about fostering diversity and driving change in the tech industry. I'm here to be the next disrupter, and take our little start up to global success.
AI-powered coding assistants are software programs that use AI to help developers write code more efficiently. In this talk, you will learn about the state of the art code generators, their benefits and limitations. You will see demos of AWS CodeWhisperer, Github CoPilot, and others using a variety of IDEs. As the field of AI continues to evolve, so too will the capabilities of these assistants, making them an increasingly valuable asset for developers of all skill levels. At the end of the session, you will be equipped to hit the ground running with AI-powered coding assistants to level up your coding significantly.
Seb is the Head of Cloud Technology Solutions in the Cloud CTO Office at Amdocs. Seb started coding when he was 10 years old and has been hooked ever since. The last 10 years of his career have been dedicated to engineering enterprise solutions on AWS and Azure, most recently working as Principal Solution Architect at AWS. After 20+ years as a career technologist and 30+ years of coding experience, he strives to share his knowledge and experience with the community as a key leader and contributor to the AWS User Groups across Aotearoa. Seb regularly holds presentations on technology problems at conferences and meetups.
Join us on a transformative journey from monolith to modern frontend development paradigms. In this in-depth session, we'll dive into Microfrontend Architecture, uncover the potential of Module Federation, ensure robustness with End-to-End Type Safety using tRPC, and streamline workflows using Nx and Monorepos. Discover how these advanced techniques empower developers to build scalable, modular, and resilient applications. Don't miss out on this opportunity to level up your frontend skills and stay ahead in today's dynamic development landscape.
Malin has been working as a Software Engineer for over 12 years at a bunch of the largest websites in New Zealand. He loves optimizing things, from application code to how that code gets delivered to users.
Charlotte is a Software Engineer at PartsTrader Markets Limited. She got into software with the intention of building software for race cars, however now she now channels her expertise into building accessible user interfaces for any challenging project thrown at her.
The Rust language is increasingly popular for the way it balances safety, performance, and expressiveness. The way it gets there, though, can be challenging for developers familiar with better-known languages such as C, C#/Java, or Go: hence Rust's reputation for having less of a learning curve than a learning cliff. In this talk, we'll run full tilt at that cliff, and see how high we get. I'm going to focus not on teaching you "this is what comments look like," but on giving you a basis for *thinking* in Rust: major features that are different from the way other languages do things, idioms, false friends, and key packages and tools.
Ivan has been knocking around the software scene since the days of Turbo Basic, and has lately found himself focusing on cloud native tools as part of Microsoft's Deis Labs group. He is now back in the startup world, helping to found Fermyon and using Rust and WebAssembly to build the next wave of cloud computing.
From the fast-paced hustle of a startup to the structured processes of an established bank, adapting your leadership approach is crucial. What works well in one environment may not in another. In this talk, I'll share my journey navigating these contrasting environments and the pivotal experiences that shaped my technical leadership style. Prepare to dive deep into tailoring Staff Engineering roles to your company's DNA - exploring pragmatic strategies for reading the organisational heartbeat and crafting a resonant approach. Whether you’re an aspiring leader or a seasoned veteran craving fresh perspectives, this talk will provide insights and practical advice to amplify your impact as a technical leader.
Annie is a lifelong computer enthusiast and self-professed nerd, with a particular interest in software development. As a backend software engineer, she's designed and built systems for a variety of industries across four countries. Nowadays, she leads technology teams and champions a culture of curiosity, learning and excellence in engineering.
A platform is a self-service internal product fit for purpose to an organisation to accelerate releases that get quality features, fixes, and security patches into production reliably. It’s a composition reliant on an evolving mix of culture, product management, support, security, and technology to be successful. Everything that dev, sec, ops, and test do on the platform is in service of getting releases out to end users and getting feedback. The value is increased efficiency, reduced risk, and accelerated innovation. This presentation dives into a vision of the principles necessary to successfully build a Cloud Native platform.
My focus is helping organisations establish or mature a modern engineering capability. With a decade of software development, a decade of systems operations, and years of platform engineering, I bring a wholistic perspective in my approach to engineering.
The transition from Senior Developer to Lead Software Engineer is a challenging but rewarding journey that can often feel like a career change rather than a promotion. In this talk, I'll share advice and encouragement for emerging and growing technical leaders, while discussing some of the lessons I have learned leading the team responsible for re-architecting customer engagement and communications at Trade Me.
I'm a Lead Software Engineer with over ten years of experience working in and leading agile teams developing large-scale commercial applications at organisations from the BBC and Sky in the UK to Trade Me in NZ. My professional interests include domain driven design, SRE, servant leadership, building healthy team culture, and ethical A.I. experimentation and adoption. Outside work I'm passionate about Kendo, Japanese Fencing, and you're likely to find me either training at a nearby dojo or travelling with friends to attend tournaments and seminars.
