Original: https://codingcat.dev/podcast/2-43-Growing-as-a-DXE-and-Building-Dev-communities
▶ Watch on YouTube & Subscribe to CodingCat.dev
Growing Dev Communities and Becoming a DX Engineer with Dom and Brittany
Welcome back to another episode of Coding Cat Dev Snacks! Today we have Alex Patterson and Brittany Postma joining us. This episode is brought to you by Storyblock - the flexible content platform that lets developers focus on code while content teams manage content independently.
Alex and Brittany will be discussing growing developer communities and becoming a developer experience (DX) engineer. Let's dive in!
Starting and Growing Developer Communities
Alex has extensive experience building developer communities. It started with gaming communities when he was a teenager. He eventually created a large alumni community called Bootcamped for people who went to coding bootcamps. This helped him network and find jobs after his own bootcamp experience.
Later on Alex started the popular Reactadelphia meetup group that brought together 100 local developers and another 70-100 remote attendees each month. He live streamed the talks before it was common so remote viewers could participate.
Some key takeaways on starting a dev community:
- Use Discord over Slack. Public communities don't work well in Slack.
- Consider self-hosted options instead of Meetup.com to have more control.
- Focus on safety and inclusion. Enforce a strong code of conduct.
- Don't worry about huge numbers of people - quality over quantity.
Brittany also organizes the Svelte community and highlights the importance of being a liaison between the external community and your company's internal teams. Gathering feedback and conveying pain points helps improve products for the community.
Becoming a Developer Experience (DX) Engineer
Alex explains that a DX Engineer decodes internal product messaging and launches to make them resonate with the external community. They serve as "customer zero" to catch bugs and test new features from a beginner perspective.
DX Engineers build trust so the community will listen and want to learn from them. He prioritizes caring about the community over company sales goals.
Brittany agrees and thinks DX is about the whole journey developers go through using a product. At Netlify they focus on connecting product teams to the community.
Other Key Discussion Topics
- How to balance promoting your company's product vs competitors
- Moderating communities effectively but fairly
- Equity compensation and stock options in startups
Video Chapters & Timestamps
Jump directly to any segment of Growing as a DXE & Building Dev Communities on YouTube using the timestamped chapters below:
- 00:00: PM
- 00:00: Introduction
- 00:00: Domitrius Clark Details
- 00:00: Storyblok Sponsorship
- 00:00: What is a DXE
- 00:00: Purrfect Picks
Resources, Links & Official Documentation
- *Watch on YouTube: *Growing as a DXE & Building Dev Communities Full Video (plus Subscribe to CodingCat.dev)
- *storyblok.com: *https://www.storyblok.com/?utm_source=codingcat&utm_medium=sponsor&utm_campaign=AWA_SPON_PURRFECT_TRA&utm_content=purrfect-podcast
- *ntl.fyi/3RTy1Qq: *https://ntl.fyi/3RTy1Qq
- *Show Pick: *Courier (picked by Alex Patterson)
- *Show Pick: *Hacktoberfest Website (picked by Alex Patterson)
- *Show Pick: *Web Unleashed (picked by Brittney Postma)
- *Show Pick: *Vite Conf (picked by Brittney Postma)
- *Show Pick: *Startup Options, to take them or not (picked by Domitrius Clark)
- *Show Pick: *Stream Deck (picked by Domitrius Clark)
- Domitrius Clark Guest Profile & Episodes on CodingCat.dev
- Domitrius Clark on GitHub
- Episode Sponsor: JamstackConf
- Episode Sponsor: Storyblok
- Netlify Documentation: Jamstack deployments, edge functions, and build automation
- Serverless Land & Cloud Patterns: Event-driven architecture, functions-as-a-service, and cloud workflows
- Storyblok Headless CMS Documentation: Component-based headless CMS and visual editor APIs
Related CodingCat.dev Tutorials & Podcast Episodes
- Storyblok and achieving better Accessibility from Developer Experience: All about Storyblok and how achieving better A11y can be done through developer experience.
- QuickNode Builds Infrastructure for the Future: We sit down with Anthony Campolo (ajcwebdev) to talk about Web3 and working with QuickNode.
- Moving from WordPress to Jamstack: Talking with Jason Lengstorf about how to use Wordpress to power the backend to any of your Jamstack sites.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
What are the main takeaways from Growing as a DXE & Building Dev Communities?
The master of building communities Dom joins us to break down how to build them, what a DXE does, and how to get shares at a startup. 2.43 - DXE & Building Dev communities with Domitrius Clark: The master of building communities Dom joins us to break down how to build them, what a DXE does, and how to get shares at a startup. https://codingcat.dev/podcast/2-43-Growing-as-a-DXE-and-Building-Dev-communities Sponsors: Storyblok
Have you already discovered Storyblok? They have an official S Throughout this podcast, Domitrius Clark breaks down real-world implementation details for Netlify, Serverless, Storyblok so developers can apply these patterns directly in production.
How do you implement Netlify best practices in production?
When adopting Netlify and Serverless in a production stack, start by validating your configuration against the Netlify Documentation (Jamstack deployments, edge functions, and build automation). Focus on incremental adoption, automated testing, and observability so your team can measure performance and developer velocity improvements at each stage.
Where can I watch the full Growing as a DXE & Building Dev Communities walkthrough and find related code resources?
You can watch the complete video session for Growing as a DXE & Building Dev Communities on the CodingCat.dev YouTube channel. For a deeper dive into Netlify, check out our related guide: Storyblok and achieving better Accessibility from Developer Experience.
Top comments (1)
@domitriusclark is so awesome!!