DevRel professional for hire
Lewis Meyers can code. He is also a veteran and a martial arts expert. New to tech industry, Lewis recognises his skillset suits developer advocacy. But he’s finding it difficult (to say the least) to convince the companies with whom he’s interviewed. And he’s done a lot of interviews. So in this episode of the Fireside with Voxgig podcast, he and Richard discuss his route to software development and developer advocacy, the attitude in the industry to bootcamps and how companies hiring developer relations roles haven’t fully thought about the mix of Code-Content-Community they require in the role.
As Lewis describes, which pillars do they want to lean on most? In Richard’s view and experience, the ability to build and serve a community would be his primary requirement. And that theme of service has run deep through Lewis’s life and career. In their conversation about what the tech industry could learn from martial arts or military, the humility to truly serve each other and their software, customer, user communities would be top of Lewis’s list. This is a valuable conversation for anyone to learn and understand how we appear to new comers to software industry. You can get the full podcast here: https://www.voxgig.com/podcast/lewis-meyers-developer-advocate-for-hire-march-2023
Emerging Community
The Dublin DevRel Meetup had its second event last week. The speakers, Will Klein and Barsha Das more than delivered! Will gave his honest and open account of his discovery of his ADHD diagnosis and the support he received from his team and management at Workday while dealing with his burnout. But it doesn’t require a large team or organisation to make ADHD or other neurodivergent conditions part of your successful career. Even small companies and teams can show compassion and care. But it does require management to model positive honesty about their emotional state. Are you ready for that? Let Will’s talk act as a guide to how valuable a safe emotional workspace can be.
Barsha Das gave the second talk - and wow! The passion for community bounced off the screen. Brining us right back to Lewis’s wish for service, Barsha is committed to serving all sorts of developer and industry communities, evangelising about open source to the extent that she has created the CookieButton project to welcome non-code contributions to open source. All of this while studying in India and working for a US company evmux. A force of nature!
https://www.devrelmeetup.com/devrel-meetup/march29th2023-will-klein-barsha-das
All of the Dublin DevRel meetup talks can be found on the Voxgig YouTube channel along with a growing collection of the Fireside with Voxgig podcasts. https://www.youtube.com/@Voxgig
The next meetup will be Wednesday April 26th, so we’ll be announcing our next speakers soon! Stay tuned!