Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Developer relations (DevRel) is an increasingly rising industry, growing as a reflection of software's ubiquity in the business world — and the growing power of the developer to influence what products and platforms their employers use.
But, what makes a good Developer Advocate and strong DevRel program? This week on the API Intersection podcast, we chatted with Rizel Scarlett, Developer Relations Engineer at Github, to get her opinion on how to measure a DevRel program's success and different platforms Developer Advocates can utilize to reach the developer community.
To subscribe to the podcast, visit https://stoplight.io/podcast
Do you have a question you'd like answered, or a topic you want to see in a future episode? Let us know here: stoplight.io/question/
Building a successful API requires more than just coding.
It starts with collaborative design, focuses on creating a great developer experience, and ends with getting your company on board, maintaining consistency, and maximizing your API’s profitability.
In the API Intersection, you’ll learn from experienced API practitioners who transformed their organizations, and get tangible advice to build quality APIs with collaborative API-first design.
Jason Harmon brings over a decade of industry-recognized REST API experience to discuss topics around API design, governance, identity/auth versioning, and more.
They’ll answer listener questions, and discuss best practices on API design (definition, modeling, grammar), Governance (multi-team design, reviewing new API’s), Platform Transformation (culture, internal education, versioning) and more.
They’ll also chat with experienced API practitioners from a wide array of industries to draw out practical takeaways and insights you can use.
Have a question for the podcast? DM us or tag us on Twitter at @stoplightio.
I'm Jason
Harmon, and this is API Intersection,
where you'll get insights from experienced
API practitioners to learn
best practices on things
like API design, governance, identity
versioning and more.
Welcome back to API Intersection Podcast.
A little different today.
I know I always say that,
but this one truly is
I think we're not even maybe
even going to get into API so much today,
but something that certainly,
you know, myself and Anna
as well as you know, certainly Stoplight
you know,
we're always interested to hear about,
you know, kind of these different paths.
People come from
kind of nontraditional paths in life.
And what leads you
to getting into tech and kind of software
engineering and all these things?
So we're really happy to have Rizel
Scarlett, currently at GitHub
here as a guest.
So Rizel, thanks for joining us
thanks for hand. And
as I had already mentioned,
is co-hosting with me again today.
Thanks, Anna.
Hey, all. Thanks
so tell us a little bit about yourself.
You know, what are you up to?
What are you into
yeah.
I'm currently a junior developer
advocate at GitHub.
Been here
for like almost eight months now.
Prior to that,
I was a software engineer at like
random startups in the Boston area
and other startups
that weren't in the Boston area.
And I also helped to run a program
called Code House,
which introduces women of color to
and non-binary people of color
to like web development
and like the basics of of Spotify.
Yeah.
So that's me in a nutshell.
Yeah.
I have to say, I was doing my,
my homework here daily.
Our producer always sends me kind of the
the questions
and, you know, the profile stuff
because she's amazing.
And I went, 22 experiences.
You look pretty young, so.
Yeah.
Wow, man, you're not kidding about
hopping around lots of different places.
I guess I'm curious, like,
you know, was it is this just sort of this
direction on, you know, helping
kind of women of color and non-parents
non-binary folks get into the system?
Is this more of just personal passion
or do you feel like this is something
that you got perspective
out of going through all these companies
yeah, I'm probably a bit bit of both.
So like going through
going getting into tech, navigating
especially as like
a minority is like very difficult
from my perspective at least.
And after like talking
to other folks, too,
I thought I was the only one
that was like having a hard time.
Like, oh, the culture is like
much different than I'm used to.
Like, there's even like at least for me,
there's this little stuff that like,
I think even
like just shoes that people have,
you may not be used to.
I'm like, oh,
everybody already knew what to do here.
OK, so I know that that was an issue
for me.
And then, of course,
like discrimination as well.
And I feel like it's a passion for me
one cause I've experienced
like some negativity from it.
But then also I thought I went into
other programs like Resilient Coders
and has diversity Resilient Coders is like
the program that taught me how to code
and then have diversity
is also another program that kind of
helped me to like
get into tech on the support side
actually.
And I really benefited from those.
So I was like really passionate
about continuing
doing that same thing for others.
So that's kind of how I got into it.
And I know a lot of people say
I have a lot of different experiences,
but a lot of them are internships.
So I was able to hop around in the pay
I started off and desktop support as well.
And one of people's favorite subjects,
once they start having a few beers,
is all the weird manual labor and crazy
all kinds of jobs that I had.
I moved out at 17, so,
you know, living
out of a backpack for a couple of years,
hustling wherever I could.
