The matter of belonging

At the beginning of November, I had the opportunity to attend Devops.barcelona 22, two whole days of talks about DevOps culture, it’s not a job title, single track only, I really like those because you are not missing a talk in favor of others.

I also attended a lightning talk on Barcelona Software Crafters that changed my approach to this conference, the title was Dare to try by Xavier Ametller where he explained their experience and encouraged the assistants to dare to try something that we think it's not possible, so I did it. I started easy, see I’m a social introvert which means that, although I enjoy social interaction it’s a massive drain of energy, that’s why I usually don't approach the sponsors and ask for the swag, I tend to wait until one of my colleagues approaches the stand and then I go with them. But I decided this time will be different, this time I'll be the one approaching the stands, and also I'll look for information about Developer Advocate roles because I want to know more about what they do. Long story short, I did it and I met a lot of new people and learn about this role that I was interested in, even some vacancies.

At home, I started to think about what I did differently and why I didn't do it before, and I came to some conclusions. I’ve been in the tech industry for some years now and, in Barcelona for nearly 5 years, and until that conference, I didn't feel like I belong here, to something bigger than my team, but this one-and-a-half year changed my mind, I went to more events than ever, I met a lot of people and finally, I dared to ask for a position different than mine, one that I thought it was fulfilled by people way beyond my reach. Behind the scenes are my boyfriend and my dream team, Mavi’s queens, because they always catch me if I fail.

In conclusion, if you are comfortable enough, try that thing that you don't dare, maybe you love it, maybe you don't, who knows?. If you don't feel comfortable, look out for that feeling, maybe is an awesome community out there that can help you, in Barcelona we have BCN Engineering where you can find a lot of people from different backgrounds eager to help.