How do you build applications that resist or recover from disruptions? When building critical systems, certain design choices offer higher availability and continuity of operations during faults in the system. In this talk, learn about patterns for designing resilient systems.
I'm a builder and love working with large systems. As an AWS architect and resiliency specialist, I work with enterprise financial services organisations to design highly secure and reliable solutions in cloud.
Going from front-end developer to web accessibility company founder was not the path that I had planned on taking; I didn’t even know that path existed! Discover how unexpected turns, calculated risks, and leveraging skills from diverse backgrounds led me to finding a career passion and making a positive impact in the ever-evolving landscape of technology. I'll also give you some tips on how to bring accessibility into your dev work.
Maia is a certified Web Accessibility Specialist and the founder of Aleph Accessibility. With over a decade of public speaking experience, including conferences like nz.js(con) and UXNZ, she thrives in that middle space between technical expertise and practicality, speaking on topics that ground complex concepts into a real-world context.
This paper laid the groundwork for the theory of computation and established the limits of what can be computed. It introduced the world to the Turing machine.
I've presented at the Code Camp before. I'm a Microsoft MVP interested in the history of computing.
Dive into the world of technical blogging with me and discover how a simple act of sharing your knowledge can improve your understanding of technology, connect you with a global community, and unlock doors to career opportunities you never imagined. Through my own journey from a curious coder to a member of the core SwiftUI team at Apple and beyond, I'll unveil the power of blogging in not just demystifying complex tech concepts but also in building a personal brand that stands out in the tech industry. Join me to explore how your insights and experiences, when shared, can become your most valuable assets in navigating and shaping your path in the tech landscape.
Throughout my career, I've navigated both web and mobile landscapes, developing a special passion for iOS along the way. My journey includes a pivotal role at Apple, where I contributed to the SwiftUI framework, deepening my expertise and love for iOS development. Currently, I'm a senior iOS developer at Trade Me, where I apply this passion daily. Beyond my role, I lead Nil Coalescing, a small software development company, and run a blog that, over the past four years, has become well-known among iOS developers worldwide. My insights and experiences have also led me to speak at conferences and on podcasts, sharing knowledge and connecting with the community.
I'll talk about: the origins and history of the PostgreSQL project; how it fits into the space of databases; how it fits into the space of open source projects; key architectural features, strengths and weakness; selected special topics found in different parts of an RDBMS; and how I got involved, from long time user to scratching-an-itch stage through to full time work on architectural features (this part might will include some code on screen).
I have been working with and on PostgreSQL for many years.
In this session, we'll explore how to enhance your applications with the power of AI and Semantic Kernel, which is an open-source SDK that let you easily build AI agents with LLMs, unlocking new levels of functionality and user engagement.
Xiaodi is a Microsoft MVP/MCT, the co-organiser of Wellington .NET User Group. He is passionate about .NET, Azure, DevOps, cloud-native, etc. He often writes blogs and makes talks to share his knowledge with the community.
Commodore 64s are cool - but what if there were a way to dynamically upload new code to them, live, to run a VJ performance? With VesselASID (part of my music PhD) you can!
I'm an R&D engineer from SDN to SDR, national security to machine learning, and bitslice CPUs to supercomputers.
When most people get into the field of technology, they do so to solve difficult problems or to at least write code. What many people overlook is that they're actively choosing to work in a very social field. This talk will give you some models to help you understand why you and your teammates show up the way you do.
I've been in software for almost 20 years, and I've gone from "headphones on, leave me alone" to leading teams and facilitation. Since 2020 I've been studying Developmental Coaching and bringing those skills into Engineering teams.
The highs, lows, and just plain weird bits of being a trans woman in the tech industry. Tech can be a challenging space to navigate for trans women. Life can be pretty challenging for Trans people in general. But in the tech space there's actually a lot we can do to help.
I am a Trans woman working in the quality engineering space for nearly a decade as a full stack engineer. I have been involved in activist work advocating for improvements to trans healthcare, and civil rights. I will be speaking from personal experience.
Video game difficulty is a bit like web accessibility. Elden Ring lets players customise difficulty using choice, freedom, and flexibility. We'll borrow some of its tricks to help us make our sites and apps more easy to use for everyone, including disabled people.
Steve is a human-centred front-end developer. He works as a Digital Accessibility Specialist at the Ministry of Social Development. He helps product, design, and development colleagues make things more accessible for more people. He's also a keen Switch and PS5 gamer, especially big, open-world games.
AI is developing at an exhilarating yet alarming rate. As we eagerly and worriedly await to witness its unfolding impact, let's look at this problem from a fun perspective, the evolutionary perspective. If you want something that make you laugh and think, don't miss out on this talk.
