Ellyse Cedeno

They wanted to get Discord messages imported into the system. This service didn’t need to integrate with any of our existing libraries. This was it. I slowly realised: my chance to write this in Elixir! Unfortunately, they didn’t love functional programming languages – they almost didn’t hire me because I seemed too “FP”. But nothing ventured, nothing gained. I typed out “git push”, I clicked Enter. Took a deep breath and hoped I wouldn’t get fired. We’ve all been forced to adopt the tech stack at the companies we’ve worked at. Wouldn’t it be nice to use Elixir instead? I’ve been lucky enough to actually work on technology that I found interesting, whether that meant mounting a satellite dish on the top of our building at Netscape to get stock information (yes, the old days!) on our SGI servers or Elixir for games and AI. Or is it luck? Sometimes the benefit of choice comes with your title and position, or the relationship you have with the decision makers. But sometimes, it’s just about finding the right opportunity and approach. This talk explores the soft strategies I’ve employed to achieve this – and how “soft” doesn’t always mean easy. Soft can be hard.

Key Takeaways: Mark Zuckerberg recently said that corporate culture has become too “neutered.” But in many cultures, that energy often shows up as force, dominance, and heated debates. Not everyone, especially devs, are built for that. This talk is about a quieter path. Using Elixir adoption as a real-world example, you’ll walk away with:

• Examples and strategies for introducing Elixir into a team without needing permission, seniority, or confrontation
• A framework for soft influence - mostly centered around the individual, how they can effectively employ soft influence for success (and definitely not manipulation for selfish purposes)
• Recognition that not all devs are loud, and that’s not a weakness
• Insights that apply beyond tech adoption: to career growth, team culture, and self-trust This perspective is especially relevant in Europe, where companies sometimes mimic the tech companies in the US, but many others are looking for ways to build a different culture and still remain competitive. Instead of the startup mold where “alpha behaviour” is the norm, this talk offers a different path: quiet, effective, and human relationship based.

Target Audience:

• Developers (indiv contributors) who are struggling to find their voice and influencing decision makers. Tech leads / CTO / managers who want to use Elixir or enact technical change. I don’t think this will be very technical, so even people coming here who aren’t technical can find the talk relatable.