Herding Hackers and Hawking Code: The Hustle of a Developer Advocate
328 | Fri 01 Aug 10:45 a.m.–11:30 a.m.
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Nate is a life-long tech enthusiast, only recently finding himself in the world of developer advocacy at AWS. He currently works exclusively with the open source OpenSearch project. He loves show-and-tell, and really enjoys learning about new stuff and then sharing it with anyone who will listen. He has a particular love for retro technology and old video games. His most formative years were spent in BBS teleconferences in the pacific northwest.
Abstract
You may have heard of a developer advocate. You might have even seen one on stage or met one at a conference booth slinging stickers like they’re currency. Odds are you’ve probably seen a YouTube video or read a blog post from a developer advocate, talking about why an API has changed or acting as an “explainer of stuff” for some new feature. Our lives are never boring, but how can you tell if it’s something you’d be interested in? Just what else are these folk up to?
They are a must have if your particular open source project has regular user groups. You might even consider them a kind of translation layer. You see, they usually have backgrounds in software engineering but instead of coding all day, they're likely to be found talking about code all day. When your users are suffering from deficiencies and bring them to user groups to be discussed, these advocates can usually pinpoint what group of developers and/or repositories those code changes need to be made in. They are a bridge between development teams and user communities.
I’d love a chance to share my experience. If you have a passion for open source projects and want to someday get involved in a pragmatic and supportive way, let me take you through my journey and share just what makes it special to me and why it makes such a difference to the community of any open source product.
You may have heard of a developer advocate. You might have even seen one on stage or met one at a conference booth slinging stickers like they’re currency. Odds are you’ve probably seen a YouTube video or read a blog post from a developer advocate, talking about why an API has changed or acting as an “explainer of stuff” for some new feature. Our lives are never boring, but how can you tell if it’s something you’d be interested in? Just what else are these folk up to? They are a must have if your particular open source project has regular user groups. You might even consider them a kind of translation layer. You see, they usually have backgrounds in software engineering but instead of coding all day, they're likely to be found talking about code all day. When your users are suffering from deficiencies and bring them to user groups to be discussed, these advocates can usually pinpoint what group of developers and/or repositories those code changes need to be made in. They are a bridge between development teams and user communities. I’d love a chance to share my experience. If you have a passion for open source projects and want to someday get involved in a pragmatic and supportive way, let me take you through my journey and share just what makes it special to me and why it makes such a difference to the community of any open source product.