Adaptable Innovation: How Microsoft Leverages React Native for Strategic Advantage

Interview:

What's the focus of your work these days?

Having the double role of Senior Software Engineer at Microsoft and maintainer of React Native, my focus these days is around enabling my colleagues to leverage this tool efficiently for our internal needs and bridge the communication between Microsoft and Meta and other key partners. This requires both technical work in the Open Source space and many meetings and communications - I jokingly tell folks that my role is that of an international diplomat.

What's the motivation for your talk at QCon London 2024?

Despite React Native having been around for over 8 years at this point and having companies like Meta, Microsoft and Amazon using it for key products, many people still do not know about it or its unique assets. With this talk, I want to give folks some semi-detailed technical understanding of what makes it so beneficial in many situations and share some insights on key advantages that might only be clear when developing at the Microsoft scale.

How would you describe your main persona and target audience for this session?

When I think of the target for this talk, I imagine people with a good grasp of the Javascript and React space or native platforms such as desktop and mobile; that said, I'm mostly interested in giving people insights and knowledge that they can use in their decision-making rooms, so leads and architects, and I hope that the balance between technical details and strategical insights will be useful to everyone interested, independently from familiarity with this tech stack.

Is there anything specific that you'd like people to walk away with after watching your session?

I'd like them to walk out with three thoughts: 

1. React Native is incredibly adaptable. 
2. If the right situation arises at our company, we should consider leveraging it.
3. Microsoft is a key player in this ecosystem.