Gearset DevOps Leaders take DevOps Dreamin’ 23

Written by Nicola Scott-Dodd

Last month, seven Gearset DevOps Leaders joined forces in Chicago for DevOps Dreamin’ 2023: Blanca Leon-Carter, EJ Sherman, Jeb Garrott, Laurel Jones, Matias Colombo, Monica Thornton Hill and Nanners Lamet! The community conference was the first opportunity for this inaugural cohort to meet in person. Over two days, the Gearset DevOps Leaders took part in a Gearset Advisory Roundtable and three took to the stage to educate and inspire the audience. There was also an exclusive breakfast and dinner to catch up on the day and get to know each other better. Over 200 Salesforce professionals came to the conference and they could easily spot these seven in their new Gearset DevOps Leaders jackets!

Roundtable reflections

The Gearset DevOps Leaders have been selected for their knowledge and experience within the ecosystem and using Gearset, so it goes without saying that a key part of being a DevOps Leader is sharing insights to help shape the future of DevOps on the Salesforce platform. At DevOps Dreamin’, the DevOps Leaders joined Gearset’s Matt Dickens , Co-Founder and CPO, and Richard Owen , Senior Product Manager, for the Advisory Roundtable. The DevOps Leaders shared their thoughts, challenges and vision for the next 18 months, proving a fascinating discussion given the variety of roles and company sizes they represent. The time flew by with everyone asking questions and chipping in with their ideas. With it being such a productive session, the hope is now to squeeze in a few more Gearset Advisory Roundtables this year than initially planned.

Sessions for everyone

On the first day of DevOps Dreamin’, Blanca, DevOps Architect at Slalom, spoke about how a DevOps Team aligns with a sports team. She shared how important? culture, leadership and coaching are to make? a team successful. Although all Salesforce professionals should aim to be a “change makers” team — with characteristics such as high deployment frequency, low lead time for change and high knowledge sharing — Blanca admitted she enjoys being a part of a team of? “underdogs” too, because you get to be part of the change!

Another Gearset DevOps Leader that took to the stage (twice!) was EJ, Senior Consultant at Coastal Cloud and proud Admineloper. EJ first spoke about how Admins understanding what the code is actually doing behind the clicks can positively impact solutioning. EJ’s second presentation was on Git for Admins with a perfect pun title: ‘Everyone can Git it!’. Her curiosity and understanding of git has helped her make choices in development and deployment, as well as picking up new tools.

Laurel, Senior Product Manager at Amazon, took part in a panel discussion about Amazon’s Salesforce DevOps processes and adoption of Gearset. She spoke alongside Nikhil Reddy and Kirk Carpenter from Amazon, as well as Ryan Cox and Phillip Haack from Salesforce. They all agreed getting to grips with Pipelines, and looking at ways to collaborate to build a stronger DevOps culture across Amazon, are key focus areas for this year — echoing a lot of Salesforce DevOps teams!

It’s not just hard work

Conferences can be full-on and the Gearset DevOps Leaders had additional responsibilities at DevOps Dreamin’, but it wasn’t all work and no play in Chicago! They were invited to an exclusive breakfast and dinner, where they got to meet in person ahead of the event and enjoy the VIP registration process — no standing in line for them! After a fantastic first day of presentations, workshops and mingling with the community, they headed for a delicious dinner at a Mexican restaurant nearby. Everyone was able to wind down from a busy day, take the time to reflect on what they’d learnt and get to know each other a little better — whether it was RV trips, travelling to exotic places, or spotting crocodiles.

Want to learn more about the DevOps Leaders program?

The two days at DevOps Dreamin’ were a blast. It was crammed with interesting and thought provoking sessions and a chance to meet other DevOps experts and enthusiasts. If you’re interested in hearing more about the Gearset DevOps Leaders program or the Gearset platform, I can put you in touch with a DevOps Leader – just send me an email at [email protected].