I'm a developer with a Marketing degree. I made my way into the tech industry largely through self-learning and thinking outside of the box. I took on programming projects as a coordinator, and built my tech career from there. I believe that we learn the best when we have fun.
Embark on an enlightening journey into the world of PowerShell scripting, tailored for beginners and terminal enthusiasts alike. During this talk I'll be taking you on a journey where we'll be learning to script in an unconventional setting by writing a small game from scratch for the terminal. We'll be dealing with some fundamental scripting techniques, my terrible game design skills and hopefully at the end... a working game. This talk aims to help you acquire valuable scripting knowledge and techniques, while also highlighting why PowerShell and other scripting languages are an accessible and versatile tool for solving a wide range of problems.
Shaun Lawrie is a computer nerd from Wellington with a passion for automating his jobs away. He's worked in QA, development, site reliability and delivery with some of the largest web platforms in New Zealand over the last 10 years. He's currently the Platform Engineering Lead at PartsTrader Markets Limited leading a team responsible for improving delivery processes, maintaining quality and automating all of the things.
Technologists change jobs often, even more so over the last 12-18 turbulent months. How might you put your best foot forward confidently in a new role, whether you're a leader or individual contributor?Spoiler #1: what you're doing has got you this far, no need to start again!Spoiler #2: these tips can be applied in your current gig too 😉
A classically trained musician, Rachel got into software development by mistake, and has been enjoying it too much to switch back. After sixteen years of shipping code commercially she's spent nearly a decade in technology leadership. Her working style is based on servant leadership, extreme collaboration, making a positive difference and always having a laugh while doing it.
Mainstream tech career advice works for the majority, not the minority. In this talk, I’ll show you why and how the career evolution for a migrant tech worker is very different from that of a native New Zealander. I’ll use Maslow’s hierarchy of needs model as my base to help you understand why there is still a significant disparity in representation in middle management and leadership roles in engineering and tech in general.
Camy is a co-founder of NZ Tech Rally, and organising tech conferences is her thing. An import to NZ from India, she has been in the Wellington tech scene since 2013. Camy specialises in Quality engineering by profession, but after going through several rounds of ego deaths & identity crises in her 30s, she’s found her grounding in representing and highlighting the state of minorities in tech.
In 2016, the world witnessed a watershed moment in the realm of cybersecurity and information warfare as the GRU, Russia's military intelligence agency, embarked on a multifaceted campaign to interfere with the United States presidential election. This presentation delves into the intricacies of the GRU's operations, examining how they integrated hacking and disinformation tactics to try and influence the electoral process. From infiltrating networks to disseminating false narratives, the GRU's hybrid approach blurred the lines between cyber intrusion and information manipulation. Through an analysis of their tactics, and impact, this talk sheds light on the evolving landscape of cybersecurity and underscores the need to safeguard democratic institutions against such threats.
A cybersecurity professional with a specialisation in threat intelligence, Kade brings experience from working in consultancies, banking, and managing a security operations center for a managed service provider, to their current role in a utilities company's SOC. They co-founded Arachne Digital, a startup committed to enhancing threat intelligence, supporting open-source projects and vulnerable sectors.
What do motorcycles, cooking, and mountain climbing have to do with software development? A lot more than you'd think! When it comes to advancing your career as a software developer, most people tend to focus on skills development. But what if I told you that focussing on skills is the least efficient way to go about it? Instead, learn how to cultivate effective habits for managing cognitive load, and not only will you find yourself developing new skills faster, you'll also make yourself a more effective developer, regardless of your skill level. In this talk, we're going to cover the seven habits of highly-effective software developers, why they matter, and how to cultivate them 😺
On a mission to help Aotearoa New Zealand close its digital tech skills gap by developing cultures of technical excellence and creating career pathways for new devs. I have been developing and architecting software applications for nearly 2 decades, at companies of all sizes in different parts of the world. I am passionate about the *meta problem*: creating value for value creators, and I thrive wherever I can āwhina others to build, create and grow. My favourite development mahi is working on open-source libraries and frameworks, and I mentor developers of all skill levels in New Zealand. Also, I really like cat emojis. A lot 😸
As an engineer, there seems to be a slew of contradicting advice on what to do about duplicate code. Never do it? Do it once then refactor? None of it really makes sense. This talk introduces a few new mindsets for reasoning about duplicate code and what to do about it.
Hi, I’m Sam! I’ve been a software developer for over 10 years and I am currently a principal engineer and people manager at Cochlear in Sydney, Australia. Over my career I’ve have the pleasure of working at various companies, big and small and I’ve love to share the lessons I’ve learned along the way.
