Solver of problems, tester of code, lover of objects. Creator of RSpec, MiniMock, and even cooler things in the future. Summerside, PEI, Canada · http://stevenrbaker.com

Nic Benders is a Senior Software Engineer at New Relic and a renowned expert in full stack web app performance. He has worked in data centers and in Javascript - and everywhere in between. He's responsible for some of the major features of the New Relic products and is happy to tell you more than you want to know about them over a craft beer or two. He has moved from the hot-and-damp of North Carolina to the hot-only of San Diego and now resides in the wet-only of Portland, Oregon.

Matthew is passionate about delivering quality software at ludicrous speed. He believes in collaborative thinking in an open community based on trust, teamwork and transparency. Thirsty for knowledge, Matthew constantly finds himself at the business end of the firehose.

A product of The Ohio State University, Matthew received his B.S. in Computer Science & Engineering as well as minors in both Business and Japanese. Matthew has worked on many projects using many different technologies including Java, Python, Groovy, Perl, Ruby, JavaScript, Clojure and others. His love of dynamic languages has lead him to Ruby and an order of Clojure a la carte.

When he's not writing some wicked code, Matthew enjoys life outdoors on a sailboat, cycling, hiking, or laying in a hammock enjoying a fine wine.

No, he is not from Boston.

Robbie has been making phones ring, building clouds and making websites since 2005. He has been fortunate enough to have been practicing agile that whole time and moved to New York from London to join Pivotal Labs in early 2012 where he started working with Ruby and Rails

Jen Diamond does web work in Los Angeles. http://jendiamond.com

Software developer, contributor to open source, author and speaker, iconoclast. Ringleader at The Hybrid Group (http://hybridgroup.com)
Los Angeles - http://deadprogrammersociety.com

I consult with people to get them to a place where they are growing, learning, and making more money than they currently make. Usually ALOT more.
Los Angeles CA & Lake Tahoe NV · http://fent.me

Austin has been programming in Ruby for several years at companies, including, Yellowpages.com, AT&T Interactive and 72andSunny. He is currently a Software Architect at Spokeo. Austin currently resides in Burbank, CA with his cat Pam and is considered the preeminent connoisseur of tacos and cat youtube videos. As an avid video gamer, Austin ranks as: “Forever Bronze-leaguer” in Starcraft II and “Pro-feeder” in League of Legends. Rumor has it that he shares his deepest darkest secrets on Twitter at @austinrfnd.

Bjorn Freeman-Benson is the Vice President of Engineering at New Relic following an interesting career in software tools, most recently with the Eclipse Foundation supporting the leading open source Java IDE. Prior to that, he ran engineering for a reconfigurable hardware startup. Earlier in his career he held senior engineering positions at Amazon.com, Rational, and OTI. Bjorn holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Washington and spends his spare time orienteering, bicycling, or flying.

Juan Pablo has been developing software since he was 18 years old. With 16 years of experience and non-stop learning and having worked in companies of different sizes and industries, he turned to Ruby back in 2006. Since then he fell in love with the language and started developing web applications with Rails and scripting everything he could in Ruby. Currently working for Altoros Software Development, he is one of the most experienced Tech Leads in the company. Avid book reader, guitar player and tango dancer. More info? http://www.jpgenovese.com

Corey Haines started programming at the age of 10, on a computer his father (also a programmer) bought for him. He played lots of computer games, and when he couldn't win the games, he learned to read the source code and edit the outcome. These 'winning games' were his first software programs. He continued to hack, grew up, and began working as a professional software developer.

After 12 years of coding for money, Corey said: 'Enough!' and went on a year-long, Journeyman pair-programming tour. Traveling the world, coding for room and board, he spent his time teaching, learning, and living. Imagine a bee that cross pollinates software knowledge instead of flowers; that bee was Corey. And instead of wings, he had a little red car.

Since that tour ended in 2009, Corey has focused his attention on helping developers improve their fundamental software design skills through the use of focused-practice events, such as coderetreat. He also consults for business owners, helping them get the most value out of their software strategies. When not on the road, he spends his time building projects and products.

