A common debate in Developer Relations is whether or not we should hire junior developer advocates. While many may adamantly say no to hiring junio...
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Hello Rizèl Scarlett,
thank you for your article.
I enjoyed reading it and it was an easy read while reading.
I don't know much about Developer Advocates so the article was a little insight.
"When hiring a junior developer advocate, mentors are a requirement because they’ve never done this job before."
I would even go so far as to say that this is a very good rule of thumb when hiring a junior in a company.
I also like the suggestion of giving a junior more than one mentor.
"I think curiosity supersedes “technical” skill."
When we think of the sheer amount of technology out there, and if we needed to know, this opinion of yours should not be an opinion, but a fact that curiosity supersedes "technical" skill.
Thank you and good points!
Holy shit, I haven't read everything yet but enough already to know that you have a lot to say about the topic and that I will enjoy the read. And I could probably steal huge parts of the article to write another one like "should we hire junior developers?"
Great job and I will the rest after some rest
Lol you’re right 😂in hindsight, I should’ve split these into two blog posts would be an easier read, but i couldn’t stop writing
should have?
why?
it's great like this
the most impactful articles I've read are long form
the only drawback is that it can put lot of pressure on the writer
that's when I would rather do a series of small articles
Agreed, great job.
Nice article! I think I fit the bill of a 'Junior Developer Advocate' (Software Engineer, no advocacy experience). But, in my journeys looking for a Advocacy role I unfortunately didn't actually see any Junior positions.
Developer Advocate seems like the type of space, where you can be new to doing it, but as soon as you enter you are a Developer Advocate. The things you described doing above, even though your title may have been Junior seemed the same, to me, as anyone else in the space.
I wonder if this is one of those jobs like 'Engineering Manager' where you usually wouldn't see 'Junior Engineering Manager', but there are those who are more experienced than others at Managing and those who are completely new.
Anywho, I don't think this has anything to do with what you posted xD. But, thanks for the article.
No I like your point. It helps to reinforce what I was trying to say..that I’m junior and still able to do work of maybe a mid level so people should be less worried to hire juniors
100%. Well written and argued as usual!
As an "old guy" having junior/younger developer advocates is super helpful. I'm not on some of the younger social platforms. My communication style is a bit "dated" and that's fine. There's a significant audience for that. But a big segment of our audience is young. Fresh out of college/HS looking to learn. Having an advocate that speaks in their language is immensely helpful.
Middlemen/advocates are definitely needed for large scale operations. Most developers focus on purely technical skills so they can keep improving technology.
Its very common for devs to go down rabbit holes of research or debugging, and unfortunately the tasks are so specific to what we're working on, that even peer devs are probably unaware of all the details.
Combine that problem with the challenge of communicating to people in general, and you can see how conflicts arise. My organization (medium size) took a similar approach to GitHub. They hired a few communication experts. Basically, these people translate between code-speak, designer-speak, and client-speak.
Ever since the communication experts were hired, daily operations have been smooth sailing. I guess that makes me a developer advocate advocate?
This is great. I’ve been a developer advocate for five years, and we’re just now expanding our DevRel team, and I'm just nodding yes to all of the attributes you've described! Curiosity really is so key!
I am on a position and that i didn't know the name until i find your article and helped me alot the content thank you
I have some content to contribute too about helping and mentoring young developers and hope soon can share with all.
Congrats from brazil +_+
I really enjoyed reading this. My path is similar to yours coding for 3 years teaching and developer community management for 2+ voluteering and parttime, speaking for 2 years yet its difficult for me landing a devrel role as I am currently ready to pivot to DevRel. Hopefully i land one soon.
Great article, and fantastic presentation yesterday at DevRelX. I am a big fan of hiring junior advocates. As a manager, it's super rewarding to take a chance on someone and watch them blossom and find their calling. And it is a great way for those that find themselves in this role to build knowledge and experience.
As a Developer Advocate myself, I agree with everything you said. I have over 20 yrs in IT experience and I still find things that are difficult. The role has no real focus and the impact you make depends on others.
WOW, it's a very helpful article.
Honestly, I will focus mainly on the part of empathy and helping Devs. Usually the devs are not so much talkative people or have hard time to express their feelings to others in a proper format. At least this what I have experienced as we spend very long hours in front of the screens focusing on solving issues.
Therefore, we have developed this kind of emotion and productivity translator (so to say). We developed Devjour as a guided journaling tool for developers, designers and PMs (Agile times in other words).
We wanted to create this kind of tool that enables them to track their moods, productivity, and notes. Then we generate advanced insights to them to know be able measure their current mental and productivity status. Like the following:
I love this article @blackgirlbytes . Fantastic write up of everything you need to know when deciding on whether to hire junior folks into your devrel. I also love that you advocate for hiring junior Developer Advocates. I've been part of this part of our Tech industry long enough to know it's an essential thing to do. Yes, especially for challenging and eventually changing our status quo of not being inclusive in oh so many (if not all) ways.
You're a brilliant role model. Do what you do, you're great at it.
I enjoyed reading every line in this blog post! Thanks for sharing Rizèl! I think that anyone making a transition in his/her career can relate to the “junior developer advocate”. What I liked the most is how you highlighted the fact that people taking “junior” positions may have had a long career path during which they acquired many skills, maybe not related to the junior position at all, but certainly skills that can be turned into an opportunity for the company as a whole, and that these people need just encouragments!
Personally, I’m a developer advocate since 2 months😅 I come from a research/academic background. I still work in the same domain, so both communities, research and developer, have similar interests. However, the main challenge I see in this transition is learning how to write, speak and interact with a community that has a different language and a different vocabulary.
Rizèl this is amazing! You know my story so you know that this hits home though I may not fit into the definition of a junior Developer Advocate presented here. Keep doing the good work you are doing.
I appreciate you for sharing this and advocating for junior devrels.
Navigating the Developer Advocacy path requires a lot from community building to content creation, speaking, coding, and more.
Damn nice 4 articles! 💪🏻
Much thanks for those, quite insightful especially the tips of getting a mentor outside of the company!
We prefer juniors. Seniors have too much "baggage". I don't need to weed out over engineering or marketing gibberish from juniors, hence they're much easier to deal with 😊
Thank you Rizel for this
It was so lovely to read
Great post. We are currently hiring for a DevRel at Medusa, so great to sometimes see it from the other side of the table 😅
This is such an amazing blog! Thank you for the shoutout Rizèl :)
Wonderful blog @blackgirlbytes! 😍
And thank you so much for the shoutout ❤️