Fireside with Voxgig

“So you’re telling me that a DevRel’s job is more than just posting funny tweets and partying at conferences?”

Yes. Yes we are.

And so is our guest on today’s episode - Tim Berglund. Tim is the Vice President of Developer Relations at Star Tree, and he breaks down for us what DevRel means to him, and how he counteracts people’s misconceptions about the role.

In today’s world, it’s as difficult as ever for a DevRel to describe their job, but Tim gives it a go on this episode of the podcast. What’s important to know is that a DevRel’s job should leave room for “fun” stuff. The whole reason the role benefits a company is that it gives a member of the team the time and space to explore new, creative ways of doing things and achieving goals. A DevRel that wasn’t having at least a little bit of fun wouldn't be doing a very good job!

Though after the play hard, comes the work hard. And for DevRels that often comes in the form of justifying your own existence. Tim explains that DevRel will never be like marketing, where webinars and dinners can lead to a phone call the next day - easy to track, right? DevRel is a little more complicated than that. You might not know who’s on the other side of your video, or blog post, and might never be able to track their journey from interacting with your content, to becoming a customer years down the line.

So in the meantime, you're left with making general measurements and collecting testimonies, that while helpful, could be much improved upon as a system.

Reach out to Tim here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tlberglund/

Listen to Tim’s Podcast - ‘Real Time Analytics’ here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/real-time-analytics-with-tim-berglund/id1680445905

Find out more and listen to previous podcasts here: https://www.voxgig.com/podcast

Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates and information about upcoming meetups:

https://voxgig.substack.com/

Join the Dublin DevRel Meetup group here: www.devrelmeetup.com

For this this episode, we're revisiting our chat with Sebastian Witalec from Weaviate. Sebastian spoke to us last year about his work at the company and his role as head of DevRel.

Weaviate is rather popular in the AI space. It's an open source vector database that allows you to store data and vector embeddings from machine learning models. It's similar to putting information on an XY plane. Similar data points will have similar coordinates. This makes it easier to organise and use your data. We won't get too technical in this description, but safe to say Richard ensures that all the nerdy questions are answered during the episode.

So Weaviate is a database; does this mean it's similar to the document stores of fifteen years ago? Well funnily enough, Sebastian's previous role to this one was DevRel at MongoDB. A year and a half ago, he met the CEO of Weaviate and had that lightbulb moment. He knew that this was a brand new way of doing data storage. So he jumped to Weaviate, and sure enough, a year and a half later, vector databases are all anyone is talking about, and Sebastian gets to be at the forefront of it. One of the most important things to Weaviate, and Sebastian personally, is joy. They want to not only create with it, but for people to experience it when they use Weaviate to build. They want their developers to take joy in their work and they believe that their wider community should be just as important as their customers.

This is a really special perspective to have, and we were so glad Sebastian decided to join us for this discussion.

Reach out to Sebastian here: https://dk.linkedin.com/in/sebawita

Check out Weaviate’s services here:‍ https://weaviate.io/

Find out more and listen to previous podcasts here: https://www.voxgig.com/podcast

Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates and information about upcoming meetups: https://voxgig.substack.com/

Join the Dublin DevRel Meetup group here: www.devrelmeetup.com

Imagine this scenario. You’ve created a brilliant, well functioning API. Sure, there’s a few minor issues here and there but it works the way it’s supposed to. Or so you thought until, for the first time in a while, you decided to use it yourself. Lo and behold, not only does it not work, the documentation is a total mess. Well today’s guest Nolan Sullivan doesn’t have to imagine it - he’s seen it more than a few times!

Nolan is the sole DevRel of Speakeasy, a company making the integration of APIs go from grating, to seamless. They’re all about making APIs easy to create and consume, and while they’ve started on the consumption end, their long term goal is to create a full tool chain for creating and consuming APIs.

Nolan speaks to us about testing, and how they’ve begun to notice an interesting behaviour in their users. When developers start building SDKs, and they use their own APIs, they very quickly become confronted with the shortcomings of their own creations. It seems obvious, but sometimes you really do have to be on the other side of the user experience to find the flaws.

This episode continues our API series on the podcast and includes some fascinating insights and advice - including Nolan’s observation that integrating your API should be the easy part of someone’s to-do list - not the hardest.

