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2025

The Tech Market: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Hi! My name is Omar, and I'm happy to be a recent contributor to the weekly dev chats. I'm looking forward to hosting along with Chris and Norman after they put me through an arduous 8-week interview process where they give me 12 unsolvable technical assessments to be done on my own time without compensation. Actually, that’s not true. They're pretty nice people. In all seriousness, though, this does seem to be the state of the current job market for many developers and is what inspired an impromptu discussion during this week's dev chat.

During the chat, a comment was made by someone about how we're returning to a 'zero-trust' industry. Presumably, this was the case following the dot-com bust of the 1990s. Trust is hard to build, and that's probably where many companies and hiring personnel are finding themselves: a position of asking who to trust enough as a potential hire. It's a tough question. People breaking into the industry and those getting back into the job market may have to go back to more traditional ways of building trust to counter the overly-automated, globalized, AI-driven landscape. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as the human connections may come readily to those that have been doing the hard work already. One suggestion from a fellow weekly-dev-chatter was to consider going and writing an actual physical letter/cover letter and sending that to hit the point home that you are serious and real. Food for thought in the new wild west. Cue The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly theme

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Unconference

Good morning, Dev Edmonton! I’m pleased to host today’s meeting. For today’s #meetup-weekly-dev-chat, we’re having an 'unconference.' Instead of a formal topic, bring your own. Share questions, gripes, concerns, praises, beefs, or bouquets. It’s open and unscripted—real talk or silly, anything goes. Come ready to chat and riff off each other. You can get started by posting ideas below.

Everyone and anyone are welcome to join as long as you are kind, supportive, and respectful of others. Zoom link will be posted at 12pm MDT.

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Supply chains

Today we're discussing software development supply chains. For example, are your dependencies completely open source, or do you buy commercial libraries? Do you rely on tools like Balsamiq, or Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator? Are you deploying your software in the cloud or on-site? Do you sell your work in any of the app stores?

Everyone and anyone are welcome to join as long as you are kind, supportive, and respectful of others. Learn how to join the chat, and other useful information, here.

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