DevRel Weekly - Issue 177 - Strategic Work, Interviewing, and Imposter Syndrome

Welcome! 👋

Have you ever had a week where you suddenly look up and it's Saturday? Welcome to the weekend, DevRel Weekly fam 😳 😅 Thanks for your patience this week!

However, I think the resources you'll find below will be worth the wait! From interviewing tips (no matter which side of the virtual "table" you're sitting on) to highly practical strategic blogposts, there's so much good information to dig into this week. I look forward to hearing you what learn as a result!

Best,
Mary (@mary_grace)
DevRel Weekly Patreon

Tidbits 🕔

Internal as well as External Impact

Community goals should always be expressed both in how they impact the members as well as the company.

-Community Folks

Simplifying isn't always a Good Thing

The challenge with imposter syndrome is that we try to boil competency, like so many things, down to extremes.

If I'm not great, I'm terrible.
If I didn't succeed, I failed.
If I don't know something, I never will.

The truth is a lot more complex and boring.

We all can be better; that doesn't make us terrible. Failures are learning opportunities. We will continue to grow.

It's REALLY hard to internalize (I struggle with it all the time), but you're on a journey. Don't write yourself off.

-Evan Hamilton

Tangibles 🤓

Building Trust Model

Building trust with developers is a necessary, but sometimes difficult part of our roles. Tessa Kriesel talks about the 3-step process she uses to engage with developers in this recent blogpost.

Developing Community Strategy, Goals & Measurements

If you're currently leading a team or establishing a DevRel function at your company, I highly recommend looking at these recent blogposts from Bill Johnston:

I'll admit, the posts were denser than most I read on a weekly basis, but when I set aside the time to actually read them rather than skimming the highlights, it was clear that Bill has spent decades digging into (and solving) many of the problems that we're still debating today: how do we prove the value that our teams are producing on a regular basis? I'll be leaving these links open and referring back to them often as I start to prep for Q2, and I've already reached out to connect with Bill for more insights!

Building for the 99% Developers

While exploring all of the new, shiny technologies can be a fun part of our jobs, it's important to remember that most of the developers in our community likely aren't able to use these fancy new tools in their day-to-day work. In this recent post, Jean Yang talks about how to make sure 99% of developers are taken care of by the features, tutorials, and products we're producing.

Interview Tips (for Applicants as well as Hiring Managers)

Whether you're looking for a new role (perhaps your first in DevRel?) or hiring a new team member, there were a number of resources this week regarding interviews and interviewing! I've collected a few of them below.

Can you be a Developer Advocate? Of Course Yes! by Sohini Pattanayak
Tips for your first DevRel interview by Adelina Simion
How to ACE an interview and get the job by Eddie Jaoude (video)
Interview Hot Tip by Kurt Kemple
5 Critical Hiring Characteristics for Community Management Roles by Shannon Abram
From Behind the Chair to Behind the Keyboard: How Hairdressing Prepared Me for Developer Advocacy by Stuart Clark ("soft" skills necessary for Developer Advocates)
End the Pointless DevRel "Test" by PJ Hagerty

Storytime 📚

Dev Spotlight

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Storytime 📚

DevRel Podcasts and Videos

Scaling Developer Success with Lorna Mitchell
Why I Got Fired From My First Community Job with David Spinks - Masters of Community
Community Titles Matter and Paths of a Community Manager with Elizabeth Kinsey - Peers over Beers
Dev Rel and Second Career Developers with Ben Greenberg - The Ruby on Rails Podcast
What Does "Big C" vs. "little c" Community Even Mean? by Carrie Melissa Jones (video)
Community Executive Sponsorship and Buy-in with Dani Weinstein - Peers over Beers
Scaling Developer Success with Anita Ihuman
Developer Advocacy and Specialization with Tom Granot - CloudSkills.fm
The Creator of Intuit's Community and Web3 with Scott Wilder - Peers over Beers

Events 📆

DevRel Events

All sorts of events are coming up soon, ranging from just starting out all the way to deep dives into DevRel. Come and See what's coming up next!

Jobs 👩‍💻

Developer Advocate

TileDB is looking for it’s first Developer Advocate! Spun out of MIT and Intel Labs in 2017, built by a world class team and backed by high-profile investors the company is rapidly growing. We are pioneering the industry’s “universal database,” a database that goes beyond tables and SQL to handle and analyze any data format, file, model or dashboard with any tool at global scale and which delivers unprecedented ease for data sharing, collaboration and monetization. Bold? Yes. Reality? Absolutely.

Developer Advocate

So many DevRel jobs out there. Why Retool?

Existing strategy and reasonable expectations: craft your charter to do what you do best, show results, and stay sane

A respectful, collaborative, and highly functional team, including community, docs, DevEx folks

A product revered by developers and a highly engaged community: harnessing the love is basically low hanging fruit

Let's talk!

Senior Developer Advocate

At FusionAuth, we help developers secure their users' data and build applications faster by providing a secure, flexible, API-first, dev-friendly authentication and authorization server. We are bootstrapped, profitable, and seeking Developer Advocates to promote FusionAuth’s solution through education as well as to participate in our growing developer community. Your work will educate the world about auth (often a confusing and frustrating topic), extend our reach, and make devs' lives easier.

Jobs 👩‍💻

DevRel Jobs

Every month that goes by, we are amazed at how this industry is growing and that companies are finally recognizing the need for these roles! This is most apparent when we look at our Jobs Collection and how it's chock full of new positions waiting to be filled. Have you seen it lately?