Transcript: From Django Girls to the Django Software Foundation - Kátia Nakamura

Hi, welcome to another episode of Django Chat, a podcast on the Django Web Framework.

I'm Will Vincent, joined by Carlton Gibson.

Hello, Carlton.

Hello, Will.

And we're very pleased to welcome Katja Nakamura from Fly.io.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you for coming on.

Thank you for coming on.

So you and I worked together on the Django Software Foundation board for many years,

and you're still on the board, so we can talk about that.

Yeah.

But I realize that even though I've worked with you for many years,

I don't really know much about your background,

other than I know you're originally from Brazil and you live in Berlin now.

But maybe you could talk about how did you get into programming

and what brought you from there to – you're still in Berlin, is that correct?

Yeah, I'm still in Berlin.

I'm still living here.

Okay, so that's a bit of a change, you know,

so studying computer science and then making your way over to Germany.

Yeah, so I will start at the beginning.

So before my bachelor in computer science,

I actually had a technical course before my bachelor,

and it was called like industrial informatics or something like that.

That's how I started with programming or anything related to that, to computers.

And this was 2005.

And I think that that was my first contact with programming.

And I think we didn't even do like any – well, definitely anything like web programming

or anything like that.

I started like that, and it's funny because I didn't choose that.

It was more like, okay, this is the list of courses that I can apply for,

and what are the ones that I don't want to do?

And then I ended up like, okay.

The last one left.

Yeah.

It's informatics, computers.

I like computers.

I like internet.

So let's do it.

So that's how I started.

And before starting my bachelor, I wanted to do like engineering.

And that was my focus because I always loved math,

and I was going to that direction.

So I decided to apply for like computer science

or something.

So I applied for computer engineering, this kind of roles.

Then I got accepted on computer science, and I went there.

But at that point, like, I didn't know the difference.

So I went to live in another city in Brazil to study computer science.

During my bachelor, I had the opportunity to come to Europe for the first time,

to the university.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I went to do, it was like a scholarship, and it's called like Erasmus Mundus.

They don't exist anymore.

I think they call like Erasmus plus or something.

I went to Czech Republic, so I stayed there for a year.

And I went to the university there, it was like informatics or something.

And during this period, I was traveling here in Europe.

So.

I didn't have money and I had a lot of time, basically.

So I wanted to understand like how can I travel with these companies and pay the list?

So that's how my thesis from my bachelor started.

So I wanted to solve this kind of problem, because I wanted to solve for me.

Yeah.

And then you realize it's one of the unsolved problems of computer science.

Yeah, exactly.

So it is, well, it's similar.

So to the traveling salesman problem.

And basically I wanted to apply for like traveling as a, like a backpacker, at that point was

like really.

The traveling backpacker.

Yeah.

That's the name of the problem, my thesis.

So yeah, it's called traveling backpacker problem or something similar.

It is like a generalization of the theory.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, it's kind of like the TSP, the travel salesman problem, because basically the TSP,

you want to visit the cities and then you have the path between them, but in the case

of like flights, you don't always have the path depending on the time that you are traveling,

basically.

So it's more restricted.

So.

Okay.

So it's a special case.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There are a lot of restrictions that we had to take into consideration.

So it was like a really interesting problem to solve.

So it was fun.

And this was your bachelor's thesis or your master's thesis?

So it started as my bachelor, and then I went to masters with the same problem and trying

to improve basically.

Can I ask, what is it like?

You know, so computer science is a very male dominated field and I imagine at university

as well.

Was that the case for you?

That is mainly men in your classes?

Well, definitely mainly, but we had a lot of women in my bachelor and I think even in

my master's.

My master's, it was like computer science, but it was a specific field which is called

like operations research.

Which is that area that solves this optimization problems.

So definitely, it was even like my technical course, it was like mainly men, but I think

my bachelor was like 50 people, maybe 10, 15 women.

Yeah.

Okay.

Because it's, it's odd to me that at least in the United States, most universities are,

there's more women than men because women are better students and yet computer science,

it's true.

Like it's, I think it's seven out of 10 valedictorians.

So the person who's number one in their class in high school in the U.S. are women and you

actually get an advantage applying to college as a man because it's less competition.

Women do better academically, but you know, but, and yet computer science and many of

the hard sciences, though it's changing.

It's changing because you have so many smart women coming in, but they still seem to have

a male bent.

So you persevered through that because like for me, abstract math and computer science,

I don't think I wouldn't, it wouldn't work for me.

Like I need to know what the problem is, which is a long way of saying, but maybe for you,

if you identified this personal problem and then it had applications in theory, that probably

really helped you stay motivated.

