all things devrel w/rizel scarlett, dev advocate at github

full transcript

auto-generated from the audio, so expect a few typos. the audio is the source of truth.

all righty alrighty what's going on y'all happy Tuesday uh I am thrilled uh you're probably like Taylor you're always thrilled I am I am I'm always thrilled because uh I have some amazing guests on the show and uh this is no different so Roselle thank you again for hanging out with me this morning I appreciate it thanks for saying yes yeah absolutely absolutely so so funny little story for those of you tune in say hey love to hear from you as always this is a networking platform uh this is a live show a networking platform a Meetup time to pick people's brains so but again

we're not in the metaverse yet um so so you you got to drop in and say hey um I'm waiting for uh let's see all right we just got the notification we're live on YouTube so LinkedIn should not be too far behind um all right sweet Mr Ricardo Mr consistent I love it Marcus it's good to see you um but keep saying Hey so uh it was was really funny so I talked about sliding the DMS a lot right and and in Brazil uh she messaged me the other day she goes hey I want to be on your show and I've admired Roselle for a

long time um because of the way the Twitter algorithm works I think Twitter has gotten better I don't know about you Rozelle I think my my for you page is a they've switched it to be honest with you like it was so fun result at a render uh this one girl came up to I was like oh my gosh I followed you for a long time she was no way I said yeah I went on Twitter right now I was like [ __ ] I don't follow her but the algorithm's so good I thought I followed her the whole time so I followed her me

I'm like she thinks I was like lying to her just to like make friends but all that being said it mattered herself for a long time on Twitter she popped up on my algorithm for you Paige whatever you want to call it and uh she's got a lot of great thoughts so I'm really excited about today's episode we're gonna dive into a lot of great things and then today's all things devro um I think devrel for me at least as an outsider is kind of this like what is it how do you get in it like I don't think there's enough conversations around it so

today we're going to be talking about that um do you want to give some shout outs real quick to um let's see here I want to give a shout to my uh coffee sponsor that conference that conference my boy Clark cell um uh I am very fortunate to be keynoting that conference next month in Wisconsin yes my very first keynote Clark's taking a chance on me thank you Clark but he also is the only the only uh Tech conference out there that has their own brand of coffee beans I'm a big coffee snob um and they're really really good uh Clark this last batch is

really good if you watch this now in the future this is it right here if you use the code gc2 you get a few bucks off your bag but more importantly go check out what he's doing it's great um and I love what Clark is trying to uh trying to create try and develop um want to give a shout to people tune in Ricardo Marcus James Erica Yolanda uh Alex Matt Angela Scott John it's good to see you all y'all keep commenting and y'all keep asking questions as we dive in so enough of me running my mouth Brazil if you want to give a quick

back about who you are what do you do and then I'll start peppering you with questions around devrel awesome uh thanks for having me again thanks for for saying yes um like DM slider but I'm also a developer Advocate at GitHub um what I do is I kind of help people understand or I help developers specifically in technologists understand how to best leverage GitHub a lot of times people think of GitHub as a just this place where you store code where like yes that is it but we also have different things like GitHub co-pilot get code spaces um just other tools that help developers be

more productive and without sounding like really like Market marketing or Sully to them I kind of just show developers like here's how you can use this product and Tool and then I listen to the develo per Community about what they're struggling with and what like they don't like and I'll bring that back to the product team yeah I love that what's all right let me ask you this before we dive in okay what's one of the most cool features about GitHub that most people not do do not know about that you love and it could be even like tiny tiny too it doesn't have to

be like one of the main features I'm just kind of curious yeah I kind of like some of like they have like some secret keyboard shortcuts so I mean maybe people know about this I don't know if it's just feels common to me because I work there but if you're on a repository and you press the period or the dot it'll open it up like a text web editor for you okay that way yeah that way you can just like edit code really quick press save and then you're good to go and then also if you press the comma on a repository it'll open it

up in a GitHub code space which is like a full-fledged vs code editor in your browser there you go there you go um all right so talk about all things devrel today um and I'm I'm pulling up my notes I realize I closed my notebook hold on I guess how did you get into devrel right I think a lot of people well first off what is it what is devrel and then how did you get it let's let's start there yeah I will describe defro as an umbrella of different roles there's like developer I think people get confused too because later is like different rules

and people sometimes use them interchangeably there's developer Advocate there's like Community manager a technical writer all of these other things but basically all of our roles are aimed towards helping developers um understand how to use the product or like the bridge between the company and the the the developers and I heard it was created because like you know developers don't trust marketers right a marketer can say like this is the best fastest most performant product out there but like they don't code they don't really understand what a so ftware engineer is going through so a software engineer is going to be really skeptical sure um

yeah so a lot of times we're looking for we we look for Relevant ways to best show developers how to use the um tools and like Empower them and then on the flip side we also try to listen to like the struggles that they're having or the complaints they have and bring that back to the product team and be like this is actually not serving developers here's what we can do um that makes sense so and and for me one of the common misconceptions released for me I was like I was like y'all y'all don't code right and every Deborah I've talked to they go

