On April 4th and 5th, 2024, Doximity sponsored Tropical.rb, also known as "The Latin America Rails Conference," in São Paulo, Brazil. This event gathered developers from across Latin America and beyond. It served as a dynamic platform for discussing Ruby on Rails, sharing knowledge, and networking among professionals in the field.
The Doximity team at Tropical.rb
Doximity has utilized Ruby on Rails since its founding, attributing significant success to the framework. The timing of the recent conference coincided with a resurgence in Rails' popularity, marked by new features and increased adoption among start-ups and new companies.The framework's robust foundation is evidenced by its daily use in major companies such as Doximity, Shopify, AppSignal, and 37Signals.
The Tropical.rb conference featured keynotes from prominent Rails core team members Aaron Patterson and Eileen Uchitelle, who provided deep dives into the internals of Rails, explaining some of its magic. Rafael França shared insights on his experiences and the pivotal role of the Ruby on Rails community. The event highlighted numerous success stories of projects and companies built using Rails.
Further excitement was generated by discussions on upcoming features in Rails 8, such as Propshaft, Kamal, and Thruster, detailed in Breno Gazzola's keynote. A central theme of the conference was Rails' suitability as a "one-person framework", with Rails 8 advancements reinforcing this concept.
Rails Girls São Paulo
The day after Tropical.rb, Doximity, in partnership with The Rails Foundation, sponsored the latest edition of Rails Girls São Paulo, a global non-profit initiative dedicated to introducing women of all ages to the world of software development. This edition of Rails Girls focused on empowering women with a programming background to improve their skills and guide them in their journey from junior to mid-level positions and beyond.
Our SVP of Engineering, Bruno Miranda, attended the event, along with a few software engineers from our team who served as engineering mentors during the event.
Pictured from left to right: Douglas Andrade, Bruno Miranda, Camila Tormena, Amanda Perino (from the Rails Foundation), Julio Monteiro and David Bruisius.
The event focused on a collaborative Ruby on Rails project that allowed users to find mentors based on their learning interests. Each mentor at the event partnered with about five mentees to develop the app, mirroring a real-world software development environment. Mentors assumed roles akin to product managers and tech leads.
Groups working during the event
Activities included extensive teamwork, networking opportunities, and an inspiring Ask Me Anything (AMA) session with prominent women from the Rails community, such as Amanda Perino from the Rails Foundation and Eileen Uchitelle, from the Rails Core team. The event concluded with participants sharing their experiences, highlighting the positive and emotional impact of the day.
As mentors, we saw firsthand what happens when these inspiring women meet in a group that empowers them and offers a supportive environment for growth and collaboration.
Group photo of participants and mentors
Our Personal Experiences
Camila
The returning edition of Tropical.rb was excellent; it was easy to see how much hard work and passion the organizers put into it. I had the opportunity to meet amazing people, and learn from and be inspired by the speakers, attendees, and the community as a whole.
The enthusiasm from the conference was compounded by the Rails Girls event. It got me thinking about how lucky I've been to have met incredible people throughout my career who believed in my work and gave me the opportunity to grow and advance. I've been at Doximity for five years and have always felt safe and valued here. I hope that junior developers entering the industry can have a similar experience and feel that they belong.
It was an amazing, although unusual, experience to see a room full of women coding, which definitely pulled on my heartstrings. For women just starting out, I know from my own experience how important it is to see other women further along in their careers. In 2017, I was a junior engineer and saw Eileen Uchitelle present at RailsConf in Phoenix, AZ. She had just joined the Rails Core team, and although I don't remember the technical details of her talk, I remember how inspiring (and cool!) I thought she was. After seven years, I had the opportunity to meet her during the Rails Girls event, and that meant a lot to me.
This experience reminded me just how impactful these events can be, not only in terms of learning new skills but also in building confidence and community. I'm grateful for the opportunities I've had, and I’m excited to continue learning and being a part of the vibrant Rails community.
Douglas
In the past, I was very involved with the Brazilian Python and Archlinux communities. Tropical Ruby was my first Ruby on Rails conference, and it is one of the best conferences I have ever attended. There were great talks covering various topics, excellent speakers, an amazing venue, and a top-notch organization.
I learned much about recent Rails features, like Turbo, Hotwire, Strada, and Kamal. I was also inspired by Brazilian entrepreneurs who shared their experiences building companies using Ruby on Rails as their tech stack of choice.
After Tropical Ruby, I went to Rails Girls as a mentor with other Doximity developers. It was a very transformative experience because there were women from many different backgrounds sharing the same dream to get better and grow their careers.
To replicate the day-to-day operations of a software development company, we tried to work on only one feature so we could cover software engineering disciplines such as testing, proper development environment setup, and infrastructure. This way, they could add some of these new techniques to their repertoire.
I'm grateful and honored to be part of initiatives like Rails Girls and to have the opportunity to meet and learn from these incredibly smart and courageous women.
Final words
Sponsoring these events reflects Doximity's dedication to nurturing talent and promoting diversity in tech. By empowering women to pursue their dreams and career aspirations, Doximity emphasizes skill development and career advancement.
Finally, the event served as a testament to the dynamic and collaborative spirit of the Rails community, with a diverse lineup of speakers, including members from the Rails Core team, the Rails Foundation, and creators of unique products built with Rails.
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