Just saw this post, I'm a Developer Advocate and I thought I would also take a stab at answering your questions. I am very new to the job unlike @mhausenblas
, so my interpretation may be different.
What exactly does a Developer Advocate do?
I was hired onto my team to support a roll out of a new UI product for my company. This specific product is a React Component Library that we are focusing on this year. I write articles that bring users into our site and I build demos and tutorials on how developers can more easily work with our components as well as React. My company is a great company to do this job for because they truly let us do what we are good at. They don't tell me what to write about and I don't always have to be pitching our product. I also serve as a liaison to the community and to the community a liaison to our engineering team. About 20% of my time will be spent traveling to JavaScript and React conferences. I will submit talks to all of them and speak at the ones that let me, attending and possibly working a booth at the ones I'm not speaking at. I work from home when I'm not on the road and attend all the major meetups in my neck of the woods. I also will try to attend meetups while on the road is possible, anything to connect with our community.
Do they have a specific job description or is it an umbrella term for a wide range of roles?
Every company is different and if they are great at this, they will let you focus on the things you do well. For instance I come from a technical background and was a UI engineer at Tesla before joining. For these reasons I focus more on demos and blog post articles that teach about React and our product. Others might focus more on marketing. I don't really consider content marketing as part of marketing I feel those are separate efforts in my company. But I do get a taste of marketing often but I admit I'm not great at traditional marketing or understanding how it works. lol But I'm great at content marketing because I have several speaking engagements, blogs and podcasts under my belt. This helps me to have a really good idea of what will work as far as content marketing.
Is someone in the Dev community a Developer Advocate or know someone who is one?
Obviously, I am. But I would say that anyone in the Dev.to community that is contributing at large would probably be a good candidate for Developer Relations or Developer Advocacy. For instance at my job we have a Developer Relations team and I am a Developer Advocate on that team representing the React community and our React product.
Hi Dinesh,
Just saw this post, I'm a Developer Advocate and I thought I would also take a stab at answering your questions. I am very new to the job unlike @mhausenblas , so my interpretation may be different.
What exactly does a Developer Advocate do?
I was hired onto my team to support a roll out of a new UI product for my company. This specific product is a React Component Library that we are focusing on this year. I write articles that bring users into our site and I build demos and tutorials on how developers can more easily work with our components as well as React. My company is a great company to do this job for because they truly let us do what we are good at. They don't tell me what to write about and I don't always have to be pitching our product. I also serve as a liaison to the community and to the community a liaison to our engineering team. About 20% of my time will be spent traveling to JavaScript and React conferences. I will submit talks to all of them and speak at the ones that let me, attending and possibly working a booth at the ones I'm not speaking at. I work from home when I'm not on the road and attend all the major meetups in my neck of the woods. I also will try to attend meetups while on the road is possible, anything to connect with our community.
Do they have a specific job description or is it an umbrella term for a wide range of roles?
Every company is different and if they are great at this, they will let you focus on the things you do well. For instance I come from a technical background and was a UI engineer at Tesla before joining. For these reasons I focus more on demos and blog post articles that teach about React and our product. Others might focus more on marketing. I don't really consider content marketing as part of marketing I feel those are separate efforts in my company. But I do get a taste of marketing often but I admit I'm not great at traditional marketing or understanding how it works. lol But I'm great at content marketing because I have several speaking engagements, blogs and podcasts under my belt. This helps me to have a really good idea of what will work as far as content marketing.
Is someone in the Dev community a Developer Advocate or know someone who is one?
Obviously, I am. But I would say that anyone in the Dev.to community that is contributing at large would probably be a good candidate for Developer Relations or Developer Advocacy. For instance at my job we have a Developer Relations team and I am a Developer Advocate on that team representing the React community and our React product.
Thanks Eric. I have a better understanding of the role now. You rock!
Thank you Eric for going into detail about your work. It's much appreciated.