Like I get it, you know, you got to find
your own way to make that money.
What kind of opportunities do
you think are out there for people
that maybe aren't exposed to them
very early on or you know,
that G Code House can help expose
so the main focus
that G Code House has is on software
engineering and that like field
is starting to get more popular.
But I think some people may still not know
that, like they can actually
be software engineers
because you may look at it as like, oh,
that's something for like people
who went to college for a computer
science degree or people
who are really great at math or whatever
other options
people can look into as well as like
UX design and UX engineering.
I think that's
like another non-intuitive path
that people don't go to college for.
You can go to boot camp or self
teach yourself, which I think is amazing.
And I'm also
thinking about how developer advocacy
and like community management
is another one
that you can pivot into
because there's more skills
than just needing
to know how to code in those roles. Like
you can be a marketer
and move into developer advocacy
or an educator or something like that.
I think you can like leverage
the skills that you learn from those roles
into like community management
and dev roles.
What are those skills?
What would you recommend is to have to be
a good Deverell or community manager
yeah.
Um, he have a lot of skills myself. Yeah.
Where yeah, I guess
it really depends too
on like where you want to focus
because like, you go on to develop.
I at least thought I would have to be good
at every single thing,
but once you go into the role,
you realize, OK,
there's some people on my team
that specialize in this part
of like developer advocacy
whereas I can focus on this.
A couple skills on the people
could probably focus more on is
or will have to focus on is like
being good at social media is helpful
because you want to be able
to like promote
the content that you create
or something like that.
There's just no point in
like teaching people
if no one's seeing it in
social media is like
one of the fastest ways
to like spread that information.
It's good to be
able to also know how to create content,
whether it's blog post,
whether it's video creation, whatever.
But that's part of
that's part
of being able to be a good Devereaux.
And then it's I think is fundamental
to know how to code.
There's some developer advocates
that they may not have started off
knowing how to code or like this
is their first role in tech, which I'm
super curious to like learn from them.
Like how are they able to navigate this
because I think it would be
a little bit difficult
if I didn't have a background in.
So I can tell you from many experiences
over the years, there's lots of folks
that get into it for the wrong reasons.
And I personally agree with you,
if you don't code,
you're not part of the
conversation. And it shows
I think there's a lot of
people that have no business in it
personally, but
hi tech, just to say, I'm just like,
you know, well, it's like,
you know, developer advocacy relations,
this sort of thing is supposed to be,
you know,
you're here to help you here to teach.
Would you agree, Rizzo?
Yeah, I mean, it seems obvious, right?
But like if you don't actually know
how to do it, then how do you do that job
you're really just doing kind of.
Yeah. Developer marketing bunny
ears, right?
Which, you know, if you try to sell
something to developers,
then that's the worst thing you can do.
So I think that's where I come from on it.
He says as the property market or the room
yeah, but you're credible.
You're credible.
Oh, makes
and that's I guess it's fun
to, to be like a product marketer
or a marketer in general.
But I guess like,
you know, the role of developer advocacy
is to be like a genuine
not, not marketing person, I guess.
But I, I've seen some people
I guess I should edit what I say
a little bit, but I've seen some people
who are developer advocates
and I have a good a background in software
engineering and they're really good at it
and doing it for the right reasons.
But I'm like, how?
Like,
I feel like I try to think of myself like
maybe it's because I was younger back then
or something like that.
But before
when I didn't know how to code,
I'm curious if I would be able to do this.
I mean, I think you can manage communities
without sort of a technical background.
I'll say that,
you know, building community.
And so it's a really visceral,
fundamental thing
that's true
regardless of what kind of community is.
But anyways, besides my tech
spicy.
Sorry, I'm also curious about
you said that
you found yourself in Devereaux right?
So you were an engineer
and now you're in Devereaux.
What was that transition like for you?
How was it going?
Are you are
you happy to be where you're at now?
I am happy. I love this.
I kind of feel like it was kind of good
because.
Yeah, yeah.
But basically, like,
I guess like I started in.
Sorry,
how many beginning words I'm going to say
I can yes, I can start now.
Where I became a software engineer.
And then I would kind of explain more,
but yeah, like, I was
I was studying psychology, and I
in college,
and then I was like, oh, my gosh,
I am not going to be able to afford this.
Like, I didn't realize
you had to go to grad school for it
because I just picked
whatever I found on the Internet. Oh.
So then I decided
I was going to take a break from college
and I Googled like what careers
make more money and what little college
so that I could be able to afford it.