Bryan (@brynary) is the founder of Code Climate, an automated code review tool for Ruby apps, and the lead organizer of the Gotham Ruby Conference in NYC. For the last seven years, he's been an active in the Ruby community as an acclaimed speaker, author and open source contributor. In 2009, he received a Ruby Hero Award for his efforts.

Chris Hunt has recently moved from Seattle to San Francisco to join the engineering team at Square. Prior to Square, Chris has worked on Rails applications for Apple, the Department of Defense, and his very critical mother. When he's not writing Ruby, he's probably looking over your shoulder trying to learn something new.

Mike is a founder of Panoptic Development, where he writes web, mobile and embedded software for companies across the country. Mike enjoys studying dynamic languages and has been building Ruby- and Python-powered applications for clients since 2006. Mike resides in Providence, RI and is an avid musician and runner.

Jon has a Masters degree in Computer Science and approximately 10 years professional development experience. He has a wide variety of programming experience in many different environments from emergency management software to financial software to ad serving. He has programming experience in many languages on Windows, Linux, Mac OSX and a variety of commercial UNIX environments. He likes to actually ship functioning software and cares about business value. If you need a software development expert, he's your guy.

Mark Menard is the founder of Enable Labs, a boutique consulting firm specializing in Ruby on Rails development. Mark has spoken on Ruby at several events including BarCamp Albany and CodeCamp Albany. He has also spoken on Software Patents at TEDxAlbany in 2010. Mark frequently presents on Ruby issues at the TechValley Ruby Brigade; and does training sessions covering Ruby, Rails, refactoring, test/behavior driven development, and other software development topics. Mark used to be a Java developer and caught the dynamic language bug when he started coding in Groovy and then discovered Ruby. Since then he has added iOS development using Objective-C, Ruby's twin separated at birth.

I'm a front-end developer, lots of experience with HTML5 / Sass and Compass. I do have experience with RonR but am always improving my craft. Looking forward to meeting like minded gals to expand this skill! Can't wait. See you at the group!

Katrina ran away from the circus and found her true home in the land of computers and code. She enjoys optimizing and automating, taking busywork away from smart people and putting it into code where it belongs. She is the problem solver you want on your side. She is driven by an inexplicable urge to refactor, and has for the past 6 years volunteered as a nitpicker at the javaranch.com Cattle Drive, where she attempts to brainwash others to write clean code. She appreciates a good steak, and admits to enjoying a nice stick fight.

Over the past five years, Matt Parker has practiced BDD and collaborative specification by example at a variety of companies - from a multinational financial corporation spanning the globe and employing 80,000 people, to a self-funded two person startup. He's made all of the mistakes there are to make, but thankfully learned a thing or two along the way. He's now an agile consultent at Pivotal Labs where he helps clients get the most out of BDD.

ruby evangelist, founder @confreaks, organizer @larubyconf & @rbonales dad to multiple girls, and husband - opinions are my own not those of my employer - at&t
Bend, OR

Fiona Tay is a Ruby and JavaScript developer at Pivotal Labs. She first dabbled in HTML in 2000 and has since fallen in love with Rails, Ruby and RSpec. She calls both Singapore and San Francisco home.

Ryan Weald is a data scientist at Sharethrough where he uses data to improve advertising.

Ryan is passionate about machine learning, programming languages, bayesian analysis, and using data to improve peoples lives. He studied computer science and bioinformatics at UCSD before taking a leave of absence to try and make his mark in industry. In his spare time Ryan: hacks on healthcare, contributes to open source, and dodges sharks while surfing in Northern California.

Jim Weirich first learned about computers when his college adviser suggested he take a computer science course: "It will be useful, and you might enjoy it." With those prophetic words, Jim has been developing now for over 25 years, working with everything from crunching rocket launch data on supercomputers to wiring up servos and LEDs on micro-controllers. Currently he loves working in Ruby and Rails as the Chief Scientist at New Context, but you can also find him strumming on his ukulele as time permits.