Tres (he/him) is a software engineer with a focus in UX, a technology leader with years of experience managing cross-functional teams of designers/developers/dev-ops/design-ops/PM/QA, and an enthusiast tinkerer.
Tres has worked in the tech industry for over two decades at companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and Oracle, as well as several startups and SMBs.
Level: Intermediate
This talk describes our journey in building real-time astrology software in Elixir and Phoenix. I will highlight how we use LiveView to create rich user experiences for exploring astrological charts and the challenges of designing software for a 2000-year-old spec. We’ll also explore how Phoenix hooks and WebAssembly enable astronomical calculations on the client in just 2-3 milliseconds. By presenting astrology as a unique problem space, I aim to show how the Elixir ecosystem’s power and versatility bring ancient practices to life. Professional-grade astrology tools face the same engineering challenges as other domains: managing vast amounts of data, modelling complexity without oversimplifying, and building fault-tolerant systems that practitioners rely on for their livelihood.
OBJECTIVES: Regardless of individual beliefs, astrology is a uniquely thorny and complex problem space that requires some very creative engineering. Elixir and Phoenix have given us fantastic tools to solve some of those problems, and I hope this talk inspires engineers to explore new and unexpected applications of this powerful stack.
AUDIENCE: Elixir engineers working with Phoenix and LiveView.