I spoke about my journey, experiences and lessons-learned from being a Java-developer to becoming a manager for a team of developers at JavaZone 2023.

As developers and technologists, we constantly experience many different situations at work, with clients, and in our lives. We experience ups and downs both alone and together with other people. Sometimes we can laugh and smile about it, other times we let time pass in silence. However, some situations are special; they put us in a position where we must choose a direction, a reaction, or a response. This is a story about mentoring, a story about leadership, and a story about caring for people. In my lightning talk, I will share about my experience being a leader for developers, and why silence is not always the right answer.

The talk is about growing as a developer and taking on leadership responsibilities, and as an effect of growing, it is crucial to be able to handle the increased amount of responsibility. There will be situations when you feel alone, situations where the team is divided, situations where you witness everything from injustice, bullying, and bad attitudes. What decisions do you make as a leader when you witness situations like this?

If you want to grow in your role, you must be able to handle and talk about such situations. When the distance to dialogue is much longer than usual, dialogue is still the best tool you have. When dialogue does not work, dialogue is still the best you have. When even this does not work, accountability and integrity must become words, so that changes can become actions.

Here is the recording of my talk. PS: This talk was spoken in Norwegian, invite me to your event or conference if you are interested in listening to it in English.