Julie Ng

← About Me

Visualizing cloud architectures in real time with d3.js

NodeConf EU

Kilkenny, Ireland
10-14 November 2019

If you have multiple development teams, your cloud architecture probably feels organic changing with agile development cycles. We may ship faster and scale faster. But we can also get lost more easily as complexity grows. Automated monitoring tools come at the price of information overload.

Let's bring some clarity back into the picture by filtering out the technical noise to see how cloud architectures were designed to behave. We'll create our our own microservice architecture visualization frontend using d3.js. Then we'll integrate some backend monitoring, sprinkle in some animation with JS and CSS, and voilà - we can watch how our architecture dances - in real time!

Newton.js on GitHub → Online Slides →

Visualizing cloud architectures in real time with d3.js

WorkerConf

Dornbirn, Austria
27-28 June 2019

If you have multiple development teams, your cloud architecture probably feels organic changing with agile development cycles. We may ship faster and scale faster. But we can also get lost more easily as complexity grows. Automated monitoring tools come at the price of information overload.

Let's bring some clarity back into the picture by filtering out the technical noise to see how cloud architectures were designed to behave. We'll create our our own microservice architecture visualization frontend using d3.js. Then we'll integrate some backend monitoring, sprinkle in some animation with JS and CSS, and voilà - we can watch how our architecture dances - in real time!

Newton.js on GitHub → Online Slides →

Designing and Visualizing Cloud Architectures for Humans

Frontend Conference

Munich, Germany
27 April 2019

Today's software architectures are organic, scaling with cloud infrastructure and changing with agile development cycles. As software matures and teams grow, so does complexity. Combining d3.js visualizations and monitoring, we'll explore different dimensions of cloud architectures, both in design and operation to focus less on technical details and more on what matters: people.

Slides on Speaker Deck → Newton.js on GitHub →

EnterJS: DIY Full-Stack JavaScript CI CD

EnterJS Conference

Darmstadt, Germany
21 June 2018

Continuous integration and delivery pipelines are the automation assembly lines that help us ship software and iterate faster. JavaScript's quirks present challenges to CI and CD. What and when do you compile your ES6 and deploy? Frontend or backend? Node modules folder anyone?

Let's look at full stack JavaScript pipelines and common challenges. We'll laugh and cry. But we will also remember what makes JavaScript special and why we love it.

N.B. this slide deck includes substitute slides for live demos.

Video on SlidesLive → Slides on Speaker Deck →

Photo by dpunkt.verlag

Stay Hungry. Stay foolish.

Landing Festival - Future of Tech and Careers

Berlin, Germany
15 March 2018

Instead of becoming a lawyer, Julie chose to be a poor English teacher in Germany. Then to pay debt, she turned to tech. 10 years later, she's been a designer, full-stack developer, and failed entrepreneur - always self-taught. You don't need an IT degree either. In this talk, learn how the path to becoming an architect is paved not with technical detail, but passion, risks and life's curveballs.

I also served as a panelist on the "Startup vs Corporate" careers panel, bringing perspective as an former entrepreneur and corporate enterprise architect.

"Corporate vs Startup" Panelist - Photo by landingfestival

How Frontend Developers can drive the Switch to Microservices

Frontend Conference

Munich, Germany
9 December 2017

Software is easy until you need to scale. But luckily for you, JavaScript and frontend developers have a clear advantage when moving to event-driven architectures and microservices. Events on clicks and blurs were your training wheels. Asynchronous is a given. You may have used a state management framework like Redux or Vuex. You are destined for this.

To demonstrate, we'll examine a full stack JavaScript upload service written with Vue, Express and RabbitMQ. Ignore the frameworks. We'll focus on the messaging and state patterns that trip up many developers, preventing them from building true microservices. At the end of the talk, you will understand how to chunk file uploads on the front- and backend for happy users and developers.

Slides on Speaker Deck →

Photo by @moh_aboraia

Mastering E-Mail with Ruby

RubySauna

Helsinki, Finland
8 October 2015

E-Mail persists after many decades and will also survive the next hyped communication technology. Despite being a pest, E-Mail is also an effective marketing channel and one of the most personal communications you have with your users and customers. Responsive HTML email is not as difficult as many think. We'll look at some common problems with solutions for developing bulletproof E-Mails. But most importantly we'll look at how programming workflow is just as important and how I use Ruby to do that.

Slides on Speaker Deck →
Up next: RubySauna!

Mastering E-Mail & the Internet's Cockroach

REFRESH

Tallinn, Estonia
September 2015

E-Mail persists after many decades and will continue to survive Chat, Skype, etc. - just as roaches have survived the atomic bomb. Despite being a pest, E-Mail is also an effective marketing channel and the most personal communication you have with your users and customers. You've survived Gmail's spam filter. Now let's make sure you also survive mobile devices with responsive E-Mail HTML. It's not as difficult as you think. Let's examine how developers have solved common problems with tried and true techniques for designing and developing bulletproof E-Mails.

Watch on YouTube → Slides on Speaker Deck →
On stage at Refresh (Sept 2015) On stage at Refresh (Sept 2015)

Coming of Age In-house

FFWD.PRO

Zagreb, Croatia
June 2012

Over the last few years, the web has matured into an industry in its own right. Our professions have also grown beyond pixels and lines of code. Let’s look at how lessons and experiences as an in-house pixel pusher can help you understand and leverage other pieces of the puzzle, including marketing and analytics. You’ll also learn from mistakes of others - as well as your own to grow into a seasoned web professional.

Watch on Vimeo → Slides on Speaker Deck →

Bridging UX with front end - a Designer's Developer Side

Frontend Conference Zürich

Zurich, Switzerland
August 2011

A great user experience is always a team effort and requires great coordination and communication between all team members. The designers vs. developer friction is often in our heads. To demonstrate, we will look at how to work in the browser, how to use HTML5, CSS3 and simple jQuery to better communicate not just with each other, but with the whole team. Whether you're a designer, a developer, a copywriter or marketing manager, you can all work on a project together - in the browser and at the same time.

Photos by Relax In The Air