Tech kept popping up. I got into it
because that was like
looking approachable for me
rather than computer science.
When I looked at the computer
science requirement that had like discrete
math and I'm like, I know who that is.
After I.T.,
I went into software engineering
and or I went to a coding boot camp
into software engineering
because I started working at HubSpot
in it, and everyone
was talking about APIs and coding.
And I was like,
You know what? This actually looks cool.
And if I could skip the math part,
I'm good to go.
So I went to resilient
coders, learned to code, landed a job,
and then went back and got my degree
in computer science at Boston University.
And while I was working
as a software engineer,
I kind of missed the way that
I got to help people and it
like that part was fun.
Like I got to like like see the impact
that was making.
Whereas with software engineering,
I was like, OK, I'm
just like changing this button.
Color and making this happen.
I don't know if users like it or not.
So I did miss that part.
And during that time, I also started
like designing the curriculum, a G code
and teaching people that G code.
And I was like, Oh my gosh,
this would be so cool if I could like
directly help people like create content,
install code.
But I didn't know that, like, developer
advocacy existed,
but as I got more and more into Twitter
I seen people
that were doing this and like,
Oh, wow, people have time to blog a lot.
And I was like, Oh, this is their job.
So yeah,
that's when I started like research
doing
and applying to developer advocacy jobs.
So I'm curious, like when you approach
kind of the curriculum
you mentioned at the G code program
that you put together,
do you feel like there's
anything that you're doing
that might be different to kind of adapt
to the audience that you're working
with versus maybe other sort of code
school type environments
yeah, I think so.
So I would note too that Google so
our plan is to do like a full term program
cause
the owner purchased a house
in Massachusetts in an area called Roxbury
that's like highly gentrified
and her like ultimate idea is to have
like women of color who are struggling
with homelessness, live there
and then learn to code at the same time
once they're done with the program,
get a job, move out, blah, blah, blah.
But it's like really expensive
to renovate that house.
It's a historic building that could house
like 15 people, but very, very expensive.
So I started the online versions
and I just want to note that it's
not like a full long program like it's
just six to ten Sundays depending on
like if it's summer or winter.
And basically that's
just to introduce them to web development
and then I show them about other long
term programs,
if that's something
they want to commit to it.
And the reason I do that is because
I think that with other coding bootcamps,
I you've kind
of have to like quit your job
and you may not
really understand what coding is,
at least like.
I know a couple of people who did it,
and I also kind of like didn't
have like the greatest idea on like,
was this going to be worth it?
Will I actually like it?
And I'm like, OK, I'm just going to quit
my job and see what happens.
So this makes it low risk for them
because they can just do six Sundays
or ten Sundays and meet with me
and learn HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
And then after that, they're like, Cool,
I like it.
I'll go ahead and learn
more like APIs or whatever else.
So yeah,
I think that one part is different
where it's like a shorter
program only held on Sundays
and on, and it's a
little bit slower paced, like coding boot
camps are fast,
like because they're trying to pack in
as much as possible
within like 14 to 20 weeks, which I think
sometimes you don't get enough time
to absorb what you're learning.
So you kind of
just have to like keep moving.
And I think that's another thing that I do
that's different where like I stop
and like if everyone's not getting it, I
talk to them like, OK, here's what's here.
Like let's explain this a little deeper
and like just
the curriculum itself
is like overall sway slower.
I think in like some coding bootcamps,
you just like bang out
HTML and CSS and one day and then after
that you're diving into JavaScript.
But we take a little bit more time
like one day on
like understanding Flexbox
and the box model and stuff like that.
Yeah, cool.
No, I think that's totally appropriate.
I mean, you're right that a lot of the
code camp stuff for a lot of people, it's,
it's like a cliff to dove off of
and kind of career path.
Like you got to really come it.
You're all in.
That's all you're doing for a while.
So and that's just not possible
for a lot of people, right?
You have commitments, you got family,
you got jobs, you got to support people.
Yeah.
I've often thought about doing a code camp
but then I was like, do I do
can I commit to this?
And I just don't have that.
Maybe I'm a coward.
I think maybe
I might be a little bit of a coward,
but it is probably very intimidating.
For people who who have lives
that they have to support otherwise.
So this is a really cool program
to come up with.
Thank you. Yeah. Yeah.
And like our target demographic, they have
they have wives, they have children
and other things.
So I'm interested in the
that you kind of mentioned
the homelessness factor here.
That is kind of part of the broader
vision.
I mean, are you engaging now with folks
that are, you know, suffering homelessness
and that sort of thing?
