Fireside with Voxgig

We’re off to the mountains today on this episode of the Fireside with Voxgig podcast, as today’s guest, James Higginbotham calls in from Colorado.

James is an executive API consultant with LaunchAny, a consulting firm that specialises in digital transformation through APIs.

James takes us through the massive task of working with extremely large developer teams. He’s worked with companies that have 10,000+ developers and of course this presents a whole number of new problems as well as the usual issues that might slow down a project.

We were so lucky to have James on for this episode, be sure to give it a listen!

Reach out to James here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jameshigginbotham/

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

On this podcast, we’re always a fan of our guests, but it’s not as often that our guest is a fan of us! This episode, we’re speaking to Tara Walton, herself a listener of the Fireside podcast. Tara is a test automation developer and a community builder, and she joins us to talk about how being a jack of all trades means Developer Advocacy might just be the right step for you.

Tara has done a lot of work in testing and quality assurance, and she takes us through the history of how this space has evolved over the years. One constant seems to be the ebb and flow of a particular company mindset:

Step 1: Hire testers.

Step 2: Watch the quality of your product go up.

Step 3: Realise you have such an amazing product that you probably don’t need testers anymore!

Step 4: Fire your testers

Step 5: Realise you made a terrible mistake and hire them all back.

And so the cycle continues.

Tara goes into detail on why, as a test automation developer, preventing a mistake is much easier than fixing one. Documentation is key, as information that lives in someone’s head doesn’t do much good for anyone except that person.

Finally she gives us her thoughts on how testing and QA will continue to grow and change now that AI has entered the playing field. As always, things will need to be road tested before hitting the highway, and Tara will certainly have her hands full over the next few years.

Reach out to Tara here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tarawalton/

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 all heard the phrase “herding cats”, but could it be replaced by the equally apt “herding developers”? James Cook is on the podcast to let us know. James is Director of DevOps at Coyote, a PropTech SaaS provider serving the real estate sector, as well as being a certified Microsoft MVP. He joins us for a chat about his role, his outlook, and why communication has been his most powerful tool to success.

One of the biggest topics James gets into on this episode is the issue of communicating with developers, and getting them to communicate with each other. The need for effective documentation plays a huge part in this as well, as no one wants to end up having a talented developer leave your team, only for you to realise you can’t begin to decipher the code they left behind.

According to James, having a team that’s ready and willing to come together and solve problems is the ultimate way of efficiently making work. And while meetings may be tedious, James has found ways to restructure them for his team, with the purpose and result of wasting less time, and getting more done.

Finally, he speaks to us about writing, and how structure and discipline have been what has kept him on track for his personal writing goals. Writing doesn’t have to be spontaneous to be interesting and high quality, and James lays this out for us in no uncertain terms.

Reach out to James here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cookjames/

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 fortunate on the Fireside podcast to be able to speak to so many people at the top of their game, and this week's guest is no different. David Cramer is the Co-Founder and CTO of Sentry, the app monitoring platform designed to quickly help developers get to the root of code problems. David has helped bring Sentry to the top of the pile in this category - to the extent where, in his words, they don’t have competitors, they have “ankle-biters”. But does “heavy is the head that wears the crown” have any bearing for a company at the top? We’re excited to find out.

David has worn many hats at Sentry since its founding, but as a software engineer at heart, he’s currently taking up the position of CTO. He dives into how strategy helped set Sentry apart in the early days, and how they manufactured the way they wanted the business to run, as opposed to simply responding to hurdles as they came up.

The Sentry team, ultimately, is made up of developers, and David explains how this fact has led to the creation of a platform that is highly developer focused, in both user experience and in sales.

He tells us about how yearly price hikes are not something Sentry wants to engage in, and how valuing affordability has allowed them to skyrocket in popularity since their first launch. Community is at the forefront of David’s current plans for Sentry, and he talks us through this, and other aspects of what he hopes to achieve with the company the future.

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

Check out Sentry here: https://sentry.io/welcome/

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

This episode is a slightly futuristic one. Or potentially not futuristic? We’re talking about AI with Rex St John and he’s here to tell us why the "future” of AI is looking more and more like it will soon be the present. Rex is the Founder of Taroko Technologies and an experienced DevRel and Technical evangelist.

Rex takes us through his history, from marketing, to software engineering to a technical evangelist, a foray into crypto, and now founder who’s running his own company. Taroko Technologies builds web and mobile apps that combine the most useful parts of design and technology.

Rex explains that while the AI space may feel quiet, it’s simply because the snowglobe it's contained in has been violently shaken, if not shattered, and those who existed in the space previous to the recent shakeup are now scrambling to match the industry with breakthroughs of their own.

Rex created Taroko with a focus on developers, but according to him, by necessity they have now had to branch out and divide their attention amongst the numerous new roles that have cropped up due to AI and the complex needs of large systems, notably he denotes his own role as “creator relations”, an interesting evolution of former terms that don’t quite cover Rex’s full role.

It was a pleasure to have Rex on the show, to explain why Star Trek: The Next Generation now looks old in comparison to the technologies Rex and his colleagues have been developing.

Reach out to Rex here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rexstjohn/

Check out Taroko here: https://taroko.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

We’ve got a familiar face on the Voxgig podcast today, if not yet to you, then to us, as we’re speaking to our host Richard’s former colleague, Conor O’Neill. Conor is the Director of Product and Engineering at Axonista, an interactive video CMS, where he’s helping them transform video from a fun accessory to a key feature of their customer’s platforms.

Now, as Conor explains, though video may be their bread and butter, what he actually spends most of his time focusing on, is everything around video, metadata being a prime example of what he’s interested in.

