--- title: I Went to CascadiaJS 2026. Here Is What Developers Are Telling Us description: I spent two days at CascadiaJS 2026 in Seattle as Deepgram's community engineer. I brought a notebook, a list of questions and one effective conversation opener. image: https://mktg.nhcarrigan.com/hubfs/Generated_Image_September_29_2026_-_9_34PM.jpg --- [Skip to content](https://mktg.nhcarrigan.com/blog/cascadiajs-2026#main-content) [![](https://mktg.nhcarrigan.com/hs-fs/hubfs/logo.png?width=2048&height=2048&name=logo.png)Homepage](https://nhcarrigan.com) - [Code](https://git.nhcarrigan.com) - [Socials](https://socials.nhcarrigan.com) - [Documentation](https://docs.nhcarrigan.com) [Join Discord](https://chat.nhcarrigan.com) - [Code](https://git.nhcarrigan.com) - [Socials](https://socials.nhcarrigan.com) - [Documentation](https://docs.nhcarrigan.com) [Join Discord](https://chat.nhcarrigan.com) ![](https://mktg.nhcarrigan.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Generated_Image_September_29_2026_-_9_34PM.jpg?width=6336&height=2688&name=Generated_Image_September_29_2026_-_9_34PM.jpg) # I Went to CascadiaJS 2026. Here Is What Developers Are Telling Us ![Naomi Carrigan](https://mktg.nhcarrigan.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Generated_Image_1790742324098.jpg?width=48&height=48&name=Generated_Image_1790742324098.jpg) Naomi Carrigan June 12, 2026 June 1-2, 2026 | Seattle, WA | About 200 attendees I spent two days at CascadiaJS 2026 in Seattle as Deepgram's community engineer. I brought a notebook, a list of questions and one effective conversation opener. This is what I found. ## The Setup CascadiaJS is a JavaScript conference that has run since 2012. It draws around 200 developers to Seattle for a single-track programme focused on web development and the JavaScript ecosystem. The crowd skews younger. Many attendees are breaking into the industry, and many were at their first or second developer conference. That tells you something important about the audience, and I will return to it. I was there to listen and to have conversations. I wanted to understand what developers building with voice AI are running into, what they are excited about and where the friction is. ## The Conversations That Mattered The best opener I found was this: "What if your customers used their voice instead of typing?" That question landed differently every time. Some people responded immediately. They had already been thinking about it and had opinions. Others paused because they had not considered it, and then worked through the implications out loud. Either way, it started a real conversation. Developers raised the same points again and again. They are excited about voice AI, but they run into the same friction points: integration complexity, latency and not knowing where to start. The enthusiasm is there. The path to getting started needs work. That is a content and documentation opportunity worth attention. Some of the best conversations with developers happened in the conference hallways and around the exhibitor area. Voice AI came up naturally. People talked about what they were building, how different models fit together and what they were trying to make work. These conversations were casual and genuine, and far more useful than any scripted pitch. ## The Mentorship Angle A significant part of the CascadiaJS crowd is new to the industry. They are working out how to break in, what to build and who to learn from. I spent a fair amount of time with that group. I was not pitching anything. I was helping where I could. The effect is hard to measure but easy to see. "The community engineer at Deepgram spent her own time helping me" is the kind of impression that spreads. It is a long-term effect, but a real one. I also had a good conversation with Dylan from Atomic Object about their accelerator programme. It is a two-year initiative for developing junior developer teams. It raised a thesis worth following up. If developers become comfortable with voice AI tools early in their careers, they carry that familiarity with them when they join larger organisations. It is hard to attribute pipeline to this, but it deserves careful thought. ## What I Did Not Expect Seattle's tech community has strong opinions about AI. Nearly every lamp post, newspaper box and street fixture I walked past had a "no AI" sticker on it. At the same time, the developers inside the conference were engaged with AI tools. They were building with them, were curious about where they are going and talked about them with real enthusiasm. That is a real tension and it is worth watching. It is not a dealbreaker. Developers building with AI are not the same group as the people putting stickers on lamp posts. It is still a signal about the local discourse and worth keeping in mind. ## Who I Connected With These are the specific connections worth noting: - Francesco Cuillia: an influencer relationship worth maintaining. We had a substantive conversation. It was not a cold contact. - The CascadiaJS conference organiser: I deliberately secured an introduction and left a channel open. This matters for what comes next. - Dylan (Atomic Object): the accelerator conversation has potential and deserves a proper follow-up. - Amanda: head of developer relations at Vapi. ## What This Means for Next Time A traditional Deepgram booth at CascadiaJS is not the right fit yet. The audience skews junior, and a static exhibit does not match how this crowd learns best. A workshop makes more sense. The appetite for hands-on, practical voice AI content was real. A session where developers build something, in a room full of people who are interested in it, is a far better fit for this crowd than a static booth. The longer-term plan is to build a consistent presence in the Pacific Northwest developer community. This means no hard sells. It means showing up reliably and being useful. The channel with the conference organiser is the right one to pursue. A recurring Seattle touchpoint is worth building toward, once we have the infrastructure to make it repeatable and transferable to others. ## The Bottom Line CascadiaJS 2026 was worth attending. It did not deliver immediate pipeline. It delivered signal about where developers are struggling, what the Pacific Northwest tech community thinks about AI and which relationships are worth investing in. The voice AI conversation is happening. Developers are building with it, thinking about it and running into friction with it. At this stage, community building means being present in those conversations as a helpful, knowledgeable person rather than as a brand doing marketing. More will follow as we act on the conversations we had. ## Share this post [mailto:https%3A%2F%2Fmktg.nhcarrigan.com%2Fblog%2Fcascadiajs-2026](mailto:https%3A%2F%2Fmktg.nhcarrigan.com%2Fblog%2Fcascadiajs-2026) ## Keep reading ### [![](https://mktg.nhcarrigan.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Generated_Image_September_29_2026_-_9_34PM.jpg?width=6336&height=2688&name=Generated_Image_September_29_2026_-_9_34PM.jpg) I Stayed for 36 Hours Straight. Here Is Why](https://mktg.nhcarrigan.com/blog/ai-hackathon-berkeley-2026) ### [![](https://mktg.nhcarrigan.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Generated_Image_September_29_2026_-_9_34PM.jpg?width=6336&height=2688&name=Generated_Image_September_29_2026_-_9_34PM.jpg) ADHD and Software Engineering](https://mktg.nhcarrigan.com/blog/adhd-and-software-engineering) --- [Privacy Policy](https://docs.nhcarrigan.com/legal/privacy/) · [Terms of Service](https://docs.nhcarrigan.com/legal/terms/) · © NHCarrigan 2026. 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