Speaking

Lead Programmer

I am always looking for opportunities to encourage and empower people from traditionally underrepresented groups into jobs in tech and games. As well as my involvement with mentoring programs, which can be found on my Experience page, this page lists details of events I have been invited to be a part of.

I am an engaging and confident public speaker, and have been fortunate to have had talks accepted twice to Develop Conference in the UK. Following these talks, I have received further opportunities to deliver them internally to studios and universities, which I am always grateful for.

If you would like to talk to me about your event, feel free to get in touch via Twitter, LinkedIn, or my Contact page.

Past Talks

Mediadesign University of Applied Sciences, Berlin, June 2023Is Your Code Working For You?I was invited to give the same talk I gave at Develop again to a group of University students, after their lecturer attended my initial talk. After the talk, I was excited to have the opportunity to see the students' projects and provide feedback.

Into Games Careers Talks, WASD, London, April 2023How to Perfect a Technical PortfolioI was invited onto the Careers Talks stage at WASD conference in London, to speak about the "Dos and Dont's" of creating a successful application for a technical role in the games industry.

Develop:Brighton, July 2022Is Your Code Working For You?Is your code working for you, or are you working for your code? Are you writing the same code you've always written, and are worried whether it's the best way to do things? Are you following "best practice" advice, but want to understand why those are the rules? Game development is its own ball game, and there are sometimes unwritten rules about which language best practices are applicable. And sometimes - those rules were applicable at one time, but now, don't matter so much. Sometimes we're confident we know exactly what a code snippet will do, and when we run it - it doesn't quite do what we expect. This talk went through some "best practice" advice on how we've been told to write certain programming constructs, explaining which rules we need to stick to and which we can confidently throw out.

Cheltenham Science Festival, June 2022Games Dev Live: How To Make A GameCorey, Alysia and I (along with the audience!) brainstormed a new game idea around the Science Festival theme "Be the Change". We went through each idea given to us, why it might work, things we need to consider, and how the process of taking a game from concept to prototype happens.

Women in Tech Global Conference, June 2022Software as a Service: Cultivating a respectful programming team in a multi-discipline games studioIn June 2022, I presented a condensed, 20 minute version of this talk for the Women in Tech Global Conference. This talk explores the idea that when you are part of a code team in a games studio, you operate in service of the other disciplines creating the game. The code team's customers are not just the end users, the players, but also the other teams in the studio. From putting requested features into the game, to completing tasks which unblock other disciplines' work, to creating tools which improve the pipelines of the rest of the studio, our work is varied and needs careful communication. This talk outlines some strategies I've employed as Lead of the code team at Silver Rain Games to help us serve the studio.

Sega Dev Day, March 2022TDD as a Mindset: Make Test-First Development a RealityIn March 2022, I was invited to give an expanded version of the talk I gave at Develop for Creative Assembly and other Sega Studios as part of their Sega Dev Day sessions.

Develop:Brighton 2021Test Driven Development: A Mindset to Develop Games from the Start, Middle, or EndIn October 2021, my Test Driven Development talk was accepted for the Develop:Brighton Conference. This talk has roots in my Honours' Thesis, and combines that with the 10+ years of industry experience I have enjoyed since then. Where TDD is most often focussed on discrete unit tests written at the beginning of a new project, my talk recognises that it is hard to reconcile that knowledge with your legacy, completely untested codebase, and with the many variables and interconnected systems that make up game development. I give an overview of TDD from the point of view of utilising it as a mindset, rather than a set of prescriptive rules. The talk uses real world examples to explain the value that TDD brings specifically into the games development environment, showing how this mindset will impact and improve your implementations, stability, and communication between disciplines.

Panels & Interviews

How Do I Change My Career Into Games?Into Games Careers Festival, June 2022The Into Games Career Festival is a free four-day event to provide inspiration and information on anyone looking to get a job or take their career in games to the next level. I'll be speaking on the panel "How Do I Change My Career Into Games?" about my path from mining simulation software to AAA and beyond!

BBC Radio GloucestershireTwitter Post about the InterviewWe were interviewed by BBC Radio about our involvement with the Cheltenham Science Festival!

She Plays Games PodcastPodcast Episode #47I was welcomed as a guest on Episode 47 of the She Plays Games podcast, along with my Limit Break mentee from 2020, Michelle. We spoke about our mentoring journey, as well as advice for programmers in the games industry.

BAFTA Young Game DesignersYGD Masterclass: ProgrammingI appeared on the panel for this masterclass, answering pre-written and live questions about careers in programming in the games industry.

Careers TalksUkie & Games Jobs LiveLinks to a couple of careers talks I have given recently. I'm always excited to speak to people considering a career in the games industry about potential pathways into programming.