I probably code more now than maybe ever I mean so I mean What In Your Role are you hands on the keys a lot is it a little bit less coding again devrel kind of varies among all organizations yeah yeah I would say I code a little bit less okay but I do get offended when people say I don't quote sure I've been an software engineer for three years um before this so I'm like I quote Oh hey hey Ian but yeah I code and but I quote a little bit less and I think what I'm coding is what it's what's different okay it's like

before I was writing code that was going into production um code bases right like if I was a software engineer at GitHub I'd be writing code maybe for GitHub actions or code spaces or co-pilot instead I'm using GitHub actions or co-pilot to make example applications or or demos or something like that that I can insert into blog posts or talks or like just in general so people can see oh here's how I could use GitHub actions I didn't even think about that yeah you know what are the questions I I want to go back something you said yes how developers don't trust marketers right and

and I think it's fascinating so I I'm I'm I love content I I love that whole area and producing it and obviously obviously as you know and I was talking to my buddy who helps me with content um uh Brandon at Brandon 78 and he and I were chit chatt ing the other day just on the phone about just whatever and I said you know what I said it's interesting I said I think I think the tech industry got marketing better than actual marketers because what they've done is they've gone out they've hired their own who have the skills of marketers but they don't call

them marketers like technically Eric okay I'm gonna say this devrel was the original content creators the original influencer okay like before info was a thing like on like mainstream you had devrel teams already yeah that's exactly what y'all are and so can you just unpack kind of the psyche of developers and and how having a Dev for all program or something like a devrel program is so important yeah actually I would say that we probably picked up I have a talk about this I feel like we picked up tips and tricks from other influencers like the beauty Community where they would just show them both

putting on makeup and stuff like that like I feel like we picked up tricks from there um yeah developers are super suspicious super logical like I could say this because I'm a developer yeah yeah you're in it well you are the person we don't like to hear like any BS if that makes any sense so we want to see it from like a real person's point of view without them just saying like this is the best so to be able to show them the what the quality that they're working with or what they'll be able to expect things like doing a twitch stream while coding

helps right like you can be like okay I'm gonna write a GitHub action so they can see it and they can see it in action but yeah they can see it in real time and be able to be make their own judgment calls so we're not sitting here telling them you need to get this or you need to try this instead Eugene we don't trust nobody instead we're like here's how this works here are the pitfalls and you can see me doing it in real time um so you know that like I'm not lying to you I love that um and then I mean I

do have to say I fee l like when the when I don't know you you can say we're not in recession let's just call what it is last year things started to go south in the tech industry devrel got cut a lot and so I I don't know I just feel like that's the wrong way to do things but I also understand that it's listen I say this Witchcraft and Wizardry right it's marketing it's hard to justify maybe you know you have you have us going to conferences and creating content and like I mean we're kind of a money suck I get it but what

would be your plea to companies if they want to cut devrel first and why they probably should look elsewhere oh well I don't like like now's your time to put it on the record like on the record oh shoot yeah okay I will say like okay you can build a great product right but if nobody knows how to use it and nobody knows why they should use it it's just kind of a waste and that's where devrel comes in we show you how to use it why to use it and then we're we're in the know with developer communities right we're on Twitter we know

what they like and don't like we're able to like understand where they're coming from so we're gonna be like okay developers they're not liking this cut this so we'll I think in in some way yes we're going to conferences but we're going there to hear what developers want we're going here to interact so it's not a direct return on investment but we'll make sure that you're staying relevant and actually making money that way because if you if you put a lot of energy and time and money into building a product and a tool and nobody's using it like that's a waste and you have us

to kind of help to to even that out I hope that was a great explanation I don't know but yeah no no no then that's and I get it right you got to be a part of the community you know and it's again it's kind of going back to the influence side of things if you have people who are using your product real time who can show it who can be the people because again people I say this all the time people want to buy for people people don't want to buy from companies I don't care about GitHub but I care about you right yeah