Yeah, definitely.

And I think.

Yeah.

It was the opposite for me because I'm really visual, like I, I like to visualize the problems.

So it's not really, if you say something to me, like, and I cannot picture this, the problem

itself, it's really hard for me to solve.

So for me, this was like a real life example to solve.

So it made sense for me.

Okay.

So like, so when you say that I'm thinking, well, traveling sales problem is a, is a graph

problem.

So you're going to plot that.

You're going to use like graph visualization and all these tools that are in the Python

ecosystem.

How, like, so how, how, why Python and how you didn't do it in Python though?

Right.

Yeah, exactly.

Cause computer science is always like C and Java and all these other things, but how Python

in the end.

Yeah.

So I, I didn't, I didn't do my master's or even my bachelor in Python.

Like at that point, I didn't know Python at all.

And.

I was doing Java because I had, I was working as a Java developer, so it was easier for

me to do both things at the same time.

Before you carry on, could I just ask, were you then traveling around Europe, funding

your travels by being a Java developer?

No, no.

I had like a scholarship.

Oh, okay.

Right.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

I was wondering if you were like the original digital nomad.

No, not really.

No, I had, I had money from like Erasmus.

So they gave me money for, for a year, but I was working before I came here.

And then when I came back, I got, I got the same job.

Like I just went back to the same job.

Okay.

Carry on.

Carry on.

Sorry.

Yeah.

So when I went back, I went to my masters and then I wanted to come back to Europe.

Like that was my plan.

Like I, I want to work there or want to live there.

So I wanted to have the experience again.

Oh, it's.

Sorry.

It's not always the same experience and it's never going to be like, as like an exchange

student, but I wanted to, to come back.

So I was talking to a friend from, from the university, from, from Czech Republic.

And he told me that there were those, there were, there were these guys, they, they came

to the university to give, to give a talk.

And they had this company, this startup.

Yeah.

And it was like similar to what I was doing.

He didn't know exactly what I was doing, but he, he knew it was like flights and traveling.

And he gave, I don't remember what happened, but I think he gave, gave me the name or the

company or email or something.

I contacted them.

They are the founders of Kiwi.com.

So that's how I met them for the first time.

So.

So they provided me with the data to, to, for, for my tests, uh, for my bachelor and

my masters and, and yeah, so it was like really funny to, I, I didn't even know them like,

so I was explaining like, okay, I'm doing this, uh, I'm trying to solve this problem.

So I think it's, it's related.

And they, they just like gave me like a dump of the database that they had at the time,

like with data from, from the flights.

The prices.

So I could, uh, test.

And I, at that point, like I, I knew I wanted to come here and work with them.

Um, but I went to masters.

So that was what I decided to do, but it's really hard to survive in Brazil.

If you are like, if you do anything, uh, related to research and like, uh, university, like,

so it, it's really hard.

So at, at some point.

I decided to, uh, go back to the company that I was working before.

And at that point I was already like planning to come here.

So I w I was planning to apply for the job, but I knew that they were, uh, using Python.

So I was like, okay, I, I need to learn Python and maybe it's, it's like a big coincidence,

but that year there was a Python Brazil, which is like the Python in Brazil.

Uh, in my city.

So it was, uh, organized in my city and they had like a jungle girls, uh, workshop during

the weekend.

And I decided to apply.

I didn't even know what was, at that point, like I was going to conferences and events,

uh, but not as much as here, but I was trying to, uh, participate and I applied for the

jungle girls and it was good because it was over the weekend.

Otherwise I wouldn't, I wouldn't be able to.

To go because I was working with Java, so I couldn't say like, okay, can I take a day

to go to this day off?

Yeah.

So I, I didn't go to the conference, to the Python, to the Python Brazil, but I went to

the jungle girls over the weekend.

That's my first experience with jungle.

So I went to this, uh, jungle girls and they, they actually had like two days.

It was like Saturday and Sunday.

So I met a lot of people during the conference.

Jungle girls.

I applied for the job, uh, for the job at, uh, kiwi.com and I got the job like a few

months later, but then we had all the, all the process of the visa and I just like quit

my job.

I didn't even know, like, I didn't sign my contract yet, but I just, I knew, I knew I

was coming.

So I quit my job.

And at the same time I applied for the.

There, there was like the jungle call Europe.

They had like, uh, they, they had like money to, uh, support, uh, people to come to the

conference.

Like an opportunity card.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So I applied for that and I got it for the jungle call, uh, Europe in 2016 it was, and

the jungle girls, I was like end of 2015.

So it was like a few months later.

So it was.

