jenn schiffer
- director of community @ fastly/glitch
- bs + ms, computer science
- writer, speaker, community organizer
The short version
Jenn Schiffer is a Director of Community working on Glitch, now a part of Fastly, where she's responsible for supporting, growing and advocating for the friendliest community of coders.
The long version
Jenn Schiffer is a Director of Community working on Glitch, now a part of Fastly, where she's responsible for supporting, growing and advocating for the friendliest community of coders. She hasn't won any awards (not mad).
Jenn earned both a Bachelors and Masters in Computer Science from Montclair State University, then joining the department to work on undergraduate and graduate level curriculum, accreditation, and advising of hundreds of students. She's taught tech literacy to non-technical majors, web development fundamentals to graduate Computer Science students, and haters how to love.
A proponent of open and ethical web technology, she left academia to work in the web development industry, first as senior engineer at the National Basketball Association, open web engineer at Bocoup, and then as Glitch's first Community Engineer. She's built software that runs the gamut from sports stats delivery and healthcare price crowdsourcing, to pixel art creation tools and databases helping doctors find the best cancer treatment for their patients.
She has spoken all over the world at nearly 100 events about JavaScript, ethics, and art. Jenn is based in Jersey City, where she has organized the developer meetup JerseyScript, was a founding core team member of the 2nd iteration of Code For Jersey City and an Honorary Emerging Philanthropist at the Women's Prison Association.
CV
Work experience
- Fastly (acquired Glitch) β Director of Community (May 2022 - present)
- Glitch β Director of Community (August 2018 - May 2022)
- Fog Creek β Community Engineer, Glitch (February 2017 - August 2018)
- Bocoup β Open Web Engineer (April 2014 - February 2017)
- National Basketball Association β Senior Front-end Developer (July 2013 - April 2014)
- Montclair State University β Department Administrator (July 2011 - May 2013)
- Baristanet.com β Web Developer (April 2008 - April 2014)
- Montclair State University β Graduate Assistant and Adjunct (September 2007 - 2011)
Education
- Montclair State University β Master of Computer Science
- Montclair State University β Bachelor of Computer Science
Organizations
- Womenβs Prison Association β Honorary Emerging Philanthropist
- JerseyScript meetup β founder, organizer
Speaking experience
Highlights
- "condemned to compute" - causal islands, april 2023
- shift shift forward, april 2020
- "no one expects the lady code troll" - xoxo, september 2016
- "what's the harm in sorting" - jsconf, may 2014
- "sorting out sorting" - empire js, april 2014
Podcasts I've been a guest on
- the dev stream, january 2022
- sustain oss, november 2020
- stack overflow podcast, may 2020
- shift shift forward, april 2020
- policy viz, january 2018
- mozilla's irl podcast, january 2018
- indiedotes, august 2017
- greater than code, july 2017
- stack overflow podcast (guest host)
- js party, march 2017
- stack overflow podcast, march 2017
- greater than code, february 2017
- studio360, march 2015
- javascript jabber, december 2014
- codenewbie, december 2014
- strange beings, august 2014
- ladies in tech, may 2014
- frip frap, february 2014
- shop talk show, october 2013
Workshops I've given
- "welcome to my guestbook - going from static to full-stack on glitch" - dinosaur js, june 2018
- "decoded: intro to javascript" - the wing, december 2017
- "building a better web with glitch" - devfest nyc, december 2017
- "decoded: intro to css and a11y" - the wing, november 2017
- "decoded: intro to the web and html" - the wing, november 2017
- "intro to js and twitter bots" - Tufts WIT, october 2017
- "going front-end to full-stack with glitch" - empireconf, october 2017
Conference & meetup talks
- "condemned to compute" - causal islands, april 2023
- "javascript after dark" - jsconf eu, june 2019
- "...a sunday morning keynote" - !!con, may 2019
- "mass incarceration β₯ technology" - womens prison association ep meeting, march 2019
- "introducing jennchat" - processing community day nyc open mic, february 2019
- "what can you make on glitch" - kickstarter creative, january 2019
- "what's the harm in 'hello world'" - nysais neit, november 2018
- "technology wasn't born bad, we just wrote it that way, pt 2" - women techmaker's summit, october 2018
- "putting your best 'hello world' forward" - apistrat, september 2018
- "opening keynote" - xoxo art + code night, september 2018
- "literally everything is pixel art" - jsconf us, august 2018
- "art and technology, great but also bad, pt 2" - write/speak/code nyc, august 2018
- "technology wasn't born bad, we just wrote it that way" - ccfest nyc, may 2018
- "art and technology, great but also bad" - generate nyc, april 2018
- "a topic of utmost hexcellence" - brooklyn js, december 2017
- "building a better web with glitch" - devfest nyc, december 2017
- "abstract art in a time of minification" - ffconf, november 2017
- "jenn's catskillsconf talk..." - catskillsconf, october 2017
- keynote - fullstackfest, september 2017
- "building a better web using glitch" - o'reilly fluent, june 2017
- "what if twilio could..." - twilio signal, may 2017
- "we don't learn alone" - devxcon, may 2017
- "listen and/or watch as i deconstruct the real web developer" - deconstructconf, april 2017
- "something about art + code" - codenewbie nyc, september 2016
- "no one expects the lady code troll" - xoxo, september 2016
- "does jenn schiffer think code and art go together? duh of course she does. and here is some proof." - microsoft open js day, december 2015
- "deconstructing the pixel (for artists)" - software for artists day, december 2015
- "deconstructing the pixel (using javascript) (and other things)" - jsconf colombia, october 2015
- "an intro to pxon, or 'what i did during summer vacation'" - brooklyn js, september 2015
- "jenn schiffer's serious talk about arrays, or 'arrays the roof;'" - txjs, july 2015
- "how to be a real web developer" - irl club, june 2015
- "who visualized the bomp" - web rebels, may 2015
- "drawing lines with bresenham's line algorithm" - code genius, march 2015
- "anything you can paint, i can program better" - jquery uk, march 2015
- "state of the malware" - dhtmlconf oakland, december 2014
- "learning to love selfies with pixel art" - brooklyn js, november 2014
- "javascripting matisse" - manhattan js, november 2014
- "growing up wordpress" - wordcamp sf, october 2014
- "your grandparents probably didn't have node" - thunderplains js, october 2014
- "hypertext markup art" - asbury agile, october 2014
- "there are hot local jquery tables in your area" - jquery chicago, september 2014
- "a career of being lazy using wordpress" - wordcamp nyc, august 2014
- "color pickle" - boston js, june 2014
- "what's the harm in sorting" - jsconf, may 2014
- "jenn's good ideas for monetizing c.s.s.β’" - cssconf, may 2014
- "sorting out sorting" - empire js, april 2014
- "malware" - dhtmlconf, march 2014
- "how to avoid work and bring your coworkers together using javascript" - brooklyn js, january 2014
- "art-up with markup" - nyc html5 meetup, january 2014
- "kiss my canvas" - jquery austin, september 2013
- "learn code, make art" - jquery portland, june 2013
Conferences i've emcee'd:
- xoxo art + code night, september 2018
- dinosaur js, june 2018
- dinosaur js, june 2017
- dinosaur js, june 2016
- cssconf nordic, may 2016
- dhtmlconf oakland, december 2014
- cssconf us, may 2014