You know, I'd imagine that's a pretty,
pretty hard thing to engage
and figure out.
Yeah.
So I will say for the online course
not, not very heavily
before the pandemic, at least to me,
at the Boston Public Library.
And there were a couple folks
and the thing we've always provided,
whether it's the online sessions or when
we were in the Boston Public Library, is
they would get a free meal
or free Uber each card from us.
And we will also cover transportation
if they had to travel to
the Boston Public Library
and if they and we always donate laptops,
but they're donated from other companies
like HubSpot
and after they finish the program,
we give them
like financial assistance as well.
Like if they wanted to go into
like a resilient
coders or another longer
term coding boot camp,
we provide financial assistance
for that as well.
So we haven't like
interacted that much yet with the unhoused
just because it's, it's a little difficult
until that house is actually up.
But for now, like that's, that's
where we what we've been kind of
I love the vision. I love the dream.
It'd be you know,
I think if that comes to life
would certainly like to hear how it goes
yeah.
Thank you
because switching gears a little bit here
on, you know kind of GitHub
developer advocacy,
I feel like you know, what a huge thing
this has become over the years.
And there's there's so much to it now.
I mean,
this is probably one of the biggest,
most comprehensive programs out there.
So for you just joining in
and kind of getting a taste of this,
like what's your take
on kind of how things work?
And for smaller companies, let's say,
that are trying to get kind of
get their game going.
What sort of things
have you learned that work
oh, good question.
Let's see
I guess we
I think our our team is pretty good
at pivoting, right?
Like when the pandemic happened,
a lot of companies were like,
oh, what will we do?
Like, how will we interact with folks?
But I think GitHub was pretty like open
and willing to pivot
to the remote side of things.
Like whether it's doing Twitter screens
or Twitter spaces or blog posts
to continue advocating for folks
or empowering them and teaching them
and I think it's still seeing
some organizations not willing to do that
or like they really want in person,
which I understand because that connection
is there more and it's hard to do
the actual relations part.
But I think I think
knowing how to pivot is also helpful.
I think having
a good manager in place
that knows what they're doing,
I often see like hiring
for a first overall job
and they have like all these crazy
requirements that they want
the person to do and they don't even know
what their role is.
And then they hire
someone who has little to no experience.
I'm like, You're
totally setting them up for failure.
So I think like a good thing
that GitHub has done is they have like
Martin Woodward,
who's the senior director,
and then Brian Douglass,
who is the director and my manager.
Like they have like tons of experience
and they know what to do.
So coming in like me
coming in than someone without
like general experience,
they're like, here's the tips.
Here's maybe what you should try to focus
on a little bit more.
And I'm like, cool.
And I just like work on those.
And I guess people think I'm doing well,
like, outside of GitHub.
So Gibbs or something, right?
Yeah, I agree with that.
I mean, I think that it, you know,
in some ways
developer advocacy this kind of relations,
whatever you want to call it,
this whole field is still somewhat
emergent in terms of, you know, what works
and, you know, how is it effective and
and it is a road littered with bodies
in some terms as far as like people
that have tried and failed.
And I agree with
you completely that it's like just go,
we need someone doing that.
Right?
And then it's like, well,
how do you measure their success?
How do you know that
if they if what they're doing is effective
and eventually someone, you know
has a budget crunch and looks and goes,
I don't know what they do here.
And it's like,
you know, just set up to fail
or their developer
advocate has a breakdown
and they're such a public facing person
that it's just it's bad luck, right?
It's a bad
look for your developer advocate
to not enjoy working at the place they're
supposed to be advocating for you at.
Right.
So yeah, not
and speaking of,
what do you feel like
are kind of measures of success
or like ways in which you kind
of, you know, are looking at,
you know,
measuring what's effective
and what you're doing
yeah.
I mean, I feel like measuring stuff
in that role is so hard.
It's like it's not really about the views.
It's like, ah, like if I write a blog
post out like about like
using a GitHub action
or something like that, are more people
creating GitHub actions?
I think I think that kind of stuff is hard
to tell
for like my own personal measure.
Usually if someone deemed me
and like asked me for additional help
or they're like,
Oh, that really helped me out.
Like, here's my repo that a dot.
I'm like, that to me tells me.
I'm like, OK, this worked
because people got something from it
and they like actually did
actionable steps from it.
But I'm still learning
how companies measure a developer.
That's OK because it's going to feel like
every time I ask folks in this field
that question, I'm like,
I'm sorry I'm booby trapping you
because nobody has a great answer.