Uh, in Budapest, it was, uh, Hungary and I came, so it was like the first.

time that i was uh coming to like a jungle call that that was my my first jungle call and at the

same time like because it was in budapest it was like really close to czech republic i went to the

city to visit the company that i was gonna work for because at that point i wasn't like formally

working for them yet and i was still going through the process of the visa so i just went to visit

and when you talk about getting the visa you sort of the gesture you use there is one of i don't

want to think about that in pain and scars because even with a company sponsoring you it's not easy

right no it's it's not easy and oh it's it's a long process but i maybe i was lucky because i

always had like help from the company even when i came here to germany so i had a lot of help

but it's still like a lot of documents things to be translated and things to be sent here

in brazil and but they they they helped me a lot so it's it's funny because i i i went to czech

republic and i had to apply for the visa in czech republic but i couldn't apply from within czech

republic i had to go to austria to apply so those those are the things like small things but

it was it was okay they call that uh in britain they call that a hostile hostile environment

just make it just make it difficult can i ask what um when you studied in the czech republic what

language was your courses in was it in english was it in czech no it was in english

like i i know i didn't i i still don't know czech so i mean czech is famous famously hard

to learn yeah yeah exactly i think it's harder than german german so they they say but i didn't

learn i spent like five years there and i didn't learn anything i didn't learn anything i didn't

i don't know how i survived

i don't know but i i didn't learn how did you how did you learn english so well was that before

you got into programming or so when i came here for for the exchange student uh as a an exchange

student i i couldn't speak english like i i went to school in brazil like to english school and

i didn't know how to speak english so i didn't know how to speak english so i didn't know how to

but it was like i didn't know how to speak english so i didn't know how to speak english so i didn't

like basics so you you would go to the class you would know like the exercise but i didn't have

experience like talking so i think i would have enjoyed a lot if i knew more because i was really

afraid of talking to people uh then uh when i went back to brazil uh during my master's i i spent

like three months in canada uh in quebec city which is french actually

not english but i i communicated in english canadian french too so it's different like

catalan a little bit carlton right it's like quebecois i i don't know how what is the term

the difference was um this time i was alone so i went by myself and during the uh when i was in

czech republic i went there with a friend who actually got the the scholarship as well so

i was like lucky that i i knew someone and then i met a lot of brazilians so uh and a lot of people

like even people from portugal uh when i went to canada i was by myself so i had to talk i feel

like at that point i was like a bit more comfortable but not enough uh and even when i

moved to czech republic i i wasn't uh confident about my english so not even today

i know you say that today but like your english is fantastic so let's just put that on the table

right away wait i said so sorry so quebec i just want to follow up um because i'm just people who

you know you and carlton who fluently speak so many languages it's such a different thing than

an american um did you go to quebec city for english was that the intent was it an english

program or you just went there and then had to speak english so i went to quebec city to do like

it was like during my master's so i went there to work with uh like a professor professors uh in

the uh laval university and we were doing research to write the paper so basically but it was also

like uh how do you call that uh well they gave me money to go there to spend those three months

like it was like a project

yeah stipend or scholarship or grant yeah yeah kind of like a scholarship yeah similar but it

was like three months and we had like all the timeline and what we were supposed to to work on

and we were supposed to uh write the paper after so that was the purpose that's just a lot that's

so much to juggle you know a new language you know programming a new environment it's just

like you must have had to come home and collapse a little bit after just to like i don't want to i

don't want to talk to anyone for i would for a week or two no i i didn't feel like that maybe

today i would feel like that i can't imagine doing that but i think at that point was everything was

new for me like i i always wanted to go to canada so for me it was um like a trip also to visit so

yeah yeah it was a fun experience carlton you were gonna say something yeah no i just this topic of

english you know when i when i started out it was just like no i just learn english like that's what

you've got to do like but it's like hang on a sec could step back a little bit hang on somebody

wants to learn programming they want to learn a new subject they go and learn another language as

well that just seems seems a bit much to me like yeah i don't know do you think we do you think we

do better now is another thing i mean like so

um if you're in brazil now and you speak brazilian portuguese and you want to learn programming are

there more resources now than there were when you started or do you you know are we making progress

oh definitely like i well we don't have like all the content that we have today like you

today you can learn from anywhere your computer at that point like i i think i learned by doing it

so when i went to czech republic i remember like the first days or even like the first months

probably i was afraid of like not understanding people or not like oh they're they're gonna ask

me to to like they're gonna give me requirements they're gonna give me tasks and if i don't

understand what they they mean like what i'm gonna do so i was like really afraid but at that point i

