Career in developer relations for developers

This is the transcript of the talk by Saurabh Gupta presented at Git Commit Show 2020.

About the speaker

Saurabh Gupta, Sr. Developer Advocate at Digital Ocean shares his career journey from being a Developer to become a Developer Advocate. He shares his wisdom and answers burning questions for developers who want to explore unconventional career paths.

Transcript

Making the various types and moving into a different world, right, so those of you who have been following the case quite closely, we know there are two teams which are coming up in the market. Right. I'm making a big team.

So one of the carrier types that I see very popular is machine learning. And I look inside of it. A lot of people are switching protective gear. And that is quite popular. Do you already know what is it all about? What kind of background do you need, what kind of future do you have? A good future. A second one I'm a part of or I'm coming from is intercloud and Adobe space. But currently, I'm associated with this company's quality solution. And I'm working and being a Double Eagle, which is short of developer relationships, which we call this talk is all about what is the real goal. If someone is about to get excited about them, how do you move from a typical software engineering background into a different role?

What kind of qualities was unexpected to have? All right. And most importantly, what is the expectation from a contractor? What does it mean? And that's a common way that I get from a lot of people. So I found some pretty fancy rules where you like most of the time. I keep on traveling around the world speaking of different communities, meetups, and meeting a lot of people. But that's only one part of it. But it's much more direct. So this is what I'm trying to get in my next 15 minutes or maybe less. And I would be open to questions or activities like that. I'd like to make more interactive sessions, not too much from my slides. So just at a high level, the agenda that we're going to cover in the next 15 minutes is heard about that.

Are you going here or is it something new that you're heading for the first time? I think not. But yeah, I think at the end of the session, you should have the takeaways from the session. Next would be what is not right. So before I tell you what to talk about, just need to get off on the assumptions that you might have in your mind. This is what I assume that that is. So what world is not then what is different and how do you move people out of it?

But that's a short, simple goal. So, I mean, I'm coming from an Indian background. So when we graduate out of college and this is not very typical to a software engineer, but at any graduate rate, when you graduate as a freshman, you have a lot of career conclusions, starting from like when you say you're out to your school days. What should I take as my subjects so that I qualify for a particular screen? And once you complete that professional education. Right. What should be my next area? So there is some confusion that I'm not saying that is only applicable to fresher's. This happens to all different phases of your career. So I have a lot of confusion, but whether I should go into testing or I should be a developer or I should get into what I was talking about for the management, different kinds of roles you have. Should I go for Java? I am learning Amole. That sounds cool. That is a lot of money. Five years down the line, when you're working on something again, you have some kind of confusion. I've been working for five years. I'm happy if you are one of the lucky chaps. But yeah, most of the time you are not happy because of different reasons. This is what I'm not supposed to do. This is something that I don't want to do 10 years down the line.

We have been in the industry for more than a decade, with 10 to 15 years of experience. We are like a manager, an architect. Some of the technical level. But still, that confusion is. All of you are facing a similar situation like this. I have no idea what's going on, apart from Covid-19 and a lot of other things are happening, but I'm not sure what part of my category is when I'm all right.

Yeah, I guess you have much more clarity. Don't feel like this. But then in case, you have something similar that you resonate with or feel like this. I've tried to work on a new theory. So let's talk about developer relations and try to recall them as the president, right?

So what does not equal the story? So it is not all of them. Some people assume that it is all about coding and going to conferences and speaking. Right? But it's not only about coding or programming. Second, and the fanciest assumption that people make for developers, advocates, or a for the fancy titles, that these are the guys who go to a lot of conferences, they get a lot of chances to explore the world across the globe, get invited to speak, and they are like more or less more of a technical celebrity kind of thing, which is kind of true.

But that's not the only job that they do. I mean, at least in my case and what I've seen from this industry, that's one of the duties that you're supposed to. Some people also assume that this is a stereotype since they shop on a marketing job, which is not the case.

You might be a part of the marketing team indirectly because when I see that, most of the time I see this as a part of not a typical engineering group, but mostly under, like I say, marketing. It's a typical marketing thing.

That doesn't mean that you have to be a marketing graduate or have to come with that experience. And it's not even up to engineers or even perhaps engineers. So if it's all it's not all these things, then what is that all about?

