Can Creative Hobbies & Projects Boost Your Soft Skills As A Developer? - Amy Jo Turner

ACCU Membership: https://tinyurl.com/ydnfkcyn --- The Craft of Code - Can Creative Hobbies & Projects Boost Your Soft Skills As A Developer? - Amy Jo Turner - ACCU York --- Our hobbies aren’t just fun—they can transform the way we approach work and personal growth. In The Craft of Code, Rust engineer Amy shares how her love for cosplay empowered her soft skills, boosted her confidence, and shaped her career in programming. From expanding comfort zones to overcoming perfectionism, Amy shows how side projects and hobbies contribute to skill development, perseverance, and career growth. Learn how dedicating time to your passions can improve both your technical abilities and soft skills as a developer. Discover how cosplay and creative hobbies enhanced Amy’s Rust programming journey, helping her tackle complex projects, mentor colleagues, and gain perspective on personal and professional progress. This talk highlights the symbiotic relationship between personal hobbies and engineering productivity, providing insights for programmers seeking career empowerment, creativity in coding, and a mindset for continuous growth. Whether you’re a Rust engineer, a hobbyist, or just someone looking to expand your comfort zone, this talk offers actionable lessons on balancing coding, creativity, and confidence. Watch and get inspired to pursue your hobbies, develop new skills, and harness the full potential of your side projects to become a better developer and person. Keywords: Soft Skills, Rust programming, Rust engineer, Cosplay, Creative Hobbies, Side Projects, Personal Development, Confidence building, Creativity in coding, Skill development through hobbies, Career empowerment, Perseverance in tech, Overcoming perfectionism, Comfort zone expansion, Side projects for developers, Coding mindset, Engineering productivity tips, Technical talk, Programming motivation, Hobby coding, Creative engineering, Career growth tips 0:00 Introduction: Amy and the connection between cosplay and engineering 0:40 Confidence: Overcoming fear and expanding comfort zones 2:28 Perspective: Recognizing progress and personal growth in coding 6:33 Perseverance: Trusting the process in long-term projects 9:09 Perfectionism: Learning to finish projects and embrace MVPs 11:14 Diversify: Using hobbies to develop creativity and balance life 13:05 Conclusion: Empowerment, hobbies, and personal development --- Amy Jo Turner A software engineer in the platform infrastructure space; writing Rust by day & creating art and costume by night. I'm passionate about improving myself and sharing with others. --- ACCU The tagline for the ACCU is 'Professionalism in Programming', which captures the whole spectrum of programming languages, tools, techniques and processes involved in advancing our craft. While there remains a core of C and C++ - with many members participating in respective ISO standards bodies - the conference, like the organisation, embraces other language ecosystems and you should expect to see sessions on C#, D, F#, Go, Javascript, Haskell, Java, Kotlin, Lisp, Python, Ruby, Rust, Swift and more.The ACCU Conference is a conference by programmers for programmers about programming. Discounted rates for members. ACCU Membership: https://tinyurl.com/ydnfkcyn 2025 Program: https://accu.org/conf-previous/accu2025/ https://accu.org https://www.accuconference.org/ https://mastodon.social/@ACCUConf   / accu-conference   https://bsky.app/profile/accuconf.bsk...   / accuorg     / accuconf   --- YouTube Videos Filmed, Edited & Optimised by Digital Medium: https://events.digital-medium.co.uk --- #softskills #softskill #accuconf #programming #engineer #softwareengineer #softwareengineering #cosplay #developer #programming #programmer #coder #code