i wasn't like studying i except from like doing

some english in brazil like years years ago i think i've learned on the way

yeah right you just pick it up as you need to right well well carlton i mean you with spanish

right like you you traveled a bit which i imagine polished your spanish before you no no no no right

okay but i moved i went to um i had a couple of words i went to guatemala and i studied for you

know have a long and i could just about order a few beers by the end of it it wasn't until i moved

here that i actually developed any and any sort of ability and i had lessons and i and it took years

i've been here 12 years now and so okay i can speak okay spanish but it's not something you

can pick up instantly it just isn't it just isn't it takes just takes time it's a life project

was it five years you worked there in the czech republic uh yeah i was there for five years

at kiwi

and then you made your way to germany yeah how'd you get to berlin yeah because berlin's quite hip

yeah so it's very hip we should we should have a django con europe in

berlin yeah got you yeah i was

that's one of the ideas i don't know if soon but if i stay here who knows but yeah so i'm only

teasing you know

i i i stayed there for five years um oh it it seems like 10 years but

uh i think what i my my decision to move here was mostly based on the pandemic i would say

it was it wasn't like about the company or about what i was doing it was more like i need a change

i think so i i decided to move here and i was like okay i'm gonna move here and i'm gonna move here

but i decided to start looking for for other companies or even like doing something else

and if i left the company as a tech lead and i got a job here as an engineer engineering manager

i wanted to try this path of like management uh so i decided to uh accept but then

basically i moved here to germany i was working as an engineer manager like

basically full-time management and i was working in a company doing uh it was like data

infrastructure so it was like completely different from what i was doing in a different place

in a different position so everything changed and i think it was a bit too much for me and

it was i was there for like a year and it was fun but at the same time i i wasn't happy

with what i was doing like as for for my job specifically

then into programming and sorry programming and programming and managing people that they're not

the same no it's completely different no it's it's so different it's not clear though

it's it's the standard pathway i'm gonna go into management because but what what of the 10 years

of programming has trained you to be a manager of people like no it's no it's it's completely

different i think i i gave a talk once talking about like the tech leadership and saying that

this is not a promotion this is something else like it's not a promotion basically you you go

to another path and you start doing other things and i wasn't

happy with having meetings like three days a week full day basically like from one meeting to

another meeting now doing one-on-ones and i i learned a lot of other things like besides yeah

sure the tech part you you need to learn how to deal with people how to uh deal with uh well

with the whole team like how how do we work together because we during this year that i was

in this company um there were a lot of changes like people left and then they hired some new

people and then this new people left as well so there were a lot of changes and changes on the

priority so i had to i i told my my team like okay i'm really frustrated i told them because

i was like super frustrated i was actually thinking uh of living before

i left so so months before that and i i stayed because of them one of the reasons like i wanted

to leave at least with them having some direction of like okay from here we were gonna go in this

direction because we at some point we planned what we were gonna work we finished some work

and then we were gonna start something new which was like designing something new

and one day before someone told me uh that maybe this is not gonna happen maybe so and i that's

one of the reasons i was like really frustrated and it was at that point that i was like okay

i that's not what i like to do basically and we i stayed there to to help the the team so we we got

other work instead of this one at least until they they decided what to do uh when this was like 2022

yeah yeah and this was like may and then in september uh i went to jungle com

it was like the first jungle con probably uh in porto after the the ones the online ones

and

i remember when i was there i was telling people like oh i

i want to leave i like i was really happy to be there and i need a new job yeah so i think i was i

I wasn't working with Python or, well, I wasn't doing any development, like any coding or

anything like that, but I wanted to, to work with Python again, or, or at least like if

I had the opportunity, like it would be my, my first choice, but not, I wasn't really

working, uh, looking for, uh, only Python or Django related, uh, jobs.

Uh, but I decided to leave, like I wasn't really happy with like only management things.

And I, like, I came back from the vacation because I took vacation to go to DjangoCon.

So I came back from my vacation and then I quit.

It was basically like, I came back on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.

I talked to, to my manager, which was actually my, the manager.

My manager, because my manager had left during my vacation.

So during your vacation, oh, wow.

During my vacation.

Yeah.

So this whole, this whole section is an advert of why you should come to DjangoCon folks.

Like, yeah, it will fix your problems.

Yeah, exactly.

So I just went there, I spent like a few days with all those people talking and like, it was great.

It was like really great because I came back, I was like, yeah, that, that's what I want to do.

Like.

I want to keep doing it.

So I came back and I quit, but I quit without another job.

So that was how much I wanted to leave the job.

Uh, and, and it wasn't like the company, the company was great.