Reach out to Nolan here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nolan-dm-sullivan-010/

Find out more and listen to previous podcasts here: https://www.voxgig.com/podcast

Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates and information about upcoming meetups:

https://voxgig.substack.com/

Join the Dublin DevRel Meetup group here: www.devrelmeetup.com

We’re delighted to have Francisco Picolini on the Fireside with Voxgig podcast. Francisco is the open source community manager at OpenNebula and he joins us to speak all about his role, and shed some light on what it means to spread the word on open source. Of course we’re all converts, but how do things play out with those who aren't?

Francisco speaks about how OpenNebula focuses on enterprise clients, but that doesn’t mean you can’t engage as an individual. What it does mean is that Francisco’s role looks slightly different from other community managers. He can’t rely on that passionate section of users to grow the scope of the company or create content so most of that work falls to him.

It was wonderful to have Francisco on the podcast, and we know his insights will be incredibly valuable.

Reach out to Francisco here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/francjp/

Find out more and listen to previous podcasts here: https://www.voxgig.com/podcast

Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates and information about upcoming meetups:

https://voxgig.substack.com/

Join the Dublin DevRel Meetup group here: www.devrelmeetup.com

The wonderful Liz Acosta joins us on this episode of the podcast for a slightly philosophical chat on community, the different iterations of DevRel, and why we as humans will always gravitate to the things we perceive as “real”.

Liz is the new Developer Content Marketing Manager for Streamlit at Snowflake, and this provides us with a wonderful opportunity to learn from someone right in the process of determining their role in an organisation! Liz talks to us about her plans for Streamlit, all of which centre connection and community heavily.

As someone who has worked heavily in DevRel, Liz has no intentions of abandoning the Developer Advocates at Streamlit to fend for themselves, and her passion for connecting with people is more than clear.

Liz tells us all about the evolution of DevRel, and why she believes increased regulation and codifying of previously informal guidelines is a good thing. Not only that, but for those of you who enjoy a good philosophical discussion, she explains that while we all appreciate things that are “real”, the not-so-real can be just as valuable. Whether that be AI generated copy, or an artist who lip-syncs their way through a concert!

Reach out to Liz here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lizacostalinkedin/

Find out more and listen to previous podcasts here: https://www.voxgig.com/podcast

Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates and information about upcoming meetups:

https://voxgig.substack.com/

Join the Dublin DevRel Meetup group here: www.devrelmeetup.com

Jason St-Cyr is our guest on this episode of the fireside with voxgig podcast. Jason is the Developer Relations leader at Sitecore, an end-to-end composable digital experience platform, that allows brands to better connect with their customers. Jason gave us an excellent look into what it looks like when a talented DevRel leader is truly supported by their organisation.

Jason’s path is one that is unique to him, but not so unique to DevRels as a group. Starting in software development, he found himself unsatisfied working as an engineering manager. He wanted to get back to independent contribution and had the common DevRel itch of wanting to help people. So when the chance arose for him to make the leap into tech evangelism, he leapt.

He goes into how Sitecore has grown and changed during his time there. He got a front row seat to their evolution as a company. One of the biggest parts of this evolution was the switch from offering all customers a single package of services that would cover any needs, to a system where each individual would be offered a specific set of tools that was more relevant to them. This attention to detail has allowed Sitecore to become something of an industry standard.

He also takes us into his strongest advice for those wishing to embark on their own startup journey: know the problem you are trying to solve! Without having that goal in mind, activating those around you to engage can be a struggle. But with a clear solution in mind, your goal can do all the heavy lifting for you.

Reach out to Jason here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonstcyr/

Find out more and listen to previous podcasts here: https://www.voxgig.com/podcast

Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates and information about upcoming meetups:

https://voxgig.substack.com/

Join the Dublin DevRel Meetup group here: www.devrelmeetup.com

If you’re in any way curious about the intersection between APIs and AI, and what that might be shaping up to look like, then we’re delighted to let you know that this episode’s guest is the perfect person to shed light on that very topic. Frank is the Principal API Tech Evangelist for SmartBear, where they deliver tools for application performance monitoring, software development, software testing, API testing and API management.

In 2010, APIs were starting to become more popular and Frank was starting to get serious about creating reusable interfaces. He continued down this path and has spent the last 2 years with SmartBear, focusing on APIs, for which they have 3 pillars: testing, insights and observability.

Frank tells us about SmartBear’s growing interest in acquisitions, and how they’ve managed to balance this facet with their continuing investment in their own organic products. Their strategy is simple: build and buy. And it seems to be working out pretty well for them.

