Chariot Solutions is producing a free, women-focused full-stack dev conference on Oct. 18

A new, one-day conference is coming to the Philly tech scene this fall with a focus on women working in or around full-stack development.

Software firm Chariot Solutions‘ cofounder and CMO Tracey Welson-Rossman is leading the initiative, meant to fill a very specific hole the company noticed in its Philly Emerging Technologies for the Enterprise Conference (ETE).

“Some of the feedback from ETE that we wanted to roll into this program was that there’s more women who are more at the beginning of their careers,” Welson-Rossman said. “We’re listening and we want to help women feel comfortable in an environment where they can level up their skills.”

The virtual conference, dubbed Philly Women in Tech, will be held on Oct. 18, and is meant for early-to-mid-career technologists in development. Maybe they’ve done some self-teaching, or have graduated from a development bootcamp, but are looking into how to advance to the next part of their career, Welson-Rossman said. The day will act as a guided tour of full-stack development with women in the industry leading dev talks.

The day begins at 8:45 a.m. with an intro from Welson-Rossman, then jumps into a session on UX design principles. It’s followed by a talk exploring current front-end trends and upcoming frameworks, then a session on “best practices of modern web development.” The afternoon will be spent talking REST APIs and DevOps for developers. And the conference has local partners in HopeWorks, Philly Tech Sistas and Women who Code.

The subject of the conference was chosen in part by Chariot’s own experience looking for developers. While Welson-Rossman said they’re often in search of mobile developers, consultations with local bootcamps pointed them toward leaning in to full-stack, one of the most popular certificates that bootcamp grads are receiving.

“A consultant I was recently talking to was moving from Ruby on Rails to Android and she said when you’re in software, you constantly have to be learning,” Welson-Rossman said. “We want to be able to give that experience to as many people as possible.”

The team at Chariot aimed to make the content as accessible as possible, with free registration and a schedule that doesn’t take up a full workday. Welson-Rossman said she hopes employers see the conference as a free upskilling tool and encourage employees to attend for some or all of the day. Where the company’s ETE conference is a “smorgasbord” — or wide range of tech topics, this conference is meant to be a “themed meal” on full-stack development.

“Any event we’re responsible for, it’s important that folks can walk away with info they can use in their daily job or in taking a look further into this career,” Welson-Rossman said.

Though the event is free, registration by Oct. 16 is required.