And like the people, my team, like they, they were great, but it was, I think,

especially the type of work I was doing, like management wasn't really what I wanted to do.

And I don't regret because I, I chose to do that.

So I could see if that's something that I'm interested in, uh, and well, at least not now, maybe someday again, maybe the next life, the one after that, maybe the next life.

Yeah.

So you're at Fly now.

So did you manage to find, how, how did you hook up with them?

Yeah.

So I quit my job.

And then I left, uh, one month later, like end of October, uh, in November, December, I was looking for a job.

And I remember that it wasn't like a great time because there were all of those, uh, layoffs and everything was happening during that point.

And I applied for a few companies, like I, I don't go well in interviews.

Like I get really nervous.

It's not something that I really, well, I don't.

I don't think maybe some people enjoyed, enjoy doing it, but I think most of, most of them don't.

Right.

No, it's horrible.

That's a red flag.

If somebody enjoys interviews and like racking up offers, it's a, it's a separate skill set.

Yeah.

I can imagine that, but I believe there, there are some people who enjoy that.

I don't like that.

And I decided to just speak, uh, just a few companies that I would, uh, apply.

Because I didn't want to have like five interviews in the same week and I wasn't working, like it's not like I was busy, but I was preparing for, for the interviews.

But at the same time, I get really, uh, stressed, really, it's, it's not something good.

And I, I knew that at least like one per week or two, maybe it would be okay for me to do.

Uh, so I picked like a few companies, I think I applied for maybe three, uh, two or three.

And then in December, uh, Mark from, uh, fly.io, he contacted me and I think when I read the description of the job, I was like, oh, interesting because it's not something that I have experience with.

It's, it's more like marketing because it's similar to like a developer advocate, but a bit different.

So, but.

What's your actual title?

What's your job title?

Like the title is a framework engineer.

Okay.

Yeah, it's, uh, yeah, it's interesting because it is different.

Like it, it's not really something that I would think, but I don't know if they had this at the beginning, just because we have like different frameworks in the company, like teams inside of the company for each framework.

So it's more focusing on promoting fly to that specific framework.

So.

I think that that's the idea.

And you also, but you also get to do a bit of like, not just a bit, but quite a lot of like working out what the best way to integrate with Django, for instance.

Yeah, exactly.

So I think that's the main, the main thing that we need to do, uh, to understand like the community, what they're doing and how fly can be applied to those like use cases and understand.

But at the same time, like it's funny because.

How I met fly was before that, like I already knew fly at that point when, uh, they contacted me, but like a month before it was, uh, November when the, uh, hero cool was, uh, they, they don't, they didn't have the, the free, uh, how do you say that?

The free tier.

The free tier.

Yeah.

So they, they ended the free tier.

Uh, in November I had like a project, like a personal project, and then I had to move to another place.

That's how I, I discovered like fly and maybe it was your post.

Uh, we'll maybe you talked about them.

Yeah.

I had a similar experience with Roku and I said, and then I did, I did a, I did a tutorial on, um, Django and fly.

And then, um, actually I talked to Mark around that time.

I wish, I wish I'd known, we didn't mention, but you've been on the board with me for like multiple years at this point.

I wish you told me you were looking cause I was aware that they were looking.

Um, but yeah, I did a tutorial and then I, I, uh, yeah, I wrote the first, um, Django section for fly.io.

I think it was just two tutorials.

Um, so I worked with Mark on that, but then, um, I was doing other things, but, but then he, he, then he told me, I think when, uh, they hired you and I was like, oh my God.

Like, yeah, she,

you, yes, hire her.

Absolutely.

Um, but that was, I think that was a lot of hosting companies, right?

Heroku did doing that meant everyone suddenly was looking around at fly and render and railway and there's a whole bunch of ones.

Um, yeah, I'm curious, you know, I don't know how much you can or want to talk about, you know, being internal at fly during that time.

Cause one thing I realized is that they were, they were changing, you know, it's a lot of work to be a hosting company and to have to do that and then

to have framework specific tools and fly has a really powerful command line in, um, tool.

How do, how do I say this?

Um, it could, it could use improvements to be specific to Django.

So I worked very, very briefly on that.

Um, but it, it keeps developing every time I update fly CTL.

It's like every week there's a new update.

So I have a lot of appreciation for how challenging it is, um, to do that.

But I think they're getting to the point where a lot of the things like I wrote about in this tutorial and book, you don't have to do any more.

Cause they're automating it.

So it's good for customers.

It's a little frustrating for me as a content creator, but that's, you know, that's the least important thing out of it.

Yeah.