We talk a lot on the podcast about marketing to developers, both internally and externally, but Frank brings up an interesting point. Almost every company used software in some way, for something. So while he and SmartBear still value developer focused marketing, they also understand that there’s a whole world of non-technical people out there that have many of the same problems. And Frank knows that he and his team can be the ones to help fix them.

Reach out to Frank here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frank-kilcommins/

Find out more and listen to previous podcasts here: https://www.voxgig.com/podcast

Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates and information about upcoming meetups:

https://voxgig.substack.com/

Join the Dublin DevRel Meetup group here: www.devrelmeetup.com

If you're an API enthusiast, then we can only imagine that our last few episodes have been a dream come true. Well the dream just got a whole lot better, as this episode's guest is none other than José Haro Peralta, author of Microservice APIs. José is an independent consultant based in London, and he joins us to explain all about his process in helping companies build excellent systems.

José has a background in DevOps, and he cites his inherited mentality from this time as being an aid in his current position. He goes into his life as a freelancer, and touts remote working as a productivity game changer.

When it comes to API vs microservices, José believes that if it gets the job done, then it doesn't tend to make a huge material difference. The main thing developers should be focusing on is security. Many people have made the mistake of thinking that a private network doesn't need a great deal of, or potentially any security. But as someone who would know better than most, José believes all systems are created equal, and if you fail to prepare for a breach, then you can prepare to fail at keeping your network safe.

Reach out to José here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jose-haro-peralta/

Be sure to check out José's book, Microservice APIs here: https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Microservice-APIs/José-Haro-Peralta/9781638350569

Find out more and listen to previous podcasts here: https://www.voxgig.com/podcast

Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates and information about upcoming meetups:

https://voxgig.substack.com/

Join the Dublin DevRel Meetup group here: www.devrelmeetup.com

If you enjoyed the lengthy API discussion last week, then this episode will be no different. We’re speaking to David Biesack, Chief API Officer at Apiture, where they’re using efficient solutions to hold together a network of their banking APIs for a variety of financial institutions.

As you can imagine, nearly a hundred customers will have hugely varying needs. So how do David and the Apiture team do it? David explains their system of avoiding versioning, by constantly thinking about which features will always be timeless. It’s due to this attention to detail that Apiture has avoided the classic pitfall of “API sprawl”, something we went into earlier this week on the podcast.

If there’s one thing to know about David, it’s that he is a lover of documentation, and perhaps unsurprisingly, this love generates from the many times he’s been assigned to tasks with documentation that, quite frankly, sucks. So it’s become a passion of his, to not just write things down in a meaningful way, but also to get people in a room, and answer questions in a judgement free way.

We think the success of Apiture speaks to the immense value of this practice.

Reach out to David here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidbiesack/

Find out more and listen to previous podcasts here: https://www.voxgig.com/podcast

Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates and information about upcoming meetups:

https://voxgig.substack.com/

Join the Dublin DevRel Meetup group here: www.devrelmeetup.com

We've probably all heard of urban sprawl, right? The phenomenon where a city expands further and further into the surrounding areas until the final product becomes one that is impossible to control and monitor. Well this episode’s guest, Bill Doerrfeld is here to tell us about how the same principle affects APIs in the aptly named arrival of “API sprawl”.

Bill is the editor in chief of Nordic APIs, a series of resources that help disseminate thought leadership on APIs. He's also a freelance tech journalist whose work on all things API has been published with DevOps.com amongst many others.

Bill has a wide view of tech and is frequently more up to date on his knowledge than many top developers, which makes sense as that's pretty much included in the job description of being a tech journalist. He goes into how he ended up in this position, from studying English, to realising that the tech world would be a gold mine for a young writer to tackle.

So what is API sprawl? For one, it's the thing Bill has written most extensively about, and he defines it as the thing that happens when companies and individuals have so many APIs under their belts that the ability to maintain quality, or even keep track of them all is greatly reduced.

This is a fascinating subject, and Bill goes into great detail on it, as well as AI, and all the things working developers should know about.

Reach out to Bill here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/doerrfeldbill/

Find out more and listen to previous podcasts here: https://www.voxgig.com/podcast

Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates and information about upcoming meetups: 

https://voxgig.substack.com/

Join the Dublin DevRel Meetup group here: www.devrelmeetup.com