people people don't care right like like Alan right here right um also by the way Alan literally this is the job I'm looking for I just dm'd you but I'm looking for a social lead developer right now brand marketing version of devro literally Alan side of my DMs I don't know why we're not talking this is exactly what I'm looking for um so but but again like it's so so important um let's see here I'm gonna look Scott comes in as someone who worked in Tech Supply who has an interest in roles that involve devrel it sounds like building in public with a pre-established product

and documenting that process would be a potential way into similar so let's talk about this that Scott great transition so uh how did you get into devrel how can folks get into devrel because and I think Scott is is definitely onto something here for sure yeah no he is um first off I will say I'm very lucky to be at GitHub it's one of those companies that truly understands the value of devro like I'm lucky that I didn't end up up somewhere else because I could have I didn't have like the knowledge of like what I should be looking for but essentially I did tech

support too I did help desk I I became a software engineer after that um well I did help desk and then I saw people coding and I was like what is that what's an API it then went to a coding boot camp because I was just so curious and then I became a software engineer and then after that I liked it but I missed the experience of like directly helping people um so I started looking into like how can I do that I like started running a non-profit coding boot camp and it was fun but it was the money wasn't there so I was like

I want this experience of like helping and teaching and directly interacting with developers but still getting a chance to code and still getting money and then I was on Twitter kept see ing people that had these jobs that I was looking for and I started applying and finally um the junior developer Advocate job on GitHub or for GitHub popped up on Twitter and I applied uh through that and I think Scott's right like building public I didn't I didn't do much of that I think I was lucky right like I think a lot of people had this like big portfolio of like blog posts and

different like talks and stuff like that I really didn't get a chance to do that I probably had two blog posts but because I applied for this junior developer Advocate role that was specifically on like just training uh training someone who had potential but maybe didn't have that portfolio yeah it was like the perfect way for me to to slip in well and and I love that because because I feel like and I think there are slack discords specifically for devrel to find jobs like that do you know any resources off the top of your head if people want to look for devrel jobs yeah

that is a question which are two slack Discord okay um if you're black I got the black rail Discord for for black developer for people interested in that and then there's also a site called devrelcareers.com okay yeah um a good one and I think Mary thangball has a newsletter okay where should we post like jobs and stuff like that I have to remember the name yeah awesome um so so let's so you know obviously you mentioned obviously there is there's a uh you know a black and devrel like there's a community around that can you talk about because again right Beam Beam black Endeavor I'm

sure comes maybe with with some challenges maybe maybe with some maybe with some some positives as well can you talk about your experience um as a black woman in devrel and and maybe some maybe some pros and cons of it that you experienced heck yeah so it's okay being black in Tech in general I will say is a little difficult right um I think at least from my point of view like not every black person but I don't have a lot of people that are my friends or family that are even in Tech so I kind of like went into this blindly like I don't

know what I'm doing even some family members were like why don't you become a nurse like what really what is Tech yeah they didn't really understand like what am I doing I'm like no there's money in This I Swear so they've already there's already like a lack of like what the heck are you doing in this world um and you're just confused as well and then when you get into the role at least for me there was a like as a software engineer there wasn't that much support for me um there I felt like I was trying to catch up and there was like really

high standards and expectations for me meanwhile they were often helping like my peers and I was just like I don't know what I'm doing and it was very much like they didn't make it secretive that they thought I wasn't stepping up today really yeah they were clear so that was that was stressful for me okay and I didn't feel like I had a lot of people that I can like talk to or be like hey can you be my mentor yeah going into devrel I actually think that experience is more positive for me I ended up having um a black manager to start with um

his name is Brian Douglas oh yeah oh dude yeah I'm so lucky to have him yeah I feel like he gave me a lot of good mentorship on like how that's awesome yeah he's great um so that was like a good start for me um but I think I think there are still like some struggles in being black and devrel I think there are I've heard um Corey weathers talk about this he's uh you know him too yeah yeah he works at author off zero and he talked about like how devrel for for black developers is different than for other places or other other communities

right like if you're advocating for developers in Africa you have to think about like the different struggles they're facing but whether it's like Wi-Fi or whatever or whatever tools that they're into yeah I think about that right exactly and I don't even know that Af rican developer struggle because I don't live in Africa but like I know like the maybe the Black American um developer like hey here's how I would do this strategy for them here's how I would um here's the things they'd be interested in but sometimes maybe like other develop Advocates might not understand that strategy it's like why are you going to

