March 3, 2016 | 2 minute read

The Journey of Android Engineers: Tech Talks

Lightning talks and panel discussion videos.

Recently, John Rodriguez, Effie Barak, Eric Burke, and Christina Lee gave lightning talks and participated in a panel discussion at our “Journey of Android Engineers” event in Square’s San Francisco office. (Thanks to everyone who attended!) These talks were recorded and are now available on our Square Engineering YouTube channel. Enjoy!

A Tale of Two Daggers — John Rodriguez

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B7F7emCc64&feature=youtu.be

For the past three years, Square Register for Android has leveraged Dagger to wire up Java objects. However, Register’s scope hierarchy and complexity are increasing and pushing the limits on Dagger. In this lightning talk, John highlights how and why the Register team incrementally migrated the Android app to Dagger 2.

Transitioning from .Net to Android — Effie Barak

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykEAhSmodRg&feature=youtu.be

After 10 years at Microsoft, Effie made the transition from Windows Phone to Android development. In this talk, she shares her experience: What was easy to pick up, what was hard, what was baffling, and what was thrilling. In a world where Android developers are in high demand and developers change stacks all the time, what does it take to make the switch and how can we help more people have an easier transition?

Interrupting Interview Bias — Eric Burke

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDfb6_IuyW0&feature=youtu.be

We all want to hire amazing software engineers and build the best teams possible. With this in mind, it’s important to recognize that our own biases can lead us to flawed interviewing and hiring decisions. “Unconscious bias” refers to behaviors that are triggered without our awareness, leading to quick judgments and assessments of people and situations based on our background, cultural environment, and personal experiences. In this lightning talk, Eric shares practical tips that all of us can use to interrupt bias before, during, and after interviews.

Redux-ing UI Bugs — Christina Lee

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsuzhTlccRk&feature=youtu.be

Between React, Cycle.js, Flux, and Redux, many interesting UI related architectures, frameworks, and libraries are gaining traction on the web. While React Native, a port of one such concept, is gaining popularity, it is not a feasible choice for every company. In this lightning talk, Christina covers how the engineers at Highlight built a Redux-like framework in Kotlin to simplify state management and reduce bugs in challenging UI components, all without having to reinvent their Android app or sacrifice hard won expertise.