The Secret of Miyagi: Lessons to build your software career

This talk investigates the master-apprentice relationship of fictional but inspiring heroes, Miyagi & Daniel, from the movie Karate Kid in a software engineering perspective. Armagan talks about software craftsmanship and gives concrete examples on how engineers should shape their software careers.

This talk investigates the master - apprentice relationship of fictional yet very inspiring heroes, Miyagi and Daniel, from the movie Karate Kid in a software engineering perspective. Armagan talks about software craftsmanship and gives concrete examples on how engineers should shape their software careers.

What is craftsmanship? How does it apply to software engineering? How can we improve our self-learning skills? How can we help junior developers and speed up their learning?

In this talk, Armagan goes over various teachings from the 80’s movie Karate Kid, relating them to concrete problems software engineers face in their daily lives. The attendees will instantly recognize the references and how the teachings will apply to their lives. It’s an intriguing and fun presentation and at the end, the attendees will leave with solid best practices for improving engineering skills.

Team leaders, lead developers and managers will learn how to properly assist and guide professional development of their junior team members, and junior developers will learn how to embrace apprenticeship in order to steadily improve their craft.

I have been teaching software engineering to new graduates for over 10 years in an industrial context. Following software craftsmanship movement I have had over 100 apprentices on all levels. I am a lecturer in software engineering and a mentor. I lead an NGO called Lonca and we help women engineering students and graduates enter the software industry with confidence and profound CS fundamentals.

The talk is highly motivational and inspirational, and doesn’t require any technical background. But an exposure to working environments would help the attendees appreciate the points in the talk.