It's not only about coding, it's not only about the exchange. I'm giving talks. It's not a typical sales and marketing process. It's not even quite engineering or even a developer. And what is different? Right. So just got this definition at a high level, which I mean, I'm not saying it is a full definition, but it says that the population involves being associated with information on behalf of big corporations. Right. Talking about facts and figures. So at a high level, this is true. You have to be an influencer nowadays since social media is the most popular medium. You have to be kind of a social media influencer, have nick to have those kinds of skill sets. And for some of the big corporations, it's like this with no offensive subtitles. A lot of the corporations do a lot of hiring differently.

So let me start with my definition of something that I think about. So I typically see that as a mix of a lot of responsibilities and duties. It's not only about putting on not only sales and not only focusing on enjoyment, but it's a mix of sport. When I say mix, I assume that the world is a very big Birla under which we have different cuts. And you could be doing multiple jobs in a site based on the organization that you work for and the kind of patient they have somewhat different roles.

So different organizations, they have different goals in this country, could check it out for a difference. But at a high level, they all overlap in some way or the other. So as we see it develop relationships, not just on fancy names for the book, it's an Amber Alert for a teen whose family responsibilities within the community, which could be both online and offline. So in this kind of situation offline has become a bit less. It's mostly online nowadays. And that's why that's the reason we are all here. Right. So it's a bigger umbrella whose responsibility at a high level is all about community, how to build a community, how to serve the community, and how to give it back to the community. In this case, the community I'm expecting is more of the community that we're coming from. So if you are working at a software development organization, it's more about a particular problem that you have.

If you are coming from a database background, it's a database community. If you're coming from a cloud background like me, it's more about community. But it's all about the community that we focus on. So what is general, a high level, right? So these are some of the key characteristics of a devil of all that I see. So I'll walk you through all of them. Like I was having a discussion with one of my colleagues I went next to and he beautifully defined when I was. what do you think about it? So you said for him, this is not like a very specific definition, but yeah, this is coming from a person for a long time. I know more than feistiest. You said for him it is all about Traci's.

Three sees which he sees as the guilty and overlapping each other's code. So definitely there is a coding moment. We need to be a technical guy who understands code L'Artibonite. We are supposed to write the code, but then we know how to understand the language. We have the basics of this. So first call, second C, as I talked about last night, was community. Right? This is one of the businesses. It's all about community focused on the community, how to serve the community, and help others. Just look at the third scene that we see is all about content. So content on the Internet comes in different forms. So one of the forms could be a posted box also with experiences going back to the community and also helping people in solving the queries or questions. So different ways to add content for your organization to look into. So I agree with that because what I've been doing in the last year, I see these pieces as a part of my daily life. So somewhere on the order, it's mostly a good community and content of it.

Now, when I talk about typical several competitions, these are some of the basic pillars that I see building relationships and fostering trust. Right. So building relationships, get us to your networking part where you are in the community and you build relationships with other developers, other common goals, the community people, and help community groups. Right? And building a trust that could be around yourself and around the brand that you're promoting in this case with the organization collecting and willing feedback with other teams. So this is, again, a part of the whole thing. I just think it's good to get up. So this is, again, one of the things you go to conferences with a lot of new types of people, a lot of people like and you represent a brand or a company.

So when people could be both positive and negative, either you take those pivots and come back to your company and talk to your product team and give them that. These are the feedback that people are happy with these features, but they're not happy about you. Just whatever they have. Right. They need new features and enhancements of those kinds of things. So negative light and direct feedback from the customers there might not be able to get on the ground and get those kinds of feedback.

But since we're on the ground, you passed back this feedback from the community that the company can help them improve their product, making it better. Helping people work to challenge us, right? So this is, again, on the community side of it. I think people love to challenge different people who might not be as good at a particular technology or a skill set. Helping them grow and scale, not just on the community, inspiring people to build. So this is the first thing that we're talking about.

So the developer community can engage with them, help them and make them better coders. And the last one, but the most important part is the butcher. You know, technology to keep it to yourself doesn't help. How does a community group only grow and share your experiences? I learned the technology, and I like it. I have different challenges. I go out to the community. I put up a medium post or a blog post and share. These are the challenges that I face as a fresher.

Maybe someone else was trying on similar technology. You can try these tips that can save you from what I have to assume. Right. So that is, again, kind of mentorship and sharing it back to the community. So if we talk about the bigger Marella, you see these things coming back into what it was like to talk about, mostly about community, something about coal and the content part of it. Different ways to do it and achieve it.

