CEI Attends the 2024 Kansas City Developer Conference

On June 27th and 28th, senior developers and engineers from CEI attended the Kansas City Developer Conference (KCDC) in downtown Kansas City, Missouri. Unlike conferences focused on oil and gas, pressure equipment, or industry standards, KCDC centered on best practices and emerging technologies in software development. The event featured over fifteen topic streams, including DevOps, Data Science & AI, and Human Skills. Each attendee participated in approximately a dozen sessions and had the chance to interact with vendors specializing in development tools and data science, as well as sponsors seeking new talent. Social events like happy hours, karaoke outings, and speaker-led comedy shows added a fun, networking dimension to the experience. 

Why Does CEI Find This Important?

It's easy to see why attending ASME code and standards meetings is critical for staying updated on regulations impacting our solutions. But why are software development conferences equally valuable?

To us, it's simple. Software is the core of our business, and like any other field, it has its own ecosystem of tools, development environments, and practices that progress rapidly. Staying ahead of these trends improves the reliability, speed, performance, data security, and user satisfaction of our products. Eventually, understanding and adopting new technologies in software development helps us build better, faster, and more secure solutions.

Why Should Mechanical Engineers Attend? 

At CEI, our mechanical engineers don't just work on physical solutions; many of them are deeply involved in software design, development, and testing. Whether in dedicated subject matter expert roles or hybrid developer-engineer positions, they collaborate closely with software teams. Developing a formula in Excel is vastly different from coding it in C#.

Beyond the formula itself, engineers must consider factors like user experience, data normalization, scalability, and multi-user access—all key to building functional, high-performing software. 

What Did We Learn? 

We attended sessions on staying connected with remote teams, safeguarding content in an AI-driven world, engaging end users, communicating technical concepts to non-technical audiences, and managing burnout in the tech industry. 

One of the most valuable takeaways for us was learning how to better communicate with both our team and our customers. We realized that regular, meaningful interactions are key to alignment and progress. Since the conference, majority of us have increased the frequency of 1:1 meetings with our team members from monthly to weekly, which has fostered stronger collaboration and provided more opportunities for addressing challenges early. We also learned new ways to clearly communicate technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders, ensuring that our customers and end users feel more engaged and understood throughout the development process. This shift has helped build stronger relationships, allowing us to incorporate their feedback more effectively and create software solutions that better meet their needs. 

Additionally, we now supplement end-user feedback by collecting valuable insights from internal sources like tech support tickets and our sales team. This holistic approach to communication ensures that we are addressing concerns and opportunities from all angles, leading to more targeted and impactful software improvements.

Our Takeaways from KCDC

The Kansas City Developer Conference provided CEI with critical insights into the growing industry of software development and how certain factors can affect our operations. By attending, we added to our knowledge of current industry practices, strengthened internal and external communication, and implemented practical changes that will contribute to future development efforts. 

The value gained from this conference will directly support CEI’s commitment to delivering high-quality, efficient, and secure software solutions to our customers. Continuing to engage in industry-wide learning opportunities like KCDC is essential for maintaining our competitive edge and ensuring we remain at the forefront of both software and engineering innovation. To connect with us on LinkedIn to learn about local events in Kansas City or specific code events, we can help. Follow us below!