I recently delivered a short talk to the Kogan.com engineering team on GraphQL - a technology that has not yet seen adoption at the company, but for which there arguably exists a need. Customers shop on Kogan.com across devices with different data requirements, and our reliance on traditional REST APIs leads to cases of under-fetching and over-fetching. GraphQL is a potential solution to this issue that can also make calling our APIs more simple, flexible and intuitive.
Presentations like these serve two main purposes: to educate and to inspire. Hosting regular discussions around technology practices helps share knowledge between engineers and identify where improvements can be made. At Kogan.com, we hold regular presentations and discussions about technology, typically hosted by members of the engineering team. These come in two flavours – hour-long “tech talks” and 15-minute “lightning talks”. Each is held roughly once a month, and the responsibility to host them cycles between each member of the engineering team. My presentation was a lightning talk, but another engineer in my team recently delivered a tech talk on OpenAPI practices. An effective talk appeals to all members of the audience. Despite having experience with OpenAPI, there were still valuable things that I learned.
Technology talks are important to organisations, so that they can share the best ideas and keep up with continual change. There will certainly be more talks this year at Kogan.com; I look forward to learning more about what my colleagues have to share.
