DEV Community

Cover image for I Joined DEV πŸŽ‰
Christina Gorton
Christina Gorton

Posted on

I Joined DEV πŸŽ‰

I've spent the last few months figuring out "What do I want to do in tech now?"

I have been a developer, educator, technical writer, community coordinator and more. (If you want to learn more about my interview process the last few months you can check out this post)

A couple of months ago I applied for a role at DEV. At the time I created a draft post titled "Christina at DEV" and told them at the end that "Hopefully in the future I can turn this into an "I joined DEV" post instead πŸ˜€"

I didn't get that role but... Now I do get to create a post for my role as the new Open Source Community Manager for DEV.πŸŽ‰

Why I joined DEV

As a developer I spent way too much time trying to figure out where to blog or "revamping" my own website. I always knew I wanted to blog but didn't really get started until I found DEV.

DEV has been an amazing and encouraging community for me. A lot of opportunities I have had the last 2 years have been because of my posts on DEV and engagement with the community. DEV and now Forem, are products I use and love and I couldn't be more excited to join this team.

Open-source and community are essential to DEV and I hope my skills and varied background will be valuable to the DEV team and the DEV community. I look forward to continue building up the Open Source community here and helping contributors have a wonderful experience.

More About Me

I started out in tech as a Front-end developer. I love creative coding and have a lot of fun creating crazy animations and art with code over on CodePen. On the side, I teach courses for platforms like Egghead.io and LinkedIn Learning.

I am a mom of 4 and my life is always a little wild. πŸ™ƒ
My family and I currently live in Costa Rica. I like to share pictures of our goats and the sloths that hang around our property.

Alt Text

We also have a giant Mastiff named Appa who thinks she is tiny.
Alt Text

If you ever have any questions, comments, or just want to chat, feel free to reach out!

Where you can find me

You can follow me here on DEV, as well as on other social media:

Top comments (30)

Collapse
 
itsasine profile image
ItsASine (Kayla)

Do you think Appa would get along with my black cat Iroh?
Please say yes haha

Congrats!

Collapse
 
coffeecraftcode profile image
Christina Gorton

She loves cats, they just don't always love her 😬

Collapse
 
michaeltharrington profile image
Michael Tharrington

So awesome to have you on the team, Christina.

And I'm really siked to hear your dog's name is Appa. Whenever we're trying to get our dog up and moving, we always holler "yip yip!" πŸ˜€

Collapse
 
coffeecraftcode profile image
Christina Gorton

Yes, Appa also comes to yip yip! πŸ˜„

Collapse
 
rikuoja profile image
Riku Oja • Edited

Wow, I just signed in to DEV for the first time and the very first post I read has sloths and dogs in it :D Loving the site already. Keep up the good work!

Collapse
 
ender_minyard profile image
ender minyard

Ahh! Sloths! Ahh!!!!!!!

Collapse
 
link2twenty profile image
Andrew Bone

Congratulations πŸŽ‰πŸŽŠ

Collapse
 
maestromac profile image
Mac Siri

Welcome to the team, Christina!!!

Collapse
 
dabjazz profile image
Yash_Jaiswal

Welcome to DEV Christina. Quick question can I ask about your journey in open source contribution?

Collapse
 
coffeecraftcode profile image
Christina Gorton

Sure, anything in particular you are wondering about? :) Or just my time in open source in general?

Collapse
 
dabjazz profile image
Yash_Jaiswal

I want to know how did you started your open-source journey? What were your initial contributions? How are you contributing now?

Thread Thread
 
coffeecraftcode profile image
Christina Gorton

Ok! I don't have a ton of open source contributions in the sense of code but I do for better documentation. My main focus is to help others contribute and I do that by creating better docs, managing issues/PRs and supporting the community however I can. My current biggest open source project is the 100DaysofCloud community. I am one of the Core Team members there. It is a work in progress but we have over 1000 members currently in our Discord channel.

Collapse
 
simme profile image
Simme

Congratulations to both you and the team! You’re joining a bunch of really awesome people! πŸ₯³

Collapse
 
memitaru profile image
Ami Scott (they/them)

I'm so excited for you!

Collapse
 
graciegregory profile image
Gracie Gregory (she/her)

Welcome to the team!!

Collapse
 
developerkaren profile image
Karen Efereyan

welcome christina. I would love to learn how to create those crazy animation from you. Hahaha

Collapse
 
kaeptnkrunch profile image
Stephan B. R. Langenau

Nice story. I really love DEV since i joined too.

Collapse
 
nickytonline profile image
Nick Taylor

Welcome to the team!

Kylo Ren on Undercover Boss giving a thumbs up

Collapse
 
ben profile image
Ben Halpern

Awesome to have you!

Collapse
 
mmosley profile image
Marie Mosley

Yes! So excited for you πŸ’