GDG IWD 2025 is set to redefine what's possible in technology and leadership! In collaboration with SoftServe and Women Techmakers, we’re bringing you an exclusive event for International Women's Day 2025, dedicated to empowering women in tech through honest stories, practical insights, and personal growth.
Featuring talks that tackle real-world challenges - from navigating the complexities of launching your own product, to ensuring robust cloud security, and overcoming self-doubt - this event will offer engaging sessions, genuine discussions, and invaluable networking opportunities.
Join us to celebrate, support each other, and truly #RedefinePossible! 👩💻🚀
Agenda:
Title: Securing GKE Clusters: Practical CIS Compliance
Speaker: Jagoda Sateja – Durczewska
Keeping your GKE clusters secure isn’t just about ticking boxes — it’s about building a resilient, well-protected environment that stands up to real-world threats. This session dives into CIS Benchmark best practices for GKE, covering identity management, network security, audit logging, and workload protection. We’ll break down what compliance really means, why it matters, and how to automate security controls with Terraform, making security a seamless part of your workflow.
Title: Launching a Product as a Developer: Reality Check
Speaker: Nastassia Danilava
As developers, we often focus on building things — features, architecture, and clean code. But launching your own product is a completely different challenge. In this talk, I'll share my experience of starting and shutting down my own project, the real obstacles I faced beyond development, and the benefits I have in the end.
Title: Debugging Self-Doubt: A Framework for Building Confidence
Speaker: Natalia Nazaruk
Ever feel like you’re just one tough question away from being “exposed” at work? Like everyone else belongs here—except you?
In this talk, we’ll apply a debugging mindset to imposter syndrome and self-doubt, breaking it down with a simple framework that helps you identify confidence crashes, isolate the root cause, and deploy long-term fixes.
If you've ever second-guessed yourself before pushing code for review or hesitated to speak up, this talk is for you.
Because just like code, confidence isn’t perfect—but with the right mindset, you can always refactor and improve it.
Agenda
5:00 PM: Registration
Grab your badge, smile for no reason, and pretend you know where to go. We’ve got you covered 😄
5:30 PM: Welcome
The “hello everyone!” part where we wave awkwardly and explain why we’re here 👋
5:45 PM: Talk 1: "Securing GKE Clusters: Practical CIS Compliance: Jagoda Sateja-Durczewska
Keeping your GKE clusters secure isn’t just about ticking boxes—it’s about building a resilient, well-protected environment that stands up to real-world threats. This session dives into CIS Benchmark best practices for GKE, covering identity management, network security, audit logging, and workload protection. We’ll break down what compliance really means, why it matters, and how to automate security controls with Terraform, making security a seamless part of your workflow. 🔐
6:15 PM: Talk 2: Launching a Product as a Developer: Reality Check – Nastassia Danilava
As developers, we often focus on building things—features, architecture, clean code. But launching your own product is a completely different challenge. In this talk, I'll share my experience of starting and shutting down my own project, the real obstacles I faced beyond development, and the benefits I have in the end. 📱
6:45 PM: Short Break
Time to stretch your legs, check your notifications, or locate the restroom like a conference pro 🚶♀️📱🚪
7:15 PM: Talk 3: Debugging Self-Doubt: A Framework for Building Confidence – Natalia Nazaruk
Ever feel like you’re just one tough question away from being “exposed” at work? Like everyone else belongs here—except you?
In this talk, we’ll apply a debugging mindset to imposter syndrome and self-doubt, breaking it down with a simple framework that helps you identify confidence crashes, isolate the root cause, and deploy long-term fixes.
If you've ever second-guessed yourself before pushing code for review or hesitated to speak up, this talk is for you.
Because just like code, confidence isn’t perfect—but with the right mindset, you can always refactor and improve it.
7:45 PM: Quiz time
Want to win some fun prizes? 🎁 Make sure to stay until this part 🏆
8:00 PM: Networking
Now’s the time to say “I loved your talk” or “do you have LinkedIn?” without it being weird. 🤝💬
8:45 PM: Doors Close
Time to say goodbye before security starts giving us “the look.” Leave inspired, not escorted 🚪😉
