If you build it, they will come.
Written by , July 25, 2018 When the leadership team decided to move AdRoll HQ to the spacious new location in the Mission, one has to wonder whether they had events such as last Wednesday’s evening gathering in mind. A crowd of 100+ Python enthusiast filled the all hands area to share in some delicious catered food and drinks as well as a bit of Python knowledge to boot. The gathering was part of SF Python Groups monthly Project Night event which is held every 3rd Wednesday of the month.
The guests started trickling in around 6:00 pm just as the freshly baked Empanadas were being served. The food and ice cold beverages were provided by AdRoll as gracious hosts. The proceedings were kicked off by Grace Law, who’s one of the original founders of the SF Python meetup group. Grace introduced Patrick Mee, Head of Engineering at AdRoll, who welcomed the growing crowd that had been networking while enjoying the delightful food and drinks. Patrick highlighted the tech stacks used by the engineering teams at AdRoll along with the reliance on Python as the glue to our various infrastructures. The tutorials for the evening along with the AdRoll mentors were also introduced.
Next came the lightning round where the floor was opened up to the audience for announcements. Whether one was seeking a new job opportunity or looking for mentorship and collaborators for a private project, this was an opportunity for individuals from the crowd to come up and introduce themselves to the gathering. The AdRoll HR team also had a presence with a booth filled with cool AdRoll swag to give away.
After the announcements had concluded, the guests dispersed to various parts of the all hands area to attend the tutorials for the evening. Some decided to just hang around to work on their projects and get help from the mentors. In order to accommodate the large group of people interested in attending the two AdRoll employee led tutorials, our amazing IT team made available the training rooms where everyone could comfortably sit.
Brian Weiser lead an engaging and informative tutorial on server-side rendering of react. This tutorial was geared for attendees with intermediate level competency of Python. Brian’s demo walked the audience step by step on how to convert a todo application written with React and a Flask backend to support server-side rendering. 
For those in the audience that were new to Python, I lead an introductory tutorial on Python and GraphQL. In the tutorial, I guided the audience on how to use the AdRoll GraphQL Reporting API endpoints to write their very first GraphQL query and execute it. 
On a personal level, I felt quite honored to be given an opportunity to host a tutorial for the SF Python meetup event. It’s been 4 years, though it felt like it was just yesterday, that I was in the audience attending my first Python meet up with the SF Python meetup group. Being able to share the knowledge I’ve gained over the years with the crowd was an amazing feeling and I’m truly grateful for AdRoll for being generous in providing a venue for the Project Night event: but more importantly a place for people of varying skills and knowledge to come together and share in ideas and learn from each other.
Are you interested in working with Python and joining in on all the fun? Come Roll with Us!