Featured Mod of the Month: Dumebi Okolo

#interview #meta #moderation #community

In this series, we shine a spotlight 🔦 on the different DEV moderators — Trusted Members and Tag Mods — who help to make DEV a kind, helpful place. Aside from spreading good vibes and helping fellow community members, these folks also assist us with removing spam and keeping posts well organized by adding and removing tags as necessary amongst other things.

If you want to learn more about what these awesome folks do, I recommend checking out our Trusted Member and Tag Moderation guides. There is information about how to apply in both guides if you're interested in joining up as a moderator.

Introducing Dumebi Okolo 🙌

For our featured mod of November (we're running just a tad behind 😅) I'm happy to highlight Dumebi Okolo, a self-taught developer and fairly new, but impactful member of our mod ranks. With aspirations of working in DevRel, Dumebi has been actively developing these skills, going above and beyond to assist new DEV members while also learning Ruby and sharing her knowledge with others in the excellent Understanding Ruby series. Take a quick look through Dumebi's profile and you'll see just how friendly, helpful, and positive she is — all values that we hold high and are central to fostering a caring community. We're very fortunate to have Dumebi's assistance as a mod. Thank you, Dumebi!

Dumebi Okolo

Confident technical writer with frontend developer skills, marketing skills and developer relations skills. I am also a very fun person to hang around with.

Outside of DEV, you can find Dumebi here on X and LinkedIn.

The Interview

Michael Tharrington: How did your tech journey begin? What interested you in computers and when did you realize that you wanted to transform this passion into a career?

Dumebi Okolo: My tech journey started like most people's: I was very curious about so much. I needed to learn.

My intro into tech was with machine learning. I was very curious about how machine learning models function and what makes AI applications as smart as they are.

Michael: I know you have ambitions to break into the software development industry as a developer advocate (and I fully believe that you will do it!)… would you please talk about what that experience has been like for you and why specifically you’d like to go into DevRel?

Dumebi: I'll start by saying the concept of DevRel basically fits my personality. The ability to teach and reach fellow developers and enthusiasts is something that I am very passionate about and work towards.

The experience has been great. I've fully immersed myself in creating content and mentorship. Whatever grants the most opportunity to reach out to and teach people. I write, and I hold both offline and online classes with people. I also speak publicly. And, with years of experience in Growth Marketing, I have learnt a lot about developer outreach, conversion and retention.

Michael: You’ve been teaching yourself Ruby and writing lots of interesting articles about your experience. Why did you pick Ruby and how did you end up deciding to document your learning journey via posting on DEV?

Dumebi: I picked Ruby because I've never really been a "bandwagon" type of person. I wanted something different, and away from what every other person was learning. Also, I am very passionate about DEV Community (dev.to) and know that it is built on Rails. I want to contribute to DEV someday, and I felt I needed to know enough Ruby to contribute.

I decided to document my journey on DEV because I love using it to reach fellow developers. I think it's a great platform!

Michael: Can you talk for a bit about the tech scene in Nigeria? We have quite a few DEV community members coming from this part of the world. I really enjoy the multi-national aspect of our community and it’s always nice getting a window into the lives of devs across the world!

Dumebi: The tech community here is pretty vibrant and strong. Loads of enthusiasts who dedicate a lot of time and effort into getting and being better. Sometimes, the conditions aren't always conducive but there's a resilience about Nigerian devs and the community at large.

Michael: What’s the most rewarding thing to you about being a moderator on DEV?

Dumebi: Getting to read as many articles as I can. I know that I can do this as a normal member, but I might not always be motivated to do so. But, as a mod, it gives me the motivation I need to read as many articles as possible, in different aspects and fields of tech.