And also, there is no fixed percentage of like 60 percent core tech, it doesn't communicate those things. It's all depending upon the kind of requirements of your organization, how do they define a whole division within their organization? And that defines you. So for the labor relations, when we talk about them, well, I have a title of developer advocate, but then we have other titles also similar one to one with our site. So different companies call them in different ways.

They can call you a community manager. You could be a developer, evangelist, advocate. That's what. And sometimes they'll even call those protocols market deals that tell the line of defense in the current market that they might be more focused on the growth of a startup or marketing strategies, less on the community site.

But then somewhere out there on the part of the community, it makes it look like a place one. So the correlation between positive relationships with developers and when you talk about developers, it's not only developers that want them that communicate in the community and its ability to communicate that we're talking about.

So this is my vision of what I've seen as different titles. There are different rules, but they all align to the same end goals, making the community better, helping others grow. Helping developers become better programmers in terms of putting expertise, teaching or teaching new technologies to adults, and creating good experiences for different reasons.

That being the content part of it. So now when we talk about I'm a technical developer, I'm QE or I'm coming from a background, how do I move on to a different space? So the kind of story that I told in the last 10 minutes or 15 minutes saying I'm going to start with the truck.

There are certain key things, parameters that you need to be a part of the government. Right. So I've just tried to outline what are the key factors that we need to monitor battlespace. So, I mean, it's like my golden looks for the possibility in the black community, these are the things that we know some of the golden rules of the moment. Learn how to write and this is not writing code, basically, but writing in terms of generating the content. So I'm not saying you should be content, but then there is more how to write or share your ideas in readable English. Right? People across the globe can understand that. What can we do if we could build bridges, have a network? So definitely when a part of the community and trying to help the community grow without networking and without talking to people, understanding the problems, are helping them build a community.

Art cannot be done. So building bridges, having a strong network is a plus. Don't be married to a specific technology. And this is very relevant, not only to the Internet but in this case, it's for everything. Right? I assume I've seen a lot of friends who come from different backgrounds. There have been intellectuals that I've been looking for it more than a decade, and now they're kind of stuck. I want to kind of go along with how I do it from the West? I mean, there is no specific date to stop by.

If you want to learn Python, whatever language, it's time you'll make mistakes at the beginning of something on your resume, like the long reports on personal projects. And do you have an interview? You have confidence. Like I'm coming from a programming background, irrespective of the or python. I should be able to pull it off. That's the only thing that multinationals need from the people. They don't need experts when they need experts. They specifically call it on the job description that we need people with 10 years of experience at the desk.

So maybe that's not them. But yeah, we need people good with programming. A part of that because the next podcast, Creative Cloud, and is good because once you start writing or you are like the initial definition that the caller that calls, these are all social media influencers.

So when you are on social media and you just like watching what is happening or you are also contributing to that and how you are contributing as and when you start contributing more on the social media platform. The fact that inclusive people start organizing you for the good work that you are doing indirectly, what you are doing at the end of the day, you're creating your brand. I'm coming from a different space. I have more than a decade of experience going down the ropes. All right. I've been working with technologies to monetize those types of things.

So when people follow me, they expect something good to come out of these spaces. So definitely I have created a niche for myself in this personal space. And the last point that we already emphasized is mentorship, that this will teach, as you know. So if we learn technology and keep it, it isn't going to have to have to teach it to the community to give it back to the community. And that's how people will recognize you then. Thank you. Or you'll become a social media influencer.

It's not like a one-day job. It becomes a slow, gradual process. You know, one day it will be six months and then a year. And then you see the difference, right. Like any other team, this also takes time. But after a little bit of time, you can always shape yourself into a particular vision that you want if you want the woman that you can be. But it takes time. So those are the parameters that I want to pursue. What the goal is not all about what I see or what I have seen as being in the industry right now.

It's still a relatively new career for you. Not so popular across this region of the world, but young people are understanding the benefits. They're going for these kinds of rewards. And these are certain parameters that we need to be smarter. Like my victory, I got to have this kind of thing, content called community supported in the community. You know how to write good content. People like you and you are already there, even if you don't get that fancy title.

You are doing a different job. That brings me towards the end of this. Yes. So it lasts. And it's like for me, just think for yourself and what I mean by my business. It's your content, right? You have to take a call just because others are doing it. You don't follow that herd mentality. If you have those kinds of stereotypes, I want to break away from the stadium and I'm not satisfied with it. You are the only one who wants to make a decision and take a lot for it.

