Guest Laura Santamaria, a developer and longtime community builder, discusses the importance of in-person interactions in tech communities. Topics include organizing meetups and conferences, understanding different forms of community, explaining memes, starting and running a successful meetup, and discovering tech events using tools like Luma.

Laura Santa Maria, a Principal Engineer at Red Hat and host of the Technically Leadership podcast, shares her insights on the leap from engineer to manager. She emphasizes the need to understand business dynamics and the emotional challenges of leadership, including the tough decisions around layoffs. Core traits for aspiring leaders like self-awareness and communication are discussed, alongside the concept of 'curated failure' as a learning tool. Finally, Laura highlights the unique advantages network engineers bring to leadership roles and the importance of mentorship in nurturing future leaders.