maybe go to render ATL like that's really expensive what are you getting back from them you know what I mean um so that that in itself is a little bit hard and then again representation you don't there's not a lot of like ctOS or VPS that are black so it's kind of that or or that are in the devrel space sure kind of like what is my next step supposed to be how do I trust them yeah interesting okay how do I talk to and it can be I think I feel I don't know if it's a self-imposed pressure but I am more scared to

mess up during talks and other things I feel like people like immediately assume that I don't know what I'm talking about like if I write a blog post oh I wrote a blog post the other day it wasn't even technical it was just like I called it the ultimate um blog post or the ultimate guide for writing technical blog posts and one of the comments was like ultimate I wouldn't listen to this author if I were you and I'm like okay so there can be a lot of pushback it could be a lot of like nerves on like messing up and yes it happens to

everybody but I think it can sometimes happen to black people more and it's like we have to make sure we end up having to make sure like we don't make any mistakes because people are already assuming we're gonna mess up so yeah dang yeah so talk about talk about the importance of community with that right because I'm sure you've probably you know been able to leverage um you know the black devrel communities I mean talk about what you've learned from maybe black devrel communities but also why it's just so important to have be in community yeah oh my gosh being in community is great becau

se you have other people who can relate to even when I was a software engineer at first I thought my experience was just like my own experience like I was like dang I just suck at coding and like I'm just doing really bad right then right the like black developers and they're like no I'm having the same experience I'm like wait a minute that's crazy so it just like gives you like a little bit of like more camaraderie and you get to level set yourself and you're like oh maybe it's not me um but in the like I created black row because I was like

yo we don't have a place to like chat with each other um and I think the way that some of the people in the community have described it is like this this back door type of thing I didn't even think of that as being a result of it but like we can give the Deets on like oh don't apply to that company like yeah uninclusive or whatever like they're kind of sick or apply here because like they're hiring um so I think I think that helps because we're able to just look out for each other um and help each other get different opportunity yeah well

and I think it's just so important I talk about being being with individuals who have kind of this similar interest and and and it makes such a huge difference because um I had an opportunity to actually interview Kevin Klein he wrote this book right here sequel in a nutshell it is it is an O'Reilly book I interviewed him in person um just a small 600 page intro to sequel um and he was talking about how it's you need to be with people who can understand the challenges you're going through day in day out because he knows what happens is is that you can feel so

alone and actually resell my keynote next month at that conference is you're not alone oh I love that because one of the things I continually hear time and time again from you from everybody in Tech is that you know what I thought I was alone yeah until I started to talk about it and then all of a sudden people open up their stores you'r e like holy [ __ ] I'm not crazy and I just think it's I just think it's the utmost importance to be with be in community with individuals who understand what you're yes so so let's talk let's talk about kind of

you know as you wrap up your last like eight minutes so eight ten minutes brand a big b word people overthink in my opinion talk talk about what does brand mean to you there's no wrong answers here just what is what is brand to you yeah I mean it's just who you are and how people know you you know what I mean that's what it is I put that question because a lot of times I mean I didn't really formulate any thoughts around it but people have asked me like oh how did you like develop your Brands I'm like I and I think that like

if you're just yourself but like also not like some people go too far with it like you don't need to have every controversial thought on your Twitter and everyone no is exhausting so some of y'all I just can't imagine the exhaustion level that you all have battling everything out on social media right we don't we don't need to argue every day but you know putting you don't have to also be a robot like it doesn't have to be like hello everyone I just created this what I do is like as I'm learning something maybe I'll tweet it out I'd be like that is so cool

that I just learned how to do this with GitHub co-pilot or react or whatever and maybe people think oh that's something that she should already know but I'm like this is just me learning and growing and I think what happens when people follow you and they see you learn and grow they get more and more invested in your journey and they get really excited that you they're like oh sometimes people will message me and they're like oh I remember when you were just learning how to like do dynamodb and now you're a developer Advocate at GitHub so I think that helps people just get invested

in your in your journey and I think building in public and learning in public is part of developing that brand and just be yourself if you have a little joke to make or whatever that that is appropriate and safe for work you know you can do that or if you're Ken wheeler you just throw all just throw everything to the wind um he's crazy um so yeah because I talk about Brands and let me ask you this and you can disagree with me that's totally fine um I think brand is your online reputation oh wait I like that better yes it is yeah brand is

