Kate Kirwin - Building good developers - Laracon AU 2025

Kate from She Codes Australia explains how mentoring and teaching others can dramatically improve your own skills through the protégé effect. With research, real stories, and practical insights, this talk shows how giving back to the community can level up your technical ability, communication, and confidence. 📚 ## Chapters 00:40 Introduction to Kate, Marc, and live doodling 01:55 What She Codes does and why community matters 02:25 Teaching Python and React at a Laravel conference 03:15 The Stanford protégé effect study 05:00 Why teaching helps you learn and retain more 05:25 Audience poll on mentoring and imposter syndrome 06:00 Mentoring as a selfish and selfless act 07:05 You do not need to be an expert to teach 08:30 Deepening fundamentals by explaining the “why” 10:00 Reinforcing best practices through modelling behaviour 12:30 Learning new tools and ideas from students 13:30 Marc’s story on learning from a mentee 15:15 Soft skills and why developers are paid to think 16:30 Breaking down complex problems and rubber ducking 18:10 Communication, empathy, and diverse perspectives 19:40 A powerful story about being a minority 22:00 Closing reflections and call to mentor others https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-kirwin/ https://laracon.au