In June 2023, Bloom & Wild had the opportunity to be a major sponsor at the Brighton Ruby conference. It was our fourth time sponsoring the conference, but this time it was on a larger scale. We had a table full of swag and our engaged engineers were ready to chat with attendees and learn from the talks throughout the day.
Sponsoring conferences is important to us for several reasons. Firstly, it helps us raise awareness of our brand among communities of experienced and like-minded individuals. Engineers often underestimate the size of our company and the interesting work we do, so it’s crucial for us to have the opportunity to share that information. Secondly, conferences offer valuable opportunities for learning, networking, and absorbing new information. Without sponsors, conferences wouldn’t be possible, so we see our sponsorship as a way to give back to the Ruby community. Lastly, our engineers gain a lot from attending these conferences. While having a sponsor booth where they can engage with attendees is important, the real value lies in the talks and presentations happening in the auditorium.
A special shoutout goes to Billy, our Senior Talent Acquisition Manager, for putting together an amazing selection of swag, hosting a “Win a Year of Flowers” competition, and creating banners and bouquets that made our sponsor booth visually appealing.
We had an incredible time at the conference, meeting new people and learning a lot. Here are some quotes from our engineers about what they enjoyed most:
- “Listening to someone from the Rails core team talk about the challenges they face was eye-opening. It showed that even they encounter similar issues to Bloom & Wild.”
- “Ruby is still popular, and it was great to interact with junior engineers who are just starting out and love the language. I also had some fantastic conversations with experienced Ruby engineers, discussing the projects they’ve worked on and how they’ve adapted to changes in Ruby/Rails over the years.”
- “I learned that ‘Railties’ is pronounced like ‘rail-ties’ and not ‘rail-teas’!”
- “Despite using Rails and Ruby for over a decade, this conference made me realize how little I understand about the deeper aspects of the frameworks. I plan to focus my learning on the 12 core libraries and demystify how they work under the hood.”
- “The documentation talk was extremely helpful and provided great guidelines for improving our app’s documentation. It inspired us to talk more about it and promote it within our team.”
- “I loved the last talk, where the speaker showcased their debugging skills. It was impressive how calm they remained while a room full of eager attendees awaited their insights.”
Conferences hold great significance for us, both in terms of our professional growth as engineers and our ability to attract talented individuals to join our team. If you’re interested in learning more about what we do and potentially advancing your career with us, please check out our careers pages for current job openings.