Debbie O’Brien

I studied web design from 1997 to 1999 and built websites before we even had the internet installed in the collage. I got my first job in tech in 1999 working with Dreamweaver and floppy disks. But the web was pretty boring back then so I left to be a hotel entertainer on a stage in Mallorca.

From 2007 to 2016 I worked for various companies where I was responsible for the content and graphics, newsletter designs, banners and programming of landing pages and Wordpress websites as well as rebranding and architecture and migrating from CSS to Sass.

In 2017 I went back to full time education to finally master JavaScript and studied and completed a Frontend Tech degree with OpenClassrooms for 9 months as well as a Full Stack Tech degree with Treehouse, learning not just JavaScript but also Node.js, testing, databases and I created many projects using JavaScript including games and a restaurant review site built in Node.js.

I then went on to work for Bluekiri, where I worked on the analysis, selection, adoption and integration of new technologies and maintenance of current tech. I designed, architected and built a custom frontend framework and become Microsoft certified in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3.

I then worked as a Frontend Tech Lead giving workshops to various clients and I worked on large scale projects as a tech lead making sure best practices were met and that sites were as performant as possible. I also worked as a mentor for both OpenClassrooms and Treehouse.

In 2020 I worked as an Advocate for the Nuxt framework working on docs, creating examples and videos, speaking at conferences and on podcasts and building the community. I created the Ambassadors program to help others advocate for Nuxt as well as managed the open source docs site.

In 2021 I worked as an Advocate for Bit, a Component Driven Development tool, building within the product as well as creating demos, giving conference talks, podcasts, creating video material, improving documentation and reaching out to the community. Demos included an e-commerce store built from components in React and TypeScript.

I now work for Microsoft as a Senior Program Manager advocating for Playwright and e2e testing.

I am Google Developer Expert in web technologies, Cloudinary Media Developer Expert and former Microsoft Most Valuable Professional in developer technologies and Github Star Alumni. International Conference Speaker. Teacher, blogger and Open Source contributor.

Besides Tech I also love Sport and believe in challenging yourself in everything you do and helping others along the way.