Erika Gili

Get to know Erika 🎙️

Can you start by painting a picture of what a typical day looks like for you? What fuels your passion for the work you do, and how does it tie into your involvement with WCEU?

In my day job I have different kind of tasks, because I currently serve as the tech lead of the project we are going to talk about, and I also contribute to some company’s internal projects. I have chosen to work in the software development field because I have a strong passion for development, and my previous career as an energy engineer was not satisfying me. I’m the kind of person who needs to have a strong reason to spend 8 hours a day working, and I found software development gave me the right food for my brain. While growing my seniority, I found myself eager to share, having really good mentor relationships with junior developers, and out of this willingness I started to propose myself as a speaker for my local WordPress meetups and for WordCamps. Being selected as a speaker for WordCamp Europe is actually the cherry on top of this personal path.

What sparked your interest in becoming a speaker at WCEU? Was there a particular moment or experience that motivated you to share your insights with this community?

The experience we are going to share during our speech has been so interesting from a lot of points of view that, as soon as we delivered the most complex parts, I said to Luis: “This is something worthy of presenting at WordCamp Europe!”

For those awaiting your talk, could you give us a preview of what we can expect to learn from your talk? Any sneak peeks?

We have structured the talk in a way to convey a lot of different learnings: we had a unique experience migrating this complex legacy website to WordPress, and we have tried both to give the context of the decisions and to extract generic takeaways.

Is it your first time at a WCEU or WordPress event? Any standout memories or lessons learned that you’d like to share?

It will be my first WCEU, but the fifth as a speaker. What I learned may seem trivial, but it could be helpful for other introverts like myself, so allow me to share. At my first WordCamp (the only one where I haven’t spoken), I was surprised that speakers were ‘among’ the attendees because I considered them VIPs, too important to even talk with me. Then, when I became a speaker myself, I observed the same respect in the eyes of the attendees around me, but I felt this was inhibiting others from interacting with me, as it had happened to me. So, my lesson learned is: speakers are normal people with something to share, and they love the community, so please don’t be afraid of connecting with speakers!

Looking beyond the scheduled sessions, what do you hope attendees will take away from their overall experience at WCEU? How can they leverage the event to enhance their professional development or personal growth? 

I hope they will take away smiles, hugs, and sparkling ideas. My personal advice would be to meet new people being open-minded.