All wishes, all wishes to say, and now I've seen, um, you know, fly Django section.

You've written a ton.

Um, I, were you involved with bringing Mariusz Felisiak on board or how did that come about?

Right.

Cause one of our Django fellows is now also writing for fly.

Yeah.

So I wasn't involved.

Like Mark told me like, Oh, there's this.

There's this guy that I'm talking to, and maybe he's going to come like do some blog posts because that's how it started.

I was like, Oh, who is it?

And then he told me it was like Mariusz and I, I met Mariusz like in person, probably at the DjangoCon that I went.

So I was like, Oh, I know, I know him.

Like, okay.

It was great because I already knew him, so it was like easier to, uh, onboard him basically.

And so like, we are a remote company, so we already work like remotely, so it wasn't a different with Mariusz, but, uh, I wasn't involved with like getting him.

So.

Well, can you, can you back up to, so the Django software foundation, you, I think we joined at the same time at 2020.

Is it, was that when you joined?

Yes, 2020.

So I didn't, so you were managing at this time and I guess not working directly.

With Django, but then you're, you're still on the board.

What, what, what was that like?

Um, how did you become aware of the Django software foundation and then running?

And I know, you know, I know a lot of the work you've been doing.

Um, could you just speak about what it's been like now?

Is it four, three, four, four years?

How many years on the board?

I think four years, right?

Four years.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So how did, how did you first find out about the board?

Because I think a lot of people don't know about it and then, you know, decide to run and all that.

Yeah.

So I don't remember.

How I found out about the DSF, but, uh, what I remember, which is like really interesting to, to mention is I applied, like I got, I, I got at the DSF, uh, in 2020, it was, uh, when the pandemic started.

So it was like different.

I would say, uh, I applied, like, I think a year before, maybe for the, uh, 2019, I think.

I applied, I didn't get, and in 2019, I went to the PICON, uh, us for the first time.

And when I went there, I, I met, uh, Kojo, you know, Kojo, so I, yeah, I, I went, I, I think I was getting like my badge or something and I met him and he, he looked at my badge and he said like, oh, you are Katja.

You, you apply for the DSF.

Like he, he remembered my name.

And, and I was like, oh yeah.

And he was like, yeah, you, you didn't get, but you should, you should apply again.

And he basically like encouraged me to apply again.

So that's why I did.

So it's basically because of him that I'm in the DSF.

And I think at that point, like, I didn't know a lot about the DSF, so, but that's how I became involved in this.

Like it was like, I need to thank him.

So.

Wow.

And that was in Cleveland, right?

2019, I believe.

No.

It was, uh, San Diego.

Oh, for, for, for PyCon or Django, or DjangoCon.

Maybe DjangoCon.

Yeah.

Maybe DjangoCon.

I've never been to PyCon US.

Yeah.

It was DjangoCon US.

Yeah.

Sorry.

Okay.

No, that makes more sense.

Um, uh, okay.

And then, yeah, I mean, you know, so one of the reasons, right, the board now has two

year terms is because there was a bunch of us new members and then the pandemic hit.

And so I think we didn't really know.

What else to expect, but, um, there was the board and especially you, cause you, you know,

based in Europe, you were working a lot with the Porto team.

Um, there was a real concern, as I recall, around how do we get DjangoCons going again

and how do we support them?

And I remember you were, I didn't, I don't know if it was, I don't think it was an official

title, but you were like the DjangoCon Europe liaison on, uh, on the board.

It wasn't like official or anything, but it was something that I.

It is something that I still want to get more involved, uh, with the, the organization

here.

Um, now we have the working groups, so that's, that's finally something that we can like

start looking for different.

Can you just pause momentarily and explain what's, what the working group is and what,

what the idea is there?

Cause in case people haven't followed along.

I don't know the official.

Okay.

Yeah.

Well, I can see.

I mean, so Python, so the, so the Django board is seven people and we, on the board, we talked

to the Python board and found out that the board there just decides they don't do all

the things the way the Django board does everything and manages it.

And so Python has had some success with working groups, um, where other members of the community

can take the lead on actually doing the things.

And I think that was one of the reasons why the DSF has tried and has now launched the

working groups because being on the board, you're already doing quite a bit of things.

And it's, you know, we, we realized over time that there just wasn't, these things weren't

going to happen for the, you know, you couldn't ask the seven people on the board to keep

doing more.

So I think it was last year that the officially Django launched the working groups.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The last year, it like the first ones, uh, like were launched or they, they started,

started and

we have like more ideas for

new ones. But for now, we know some of the things that are important. And one of them

are the DjangoCon Europe organization for the conference.