Your friend or your relatives or your manager or anyone else. And so you also want some of that. And definitely, yes. Big applause for the Photoshop second edition. A of I was making this a successful show, and thanks to all of you for being a lively audience, open to all kinds of questions.

Let me answer some questions now.

1. What is the interview process for these roles?

So I just gave one interview and distributed it as a difference. And the process that we followed was we already had everything in place. So it was incredible. By then, we had counterparts in India. I had an interview with them. And this interview interviews, basically technical from the community. Got to show what kind of work we have done in the past.

2. Why do we want to do it right?

So that's why I say I have your branding. So if you have some kind of branding on GitHub or whatever, social media, if you do a lot of postings on cycles. You are a popular figure for what they are. You can show those kinds of things that I'm already doing a job and I'm quite eligible. So as I said, for me, it has been only one interview. But in general, you need to be technical. You could understand technologies, not only one part of it but in all aspects. What with the community, if popular communication gets better and the content is on the. Nowadays, I see a lot of people working on mediums.

3. What is the single most thing that you see is the most effective in building community? And what's the single most thing that stands out?

What I've seen in the past two years from my experiences, it's a collaborative effort from the team members, whatever community that we're talking about at this point of time, all members should align with the same vision and mission if they all wear the same heart, that this is the mission that we achieve. I mean, you should have Dearborns for the particular community. Any of them should do that. The community will be a big success. I mean, I have examples for that. I do. I cannot name the people in the thing, but then that's a popular figure.

He was working with one of the companies where he was a software engineer, which was right. And he had his community that he was working with technologies like doctors to humanities networking as officially, unofficially connected everyone. It was a big community and made a big impact.

4. Can you share or what the goal mission you, as you said, is the most important thing?

So, I mean, see, for each community, the goal mission would be different. So the kind of community I was talking about, this guy wanted to make technologies like Dr. Antiemetic is much more popular in India. Like if you see the technical stack. Right. If you talk about global communities, we have people from across the globe. If we talk about India, I see major people coming from Bangalore and that's a more decent place. Like, if I talk about NZIER, I don't see that kind of thing. So I have personally been talking to a lot of people in India from different communities, trying to work in healthcare, because we don't see that kind of investment from this part of the world. Then from Bangalore, if I told people in Bangalore that I have a meetup on Sunday, people are most willing to come and join them in person. I'm not saying I'm confined to those.

5. Can you share a brief about your career path? How did you get to this devil's advocate route?

So as I say, I'm the mother of 12 years of experience. So I started a little bit into the cloud and automation side of it. And I was working as a dev-ops engineer, which is a very popular career path placement. I used to go to a lot of meetings and conferences, and I always had that feeling that I even wanted to be on the other side, not as an audience, but maybe as a speaker. And I was not sure what these people do and how they get on that stage. I told the speaker, what is it with the second forum that came to mobile phones that these people are data, something collectively organizations and these people are supposed to do a kind of a job. Then I started researching more, finding what kind of opportunities we have in India. Thankfully, I got an opportunity to be a solution they were looking for out of India and got along. I applied for that job. So I'm coming from a typical programming gunsel background where I've been working hard called Dunkerque, but it contains those kinds of things.

6. What difference do you see in salary benefits from programming or to this level?

I just think this is a relatively new thing that is picking upright. And this is mostly driven by the U.S. markets. So they have to step up their lives now and be able to follow the same sentiment. So since it's a new thing, we don't have that kind of a pool of people available. Definitely. You have some salary benefits. Like any other new technology, a nuclear fight also has higher benefits than a typical second.

7. So can you share your thoughts on the theme of the conference Pursuit of Mastery? And with that, can you also share one of your favorite books?

I mean, the seropositive must be something which I have been told you believe. But the worst case that could have been doing the technological things, we need not get satisfied. I get into a comfort zone, need to have that kind of a hunger to continuously strive for excellence. I keep on trying that, keep on learning daily that helps you improve as a personal human being. Whatever technical skills we're looking at. So I'm a firm believer in that. That's where I would start from, like, as I say, move into the cloud and put well, some time to make myself become an organ. Talking about the book, the latest book that I'm reading, I think that would be one of the things so I'm reading this book called Aadi Cycle. I begin getting back into sort of the point of this Tomasetti, just trying to understand that it just puts a book into that space.

8. Any last message for the audience?

Not only for the audience but for all of you. Ten seconds for making this a big success. But I'm doing much better than what we had last year. I see a lot of improvement. So I'm looking at the next.

Thank you!!