Conor weighs in with us on the recent purge of DevRel jobs, and explains why all may not be as it seems in this regard. While companies dismissing DevRel jobs might help you work out exactly who you don’t want to work for, there’s also a host of people out there, Conor included, who have encountered a great deal of difficulty finding someone with the capabilities to take on a DevRel job he needed to fill.

He discusses that one of the main benefits of having a DevRel on your staff, is that you can have your own “potterer”. Someone who can experiment and play the mad scientist, figuring out creative new ways of doing things, something high level Devs with immense workloads would not necessarily be able to do. This allows for your company to be continuously open to the possibility of newer, better ways of conducting things.

We even take a brief trip down memory lane, with Conor and Richard giving some insight into the time they worked together, and the wonderful opportunities that have grown from that adventure.

Reach out to Conor here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/conoroneill/

Check out Axonista: https://www.axonista.com/about/

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 continuing to kick off the new year in style with this episode’s wonderful guest, Cassandra Faris. Cassandra is a Technologist and former community manager with Veeam. You might remember that our previous guest Julia Furst Morgado is also a technologist Veeam, so we can only assume that Veeam has a well kept secret for recruiting highly talented DevRels.

In her own words, Cassandra focuses on the human side of technology. Although now a technologist, for many years she worked as a community manager. Going into her backstory, she tells us that she was doing community management before she even knew what it was, or that it was a role she could occupy! In her early roles as a technical recruiter, she was honing her skills of community engagement, connection and passion for the things developers actually cared about.

Cassandra takes us into her process of community building - and yes, she does have a process. In fact it’s a pretty remarkable one, as she can ensure visible results in 6 months, although the full process can take a few years. She places much emphasis on “power users”, and how every community has them - so why not use them? And she’s a fan of meeting an existing community where they’re at, instead of trying to move them to a whole new platform against their will.

Finally, she gives us practical, usable tips for how to survive the day to day of DevRel. Travel and nights alone in hotel rooms can be a downside. But with a myriad of experience, for Cassandra, they’re a breeze.

Reach out to Cassandra here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cassandrafaris/

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

Fireside with Voxgig is back! A new year means new opportunities to speak with amazing people and share their insights with you, our audience. This episode’s guest is Andrew MacLean. Andrew is the developer relations manager at DevCycle, a feature flag management platform for developers. If you’ve never heard of feature flag management, that’s probably because it’s a relatively new space, despite feature flags having been around forever.

If you’re not familiar with the ins and outs of feature flags, one of their main benefits is allowing you to update your platform without having to deploy so many versions that you lose the ability to maintain quality. As with many of the people we feature on Fireside, this service could have been a game changer in some of the startups Richard has worked on over the years.

Andrew dives into the history of feature flags, and what launched them into the mainstream. From Github devs, to articles, to implementation by major SaaS companies, word of mouth popularisation has made feature flags the staple they now are.

Andrew also gives us some insight into his history. It’s a typical DevRel story, of falling into the industry somewhat by accident, but in Andrew’s case his starting point was studying for a career in forensic science. With a background almost as interesting as the work he does now, Andrew makes for a fascinating interviewee.

Reach out to Andrew here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewdmaclean/

Check out DevCycle: https://devcycle.com/

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 taking a deep dive into the history of Node with this episode’s guest, Charlie Robbins. Charlie isn't just a greatly experienced engineer, who now lends his advice and consultancy skills to others - he was also one of the earliest adopters of Node, and is uniquely placed to give us a lesson not just in history, but also in the unique factors that gave Node the dominance it now holds.

So how did Node take over the world? Well unlike movie supervillains, it wasn’t with a ray gun or a mind control serum, it was by being really good at what they did in the face of competitors asleep at the wheel, a natural selection process to which Charlie had a front row seat.

Charlie went into financial services in the wake of the financial crash, when most people had either been pushed or jumped off that ship, but because of his knowledge of a brand new service called Node, he ended up working with people ten years his senior to figure out this new frontier.

Charlie speaks about the conflation of jobs like accountants with engineers. People tend to think engineering is purely a numbers game, but as many will tell you, engineers are often brimming with creativity, and the variable is whether or not their boss will let them express it.

This is a great discussion on how small actions can lead to big waves.

Reach out to Charlie here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlierobbins/

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 practice of DevRel is something that can vary hugely amongst those who engage in it, so it’s always fascinating to see how different companies approach DevRel. In this episode, we’re speaking to Liran Tal, director of developer advocacy at Snyk, about how his team makes use of DevRel.

Liran is a big believer in empathy, and infuses it into every aspect of his developer advocacy work. It’s a theme that has come up repeatedly on the podcast recently, and Liran is another proponent of empathy being at the centre of how we engage with developers.

Like many people, Liran came through the engineering pipeline, and made the jump to DevRel when he started at Snyk, but he explains why this “jump” was actually more of a step, as he had already used his engineering work to initiate community events and public speaking opportunities, so DevRel felt like a natural place to take those skills.

As an engineer using JavaScript and open source, Liran began to see the immense value of a hive-like community, connecting hundreds, or thousands of people to collaborate and share information, and he knew he wanted to live in that space. And luckily, as he explains, no one needs permission to start being a DevRel. No matter what specific area you work in, you can stealthily start practising public speaking, or building communities, and then when you’re ready to officially start looking for that DevRel job, you’ll already have some idea of what you’re doing.

Liran speaks about the “DevRel’ ladder, and the common question of how those who want to can climb it. DevRel is one of those fields with endless room to grow. You may start out knowing nothing about the technical side, and end up with a whole new set of skills that are now available to you. But for most of us, the ladder thing is secondary to doing something you’re really passionate about, and speaking to Liran has only increased that passion for us here at Voxgig.

Reach out to Liran here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/talliran/

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