I mean, that's one of the things I'm most proud of during my time on the board was the

board's work to help DjangoCon Europe. Because for those who don't know, unlike DjangoCon

US, which has DEFNA, which has its own organization, Django Events Foundation of North America,

Europe is new people every time almost. So when you have a pause in hosting them, that

causes challenges. And then setting up nonprofits for the money. And I think that the Porto

team did an amazing job of continuing it and working on it. And they're helping also the

DjangoCon Europe this year as well, which is in Spain, but just over the border. So

there's a lot of communication with the board, with that group. And I do think we need to

thank.

That team for keeping DjangoCon Europe going, because it felt like maybe it was going to go

away at some point.

Yeah, almost.

And so just this new, I mean, this podcast will come out in a few weeks, but the blog

post was put up this week for the call for proposals to host DjangoCon Europe in 2025.

So perhaps, you know, is it, you know, if I think, oh, could I have it in my town? Is

it?

Am I going to get, I'm going to get support is the point. There's people to help me in

this, you know?

Yeah. I would say that the working group is one of the reasons. It is, this is one of

the reasons that we have the working group, like to support the new organizers here in

Europe, because then a lot of people want to help, but at the same time, they don't

know what to start. And I'm one of them. Like, I'm really interested on organizing a DjangoCon.

But at the same time, like there are so many things that I have no idea that that's one

of the reasons that I'm involved in the DjangoCon this year. So I want to learn, but we have

now the working group, which will be like to share knowledge about the organization.

And a lot of the organizers from, from the DjangoCons, they will be in this group to

help others.

And if folks are listening and they think, oh, I could quite fancy putting on a DjangoCon,

should they, you know, even if that's just a fledging idea, they should get in touch,

right?

Yeah, definitely. Because maybe you won't be the like main organizer, but you can always

like help.

So there, there's a GitHub repo for the working groups that I'll link in the show notes for

people. Is that, does that, is that the, where people should go to find contact information

and more?

Yeah, the GitHub, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I wanted to ask you about the talks you've given, because we've got a whole long list

of talks that you've given in various languages at various conferences. And segue to that,

the DjangoCon CFP is open for DjangoCon Europe this year. So I was going to try and twist

your arm into submitting for that.

So I don't, I don't think I gave a lot of talks.

Well, I can see a whole list on a piece of it. How many of you have given a lot of talks?

Well, I can see a whole list on a piece of it. How many of you have given a lot of talks?

I don't think I gave a lot of talks.

Well, I can see a whole list on a piece of it. How many of you have given a lot of talks?

whole list on a piece of it how many have you given at least half a dozen here no but i think

most of them were like at the beginning when i went to czech republic when i started working

with jungle so i think most of them after that i i think i got more involved with the dsf and

like volunteer for the jungle con and things more behind the scenes i would say

is talking part of your job at fly you know do you have to no it's not so i i even i i wanted

to mention that uh i love talks but i hate public speaking so okay it is something that i need to

work on like it is one of the things uh fly will help with like public speaking or even like

practicing doing maybe

some workshops definitely they they have this kind of things so it is something that i intend to do

i don't know if this year at jungle con i'm gonna be like helping them uh as a volunteer so

i don't know if i'm gonna send but i want to come back uh like to talks basically giving a talk in

uh probably python brazil so like in portuguese and i don't know if like today if i feel more

comfortable giving talks in english or in portuguese like i feel it's really hard to

give a talk in portuguese now because most of the terms are in english so it is it is weird

but i'm thinking about like python brazil other than that i i still prefer the behind the scenes

like doing other other types of work basically well you could always do a lightning talk that's

only a few minutes yeah yeah i've only that's a great idea yeah i should i i can i can deploy

a jungle app to flying like three minutes yeah perfect there you are

live demo that's that's risking all the gods going wrong on you at that point about the languages

i think that's because okay spanish is not my first language but i you know because i don't work

in spanish like what oh god i have to think i have to sit there and pause what is the word for this

and what is the word for that every time so to do it the thought of doing a technical talk in spanish

is much scarier than doing one in english i know i'm native english speaker so it's it's not quite

analogous but that that technical term point it's ah what is how do i describe this in that language

yeah exactly or you if you translate it feels weird it feels wrong yeah or you just throw in

the english word and then it's like that's not very nice mixed yeah you speak german as well

now or do you speak german as well now no i don't okay so okay so we'll drop that bit then

i knew that berlin was uh like an international city but like it's always good to know the language

like i was living in czech republic for five years so i knew like i planned to start learning

german i didn't start and i feel like most of the time i don't need but when i need like i really

