Looking back at my community journey in 2024, I must acknowledge that it was one of my most challenging years. I broke my ankle in a serious way, which required two surgeries, a month in the hospital, and several weeks in a wheelchair. During that time, co-organizing meetups and community events was a source of strength and connection.
Software Crafters Barcelona
I started my journey in the Barcelona tech communities in 2017 after attending https://softwarecrafters.barcelona/2017/index.html. The volunteer work to make that event happen, with talks that inspired me to change my career at a late stage, ignited me to join the conference organization in 2018 and stay until 2023.
During that time, Manuel Rivero (one of the community founders in 2013) offered to help restart our coding dojos. We restarted with my favorite event, the Global Day of Code Retreat (GDCR), back in 2022. I attended the GDCR in 2017, which was another reason for me to join the community.
2023 was probably our busiest year, though 2024 was not slow. We are running coding dojos regularly and some talks, workshops, architectural katas, and open spaces!
- 🥋 Coding Dojo @ Voxel 🎉
- Mocks aren’t Stubs. What are test doubles and how do we use them?
- Architectural Kata @Trainline
- Coding Dojo @ Adobe Commerce
- Coding dojo @Codurance
- Taller de Testcontainers con Go 🛠️
- Introducción a la CNV – Comunicación No Violenta
- 🥋 Coding Dojo @ LIFULL Connect 🎉
- Architectural Kata @Trainline
- Crafter’s Beers 🍻 , Fri, Mar 22, 2024, 7:00 PM | Meetup
- Coding dojo @Codurance, Mon, Apr 8, 2024, 6:30 PM | Meetup
- Open Space. Also published on Meetup
- 🛠️ Taller de DDD Refactor a arquitectura hexagonal @ Runroom
- Coding dojo @Runroom
- 🛠️ Taller de DDD El poder de los Value Objects @ Runroom
- Desarrollo evolutivo: la metodología del futuro
- Coding dojo @InnoIt
- Aprende a desactivar los mecanismos de la ansiedad @ Club Caramel
- Dojo Ingram Micro
- 🛠️ Taller de DDD Controlando el flujo con excepciones y alternativas @ Runroom
- Kata de arquitectura 🥋 en Collective Minds Radiology
- Respondiendo preguntas con historias
- 🛠️ Taller de DDD Definiendo el modelo de dominio con el “Domain model @ Runroom
- 🛠️ Taller de Product Minded Development @ Runroom
- Global Day of Code Retreat 2024 @Trainline
- 🛠️ Taller de DDD Descubriendo las responsabilidades del caso de uso @ Runroom
Cloud Native Barcelona
One of my favorite communities in Barcelona stopped operating during COVID-19 in 2020. In 2023, we gathered some of the original and new organizers and decided to restart the activity. This led to regular activity in our meetup in 2024 and the organization of KCD Barcelona 2024.
- Cloud Native Barcelona – meetup de enero 2024 ❄️
- Cloud Native Barcelona @ Adevinta, Thu, Mar 14, 2024, 7:00 PM and Cloud Native Barcelona at Adevinta, Thu, Mar 14, 2024, 7:00 PM
- Cloud Native Barcelona @ Dynatrace
- Décimo Aniversario de Kubernetes con el Mes de la QA 🎂, Tue, Jun 4, 2024, 6:30 PM | Meetup
- Transition to Multi-Arch Cloud &Securing Orgs with the Least Privilege Principle
- 🌱 Cloud Native Sustainability Week 2024 – Barcelona Edition 🌱
- Cloud Native Lisbon 🤝 Cloud Native Barcelona
- Cloud Native Barcelona Meetup: Kubernetes Operators & GitOps @MongoDB
Grafana & Friends
I joined Grafana Labs at the end of 2022 and have since helped organize the meetups that Gonçalo Pina and Raúl Marín started in the Iberia region. Gonçalo and Raúl’s support in 2024 goes beyond community organization; they have been there for me when I needed them. Regarding why building communities can also help a company, one of my favorite reads is from them: The Hidden SalesForce: Unleashing the Power of User Groups and Tech Communities.
- Volvemos a la carga con Grafana Labs y mucho más…
- Hablemos de trazas distribuidas con OpenTelemetry…
- Exploring Karpenter pitfalls 🪚 + Grafana for Alerting & Incident Management 🚨
- The Quest for Engineering Excellence: Observability with Grafana & Friends
- Meetup de verano 🏝️ con Grafana & Friends en Celonis
- Grafana & Friends Amsterdam Summer Meetup ☀️!
- De PostgreSQL en k8s a observabilidad a escala ¡Vuelve Grafana & Friends!
- Performance Day: del front a la observabilidad!
- Observabilidad y Performance, Mon
- Open Telemetry with Ocado Technology & Embrace
- Apache Kafka® Meetup
- Open Source Observability in Action with OpenTelemetry & the Grafana Stack
This is also the year I started organizing outside Iberia, with my first meetup in Amsterdam, and had the privilege to collaborate with communities like Kafka or WebPerf Barcelona.
DevOps BCN
In 2024, I met my now dear friend Julia Lamenza. It turns out that apart from being neighbours (we were introduced by a third person at KubeCon in Paris!), we both crave a more community-oriented DevOps conference in Barcelona. And we had been thinking of DevOpsDays.org. To find like-minded individuals in the community, we joined the DevOps BCN Group organization, and we hope this will help us bring DevOpsDays Barcelona back.
On to 2025!
After 2024, I have an even greater appreciation for all the communities and the people who make them special. Community building not only helps others but also provides personal support and resilience.
I am very excited to continue my community-building journey for 2025, and this will be the year to work on a topic that I feel passionate about: creating inclusive communities and making sure we hear diverse voices. I’ll continue trying to connect different communities with joint events. Stay tuned!