But I got to keep asking,
you know, I forgot to swap notes right
yeah.
Agree
the other piece
I wanted to kind of pick out here is you
mentioned like, you know, there's been
this pivot over the last couple of years
to more remote things versus
kind of in-person events.
And I don't know, I feel like it's
been a rough set of results
as far as, you know, kind of
getting engagement and that sort of thing
and out of the formats
that you see experiments with at GitHub,
what's what seems to kind of
get the best engagement
yeah, apparently.
And this is the part that I'm not good at
and I don't do as much,
but apparently tech talks and YouTube
shorts are getting
a ton of engagement
and people are learning a lot from them.
I am like the youngest on my team and I'm
like struggling with using a big topic.
I'm like, I don't know how to use this.
Oh, but that's apparently are like
one of our most effective methods.
Like, people are really into it.
We're getting like thousands of views
and a lot of engagement
people like tweeting about, Oh my gosh,
we just learned about copilot
from this tech talk of.
So I think I've seen that
as really effective for me personally.
I think like my blog posts
have been very effective
and my
Twitter
spaces have been very effective as well.
I do Twitter spaces to
advocate for open source, so I'll like
chat with an open source maintainer
and I'll have other people
who are in the audience
as the open source maintainer or how
they can contribute or other questions.
And then I'll also have
other audience members
if they have an open source project
like jump in and be like, Hey,
I have one too, and I want to promote it.
And I found that effective because
like GitHub is the home of open source
and like I want to be able
to get more people into open source
and like understand
like how to navigate it
and then also help them
find more contributors.
And like for me, I'm
seeing a lot of results from that.
Yes. As somebody else to
kind of found my way
in learning tech and software stuff.
I it's hard for me
as a kid of the eighties to underscore
enough to this generation
how like privileged
everyone is and having open source
everywhere.
Right. When I first learned,
you know, like basic,
it was like, OK, what do we do next?
I can make Windows App so Visual Basic
but it's $400 and the book is,
you know, $75.
I can't do that, you know,
I don't have that kind of money.
So it's like,
yeah, that I love that through
I think this field of Hey, let's,
let's help developers use our products.
Quite often it's with open source
so that it's neutral ground
and that for people who are just learning,
it's,
you know, it's, it's such an easy on ramp
if you're willing to just apply yourself
and learn, you know, be resourceful
yeah.
It is like the Internet's there.
They even have free coding camps.
Like, it's amazing.
Well, Rizzo
any closing thoughts for us here?
Feels like kind of a good stopping point.
Um hmm.
I don't think I have too many closing
thoughts in the next shift.
The question here
yeah, I think it feels like a pretty good
wrap point
you know,
and it sounds like you certainly have
a passion for folks that are just trying
to get started and find their way
any good kind of,
you know, tips from your perspective on
how to get the ball rolling and,
you know, just, you know, closing
thoughts here for folks
just getting started
gotcha.
OK, yes, I do have some
if you want to break into tech,
I think one of the first
and most important things is figuring out
what you want to do
because a lot of people sometimes tell me
I want to get in to take and I'm like,
all right, software engineering,
UX design.
So like do your research like people
or even doing YouTube videos
and tech talks on a day of their lives.
So check those.
That's like the first place to start.
And then once you figure that out,
I think you'll be able to, like, find blog
post on how people broke into UX design,
look on people's LinkedIn
and want to check their career
paths for inspiration, stuff like that.
So that's my advice. I love it. Yeah,
there's a lot of things
you can do in this field, that's for sure.
And figuring out
which role do you think you want to take.
I would also say
like try something on for size
and if it doesn't fit, try something else
because there's a whole lot of ways,
you know, there's a whole lot of things
you can do. So
100% cool.
You don't have to like stay in 11.
Yeah.
It's like, I mean, even if you get
reasonably proficient at basic software
engineering and it's not for you,
like there's lots of people
that help coordinate and deliver
the software that gets built.
But having some coding ability, you know,
it makes a huge difference in being able
to kind of engage and get involved.
So I couldn't agree more.
Well, results, a really cool conversation
and we really appreciate what you're doing
and kind of your community
efforts at large, and I hope you're going
to have great success with all that.
And I'd certainly love to hear, you know,
I don't know, whatever it is
that you feel like you've hit
new milestones.
Love to hear updates on where you're going
of course.
Thank you for having me.
This is one
thanks for listening.
If you have a question you want to ask,
look in the description of whichever
platform you're viewing or listening on
and there should be a link there
so you can go submit a question
and we'll do our best to find
out the right answer for you.