need so yeah uh i think most of the things that i need to do on the daily basis i can

i can do in english and there are the like the bureaucracy that i cannot do in in english most

of the things related to

visa when i left my job like it was really scary because i i quit and then i want to check like

okay i'm quitting my job what do i need because i had my visa um bounded to to the company and i

was like can i quit so i i had to go to those the the official place like for the work like you need

to let them know that you're leaving the job so this kind of situations it's really hard if you

don't know

like german so there are some situations

was there any um appeal of i mean spain is warm and spanish is not too dissimilar was there ever

any thought to that or i mean you know because i'm like i'm from cold climates but if i was from a

warm climate i don't you know berlin does not have the weather of munich right berlin sort of famously

doesn't have great weather it's always gray it's snowing today but it's not always like that but

it's always gray

i don't i don't mind about the weather like i i like some but i like cold weather

so i want to go north yeah yeah okay well i i feel the same way carlton and i discussed this i mean

he's he's his soul is warmer than mine i think yeah but well so i did want to mention um we're

almost up on time but there's a whole section on the fly site uh django beats that we'll put a link

to that has the articles that you've written that maria has written because yes they're specific to

fly but i think 80 of them is really just general fantastic advice on doing things with django

actually so i just want to shout shout out i always read read those and i'm like oh yeah that

i learned something and we feature them in the newsletter even though uh generally the django

news newsletter even though generally we don't do company specific things but if it's very well done

and very django e with a little add-on then we include it um but that's a that's a wonderful

section to to see that um are there any so i guess to form a question uh are you going to continue to

put the django content there or are there any big plans for that that section of the site yeah so

related to the the blog like um me and marius are uh writing for the blog basically what i'm

trying to do because uh marius is just writing for the blog and i'm trying to do a little bit of

just uh basically writing uh for the blog it doesn't have like a lot of time

i'm focusing on integrating fly and so i'm trying to understand more about fly and how to use

django inside the fly basically so i want to mix those things like marius usually

brings more like django content which is great and then i can focus more on like uh basically

uh django content which is great and then i can focus more on like uh basically

um mixing those uh fly and django yeah got it um well one one um the guest we had before you

was simon willison one of the creators of django who works on dataset and he's a big fan of fly.io

in large part because of the security around private containers which we don't have to get

into but i thought that was interesting that um i believe that's if not unique to fly that's an

unusual feature that when you're using fly you're not using fly you're not using fly you're not

a new instance on fly it's its own private container um so like for me when i was updating

my content on deployment from heroku to fly the fact that heroku is still git based so you get

push and then it puts it on aws whereas with fly it basically copies everything over to a container

and so um that's a shift for people who are used to git based deployment but seems to be

the way all the modern hosting providers are doing it you know not just

fly which is sort of interesting but something something to learn for the old dogs used to used

to get get pushes oh there are so many interesting features and i saw like simon talking to people

they're now like gpus now with fly so there are a lot of conversation like ai and i don't i don't

know exactly what he's doing but i know he's around there and talking to two people from the

company yeah i mean he can't keep up with him he's he's everywhere with ideas and insights

yeah god it's can't keep up with simon he's on duolingo too and i'm friends with him on

duolingo we had this this friend challenge that we had and uh i'd done seven lessons and he'd done

like 45 or something it was like okay yeah that's probably probably while walking his walking his

dog he was telling us that he he he codes while walking his dog he has his phone and uses uh

gpt to you know so he's just uh you know constantly constantly on the brain which is

very i i always come away being like i should be more passionate about coding talking to him right

i mean i am but like yeah levels so go ahead carlton no i was just gonna say it's one of

those things don't do is compare yourself to simon like it's no no no no don't do that um

is there anything we we we didn't ask you about or you want to raise as we conclude i know we um

talked about a lot of a lot of things but i you know having known you for all these years i never

knew that your real backstory on how you i just knew oh there's there's there's katya she lives

from brazil she lives in berlin but you know and then we talked about the matter at hand but none

of the you don't really get the chance to find out about someone in their in their real background

so now now you know do you have any questions

well i think i asked you my question like why don't you live somewhere warm

but you like the cold so that's oh yeah i like the cold weather oh i love snow oh at least for now

but let's see right well we have we'll have links to all these things um and again for those who do

speak um portuguese uh brazilian portuguese all your talks which you gave which people should go

and check out um and yeah thank you so much for coming on i hope i hope some listeners are thinking

about also hosting a conference and reaching out to the working group or or reaching out to you for

help on where to go from there yeah definitely thank you no thanks for coming on katya thank

you so much so we are jango chat.com and we'll see everyone next time bye