Evan Lin

Posted on Jan 15 • Originally published at evanlin.com on Jan 15

[Golang] Do You Like Golang? Become a Go GDE (Google Developer Expert)

#career #community #go #google

Preface

Three years ago (2016/08/21), the first large-scale seminar I signed up for was to give a speech at COSCUP on "How to Learn Golang Through 52 Projects". After that, I organized golang.tw community events and continued to explain Golang-related topics in many places (see my slides link https://github.com/kkdai/slides). Finally, on the same day three years later, just after Go officially became one of the GDE projects in May, the author passed Google's related interviews and became one of the first Google Developer Experts in Golang worldwide.

This article will share with you what a GDE is (related rights and obligations), and will inevitably reintroduce what Golang is in this article (mostly slide summaries), and finally share how to become a Google Developer Expert.

What is GDE (Google Developer Expert)

This article by Google's Developer Relations Program Manager - Eric cannot be missed (Why You Should Apply to Become a Google Developers Expert (GDE)), to maintain data accuracy, some of the official unified publicity obligations and rights will be excerpted here.

Benefits of Becoming a GDE

The GDE program and the product units behind it will arrange activities or provide GDE benefits based on the resources and activity status at the time. You can usually discuss various resource assistance for activities with the Google Developer Relation Regional Lead in your area, and for global activities:

The GDE program will hold at least one global summit (GDE global summit) every year, where you can meet other people who are equally passionate (exciting).
Invite GDEs in the field to participate in beta programs / focus groups / ... and other activities to interact with GDEs, so that GDEs have a certain weight to influence the development of products or technologies. (Golang hopes to participate in more discussions and sharing)
GDEs may have priority to try or obtain alpha/beta products or free usage quotas.
Subsidies for Cloud Next or Google I/O tickets and accommodation, etc. (I personally hope to have GopherCon :p )

Of course, these benefits are subject to circumstances.

The above are all excerpts from Eric's article "Why You Should Apply to Become a Google Developers Experts (GDE), but the author's own reasons are as follows:

Get to know other GDEs: Just like the author doesn't like to only attend seminars without the opportunity to speak (I actually prepared slides at Google I/O and wanted to rush up XD), because the best way to get to know the speakers is to be a speaker. The best way to get to know other amazing people is to become a GDE and go to the GDE Submit with them to get to know each other.
Give the Taiwan Go community more exposure: It is an honor to be selected in the first batch worldwide, and should also be one of the few Chinese people. The main reason I was so eager to compete for it was that, in addition to the author's love for the Go language, I also hoped to give the Taiwan Golang.tw community more attention, because it was impossible to get noticed every time I wanted to hold an event to find international Golang speakers. As one of the community organizers, this is a bit of a personal desire :p.

These are mainly the two personal factors, I'll share them with you here.

Obligations that come with becoming a GDE:

Because this is an encouragement program, the program hopes to recognize the contributions of professional developers, and is not looking for free labor resources. We know that developers may not be able to arrange too many activities due to busyness or work.

Although there are no special obligations, in fact, GDEs have an internal contribution submission system (Activities Submit System), and all your activities (contributions) will be reviewed and viewed by all GDEs. But people who usually give talks really don't need to worry about related things. (Like me :p)

What is Go (lang)

As one of the community organizers and a promoter, I will still let everyone understand in this article. According to the official Golang.org, the main explanation is as follows:

Go is an open source programming language that makes it easy to build simple, reliable, and efficient software.

The main reasons why I personally learn Golang are as follows:

Simple syntax (Simplicity): Allows many people with C language concepts to easily get started and understand.
Powerful built-in standard libraries: Including the useful goroutine, channels and net/http are all very useful built-in packages.
Built-in testing and related useful extended developer tools: In order to make developers more fond of development, the development team has put a lot of effort into the related toolchain. Such as the built-in test go test (also includes benchmark), and document helper (godoc), query related definitions (gopls) are all very useful tools.

Here are some slides I prepared before, welcome everyone to use them to understand.

What are the related Taiwanese Chinese community resources for Golang:

Golang Facebook group discussion forum (You can ask questions in Chinese)
Golang Taipei Meetup (Events will be announced here every time, don't forget to join)
Golang TW Github (You can look for jobs inside, and there are records of each slide)

How to become Go(lang) GDE (How to become Go GE)

Having talked so much about benefits and good things, I believe that all Golang masters want to become GDEs (Google Developer Experts). The general process goes through the following steps, and it is highly recommended that you take a look at the following articles:

I have summarized some of the key points for you as follows:

Self-assessment:
- Do you like to share Golang-related speeches? Do you like to write Golang-related articles? Do you often come to the Golang.tw community to share? (If not, please come and find me to share) To some extent, being a GDE means helping to promote and share technology and content in related fields. If you don't usually do similar things, you should start doing them. Start with a small talk at Golang Taipei Meetup?
Talk to Google Developer Relations Program Manager, that is, Eric:
- He will give you related suggestions and organize related information. Anyone from Taiwan and Hong Kong who wants to apply, don't forget to discuss it with him. Don't forget! Don't ask and then don't dare to apply!!
First round community interview:
- A senior GDE will be selected to discuss your related contributions with you. Here, you will be asked to share your past experience and how you share. You must be able to have enough information and passion to express yourself.
Second round product interview:
- This is quite serious. You will be assigned to a Google internal product employee (most likely an engineer) to discuss the related technical parts with you. The person will review your understanding of the project you are applying for, and whether you are familiar with the main concepts and internal structure of Golang, that is, the entire language.

After passing these two rounds, you are ready for the NDA and T&C and you can wait for the announcement. I hope everyone can apply. You can find 上官林傑.

Does your passion match your aspiration?

"You will become a GDE not because of your recent efforts, but because you already have the qualifications of a GDE."

Throughout the interviews, many interviewers told me, and I was very impressed.

I also suggest that many people who are passionate or want to get this certification after reading the article should think carefully. Because GDE is a glory, but rather than a glory, it is because of your many past contributions that Google appreciates and gives you the related title.

You yourself will not become more powerful because of GDE. What makes you more powerful is: every talk in the past, every community event, every article you worked hard to write, every piece of example code you wrote.

Does your passion match your aspiration? Can your passion match your aspiration? If you only have passion but cannot take that step to realize it and work hard to complete it, then you will never succeed.

Do you have the passion to become a Go GDE? Start sharing in the community first! One day you will also become a member!

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