your online reputation right we talk about reputation right my dad growing up my dad always says the the one thing that you have always that you're responsible for throughout your life is your name yeah and people think of Taylor dessen what do they think of and and so for me like that is your reputation right reputation though turns into brand online yeah um and and so for me I I I I I you know I think people I think people are challenged with this especially Junior so let's talk kind of go back to the junior side of things they're like well I don't want to

document I'm not an expert I don't know what I'm doing talk about the importance of of documenting even trying to just learn react yeah no I tell a lot of people that even if you're just learning HTML write that down write down the process of like whatever you learn you learn how to make a button element put that out there because one that's going to help other people who want to learn whatever you're learning two when hiring managers look you up they're not like oh okay because maybe maybe you passed the coding challenge or whatever but now they're like you actually truly took some time

to understand what you were doing so I think that helps as well yeah Richie yeah that's that's brand yeah exactly exactly um because you know because I I you know I've told people I said you create the community that you the you create Community around the things you talk about yeah yeah right so so the way I look at it is like I I post a lot about working out and I'm not a fitness guy I actually h ate working out but the reason why I post it is I want to encourage other dads specifically to have kids who have a busy life to be

like Hey listen if I can do it you can do it right um and then you know we've I've developed a community of a few of a few dads on Tech Twitter or who work out and all that stuff right yeah so again and and and for you know I was taught how did I was I think I was presented on a panel to like a software school and I was like I was like you can be known as the react guy or girl yeah even if you just that's all you post about um and for me like people are like well I don't want

to be known for react I'm just learning it I go it doesn't people aren't when you're known for something it doesn't mean you're an expert you're just like Taylor's the recruiter guy right Roselle is you know Roselle right you know like GitHub right yeah yeah whatever you know you're in my mind you're known for putting out some really [ __ ] solid pieces of advice on Twitter um and so again like like you want to be able to be known for something and that being known for something can turn into a job yeah and I think given it an example of that for people if

they're listening like when I joined GitHub I part of my whole interview was I thought open source was not accessible and I didn't really know well hey Christina and I didn't really know what open source was so Brian made me go all in be doggy made me go all in I was like doing Twitter spaces inviting people to talk about open source twitch streams I was writing about it and I was not an expert but by bringing those people on I got to learn what open source really was and how to navigate it and better support open source developers and people started looking at me

as someone who knows things about open source so that's an example I love that I love that all right last two minutes here let's wrap it up quick rapid fire um uh one this is a random question what is your favorite summer pack like what do you love to d o in the summer like when it's summer like is there an activity is there something you love to do like like what's kind of your go-to summer activity that really brings you a lot of Joy I'm at the beach every day when it's the summer like I love it I don't care I'm always there I

love it I love it I'm heading to the beach for the first time in a few years on Friday I couldn't could not be important uh thank you thank you second question what tools Technologies okay are you kind of tinkering with right now that's either new or maybe not necessarily new but just just maybe something you're just messing with right now that you want to share yeah I'm tickling with P5 I want to get more into creative coding so p5.js it does like generative art Sonic pod does like you you the people that like Live code music like I'm like how the heck do you

do that right yeah they like start typing code and music plays and like I always see EDM I'm like how do you do it for like r b and Hip-Hop and reggae I'm trying to figure that out yeah and like of course AI sure that's cool all right last question the show's called guidance counselor 2.0 because in middle school high school and college we had guidance counselors yeah um but now as adults we really don't have guidance counselors to talk about career stuff what it would be your biggest piece of career advice to your younger self oh to my younger self I wasn't even thinking

that um like young Roselle getting into Tech yeah I would say I would say stay confident that's it yeah that's it and the story stay confident we will end there well y'all thank you again for hanging out with us today we appreciate it Rozelle thank you girl thank you so much for having me um stay stay on after we end so I can say bye to you uh backstage but y'all thank you again go connect with Giselle on Twitter she's a monster in the best way on Twitter um so please go follow her um and if you have any questions about GitHub obviously feel free

to reach out to her she knows all the tips and tricks um but in the meantime tomorrow 9 30 a.m Central last live um before vacation very excited about um it's with my dear friend um and he's an engineering manager at smile direct Club Colin Lord um he's fantastic speaker on that conference as well um so we're gonna have a fun time chopping it up so you all have a great Tuesday and we'll see y'all tomorrow peace