(00:00) developer relations a well-paid fancy job that involves lots of traveling speaking at conferences interacting with developers regularly and creating content what's not to like why would anyone want to go back to coding in this video I want to talk about why I switched back from developer relations to engineering but first a short note on De in the last two years I worked in developer relations as a developer Advocate I don't think there is an official definition for a developer Advocate but you can think of a
(00:34) developer Advocate as the bridge between the company and the community the developer Advocate represents the company to the community and the community to the company but that's not all the developer Advocate must balance the needs and interest of both and make sure they are both happy some of the day-to-day activities of a developer Advocate are as follows create demo applications create written video and social media content interact with the community Provide support to the developers and bring back the feedback
(01:07) from the community to the company these are just a couple of examples rather than an exhaustive list of activities that might be done by developer Advocate also it's important to mention that these activities are usually done by a team of developer Advocates rather than a single developer Advocate because it's a lot of work now that you understand understand what a developer Advocate is and what it involves let's talk about how I became one to do that we need to rewind to the beginning of my career I
(01:41) was in the last University year and I Was preparing to enter the field and I knew it would be very tough to compete with the other candidates and get a job so I thought how can I differentiate myself from the other candidates one idea that popped into my mind was to create a technical blog writing is my my biggest passion and I had non-technical blogs since my teenage years so it made sense I thought I write about the programming Concepts and other related stuff I learn about my existing knowledge about my experiences such as
(02:15) interviews and stuff like that about the problems issues and bugs I solve and basically everything okay enough talk about how I started my blog what has that to do with me becoming a developer advocate well that blog kickstarted my content creation Journey which got me into Dev I went from writing blog articles to creating videos and to being active on social media and now let's jump to the most important part of the video why I went back to engineering but before that a little disclaimer this video might be a bit negative because
(02:52) I'm only talking about what I didn't like about devil however devil can be really nice and there are many people enjoying it and I'll most likely give it a go in the future if I find the right opportunity also this video is not a dig at the companies I worked at because they were really awesome and I really enjoyed working there and I'm forever grateful for the opportunities this video is more about my general experience with devil and what I observed working in this industry so the main reason for wanting to switch
(03:26) back was the lack of coding in these two years and the beat as a developer Advocate I did little to no coding at all even on the rare occasions when I used to code I coded super simple applications it still sounds weird to me that as a developer Advocate you might not code at all the title literally contains developer yet you don't code or you do it very minimally also how can you relate to other developers and advocate for them if you don't code yourself anyways this is just my opinion and maybe I'm I'm wrong but yeah it's my
(04:01) opinion as a result not only that I wasn't progressing but even worse my skills were regressing and they were regressing fast the more time I spent in Devil the worse my coding skills became so I knew that if I don't do anything about it quickly it will eventually be nearly impossible to transition back to a developer job it took me around six or seven months but I eventually did it another important reason why I wanted to switch back is that most companies have really high demands and they are looking
(04:34) for one person to do the work of an entire department you'll most likely see job as looking for a person who organizes events who also creates YouTube videos who also writes article who also manages social media and the list goes on and on and on that's a lot of work and whoever ends up taking that job will most likely end up burn out moreover most companies don't have clear objectives expectations and the career progression track you don't know what's expected of you you don't know how your
(05:10) performance is measured and lastly you don't know what are the next career levels and how you can reach them I'm someone that likes Clarity and this is not an environment I can drive in I want to have clear goals metrics and a clear progression track the work is a head scratcher when it comes to measuring its impact the work done by developer Advocates often takes time to show results and there is no one clear formula for measuring the success Dev people do a lot of things from organizing events to managing social
(05:46) media to creating content and so on and it's not like all these activities impact the goals equally or in the same way besides that the impact of deal work is not visible ible immediately it's more about keeping developers happy and loyal which is hard to put a number on another reason was the nature of the work I was doing to me the ideal devil role involves working on the product as a developer building cool demos using the company's product and showcasing that through video written or social media content unfortunately I spend too
(06:27) much time managing social media WR in listicles and doing straight marketing while these activities are fine and required in a company they are not the activities that fulfill me and they are not the activities that I envision myself doing as a developer Advocate and lastly I didn't see a future for myself in deil at least for the time being whenever I ask myself questions such as where do I see myself in 5 years as a developer Advocate or how can I progress in this field or what what are the next steps for me in this field I couldn't
(07:03) answer the only two questions I could answer were do I want to continue as a developer Advocate and the answer is no for the short term because that would mean losing my engineering skills all together and the second question what do I want to do next and the answer is to work as a developer again it was clear that it was time to move on and transition back to a developer role and here I am working as a developer again so I want to mention again that working in developer relations can be a great experience for many people and my video
(07:40) is not meant to deter you from pursuing a career in Dev if I find the appropriate role I'll most likely give it a go again in a few years so all good in my case the lack of coding was the main reason why I wanted to switch back I really miss building stuff and I realized that my skills were regressing fast the transition was challenging because most of my experience lies in Devil so I mostly received deal offers and almost no developer offers
