Hello, hello. Good morning for those of you in the US.
I am super excited to chat with Nick,
but I say that every day.
I'm pretty sure that's my intro every single time,
but I'm just so blessed with these amazing guests.
Nick, I would love if you could introduce yourself.
Yeah. Thanks again for having me on, Tessa.
Of course.
Yeah. My name is Nick Taylor.
I'm from Montreal, Canada,
so East Coast representing.
And currently I'm a developer advocate at a company called Pomerium.
The TLDR there is, if you've never heard of that, is basically,
I'm going to read it just so I make sure I get it right.
But we're like zero trust identity aware proxy platform
that enables secure client list connections to web apps
without the need of a corporate VPN.
And we can dive into that a bit if you want to.
But all it says,
I've kind of been in the industry for quite a while.
It's been professionally since 2002 been working,
and it's kind of been all over the map really,
like different domains, full stack front end,
now officially developer advocate,
because people always think I'm a developer advocate.
So I was like, you know what, let's do this.
Yeah.
Well, you're good at putting yourself out there,
which I think is like one of the key traits of a developer advocate
is the ability to go hang with devs and help them and support them.
You know, what's your grade at?
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, it's I'm extroverted,
so it definitely easier for me to talk to people.
Like I'm that person that can go randomly up to somebody and come and say,
hey, what's up? Can I sit here?
Like, you know, and I know not everybody's like that,
but if you aren't, I think you can still leverage that
even if you're introverted or ambivert.
Just might look a