In a world where it feels like technology is eroding our rights to independence, autonomy and self-determination, there is a growing set of approaches and solutions designed to address this trend and give people back the right to tino rangatiratanga in their digital and physical lives. This talk will explore these emerging trends and what they might mean for our online lives.
Luke leads Deloitte's public sector digital transformation services focused on enabling public sector agencies and their private sector partners to use the power of digital to address our ‘wicked problems’ and deliver better services for all New Zealanders. As a proud son of the eastern Bay of Plenty and child of Te Whakatōhea, Ngāitai and Ngāti Porou, Luke strives to see his people realise the opportunity technology offers to iwi, hapu and whanau to embrace the past, and face the future, with confidence and excitement.
We thank these major sponsors for their support of Code Camp Wellington 2024
We thank these sponsors for their support of Code Camp Wellington 2024
Adam, a seasoned Software Developer, Consultant, and Startup Co-Founder, has been a proud resident of Wellington since the late '90s, with stints in London and Melbourne. He has a passion for leadership and management, but his heart truly lies in software development. This recent realisation has inspired a career pivot back to hands-on coding, where he thrives on tackling technical challenges. Currently, Adam is applying his problem-solving skills at Datacom and embracing the exciting hurdles of being the tech co-founder of an early-stage startup, bikematrix.io.
Specialist in AWS in the Cloud and Engineering team at Deloitte, Alice has been integral in creating applications for many diverse clients and projects. Delving into developing, architect solutions and supporting applications as they run in operate. Giving to the tech community, and generating inclusion is important to her as she gets involved in giving time to Hapori Wahine AWS She Builds, Summer of Tech, Dev Academy and the Native Cloud Summit. Always enjoyed code-camp and now is on board to organise and help create an awesome Code camp 2024.
Ben has worked with of the biggest names in Wellington, including alumni of both Xero and Trade Me. To widespread astonishment, including their own, they're all willing to work with him again. He brings a great sense of fun, a quirky sense of humour and a sterling can do attitude to everything he does and we think it's just splendid that he's joined us for another Wellington Code Camp.
Ben has attended most (if not all?) of the previous Code Camp Wellington events. He also had a chance to speak at one in 2020, and was our keynote speaker in 2023. He's keen to help with organizing this year's event. Ben is the CTO of Spotlight Reporting.
Bevan is the driving force behind Code Camp Wellington, and formerly of the Wellington .NET user group. He's an alumnus speaker of TechEd and Code Camps in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch. Over his long and storied development career he's written code you can bank on as well as some that's right on the button. We can only hope he's not going soft as Code Camp moves into another year and we're delighted that he's brought his vision and zeal to the committee for another round.
My background is in product and testing but I have dabbled in many areas of tech and now I can add code camp to the list! I love getting creative and creating an environment where everyone can have fun at work. Currently I’m a Technical Product Owner at Trade Me, working on how we can build platforms and services that will enable engineers to deliver customer value faster
Bio yet to be written.
As a past presenter at Code Camp Wellington, Lisa shared insights into her unique journey of using code to create large-scale interactive art. She's always been drawn to problem-solving and has found joy in tackling unconventional challenges, from automating and streamlining processes to inventing novel solutions, such as using an Arduino to regularly water her plants. Growing up, Lisa lacked guidance in understanding the possibilities of careers in technology. Now, having forged a career in the field, she's driven by a passion to mentor and empower others. Her belief that "no problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking" is at the core of her approach, hoping to inspire others to explore the seemingly endless opportunities in this industry. As a Developer Leader at PartsTrader, Lisa continues to use her expertise to guide the development processes and grow the development team to their full potential.
A solutions architect by day, Oleg tries to balance leaning into his 15 odd years of software design and development with remaining curious and open to new ideas. He enjoys listening to someone passionate and knowledgeable speak on almost any subject, making him an avid audiobooks
and podcasts consumer, catch up coffee drinker, and Code Camp lightning talk enthusiast.Oleg can be seen around Wellington opining about user experience and technical trade offs, collecting AWS badges, and (while getting to stay on the tools in his current role) pleading with the debugger or persevering with git on a Friday afternoon. He welcomes your connections on LinkedIn mentioning you're from CCW!
❤️ Archie, Ella, Marisa
Bio yet to be written.
Shrena is a web developer and facilitator at Dev Academy Aotearoa. With a passion for front end development and accessibility, Shrena enjoys helping students have those lightbulb moments with their tech learning, and championing those who think a career in tech may not be for them.
Our events are dedicated to providing a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, religion (or lack thereof), or technology choices.
We do not tolerate harassment of conference participants in any form. Sexual language and imagery is not appropriate for any of our venues, including talks, Twitter and other online media.
Participants asked to stop any harassing behavior are expected to comply immediately.
Participants violating these rules may be sanctioned or expelled from the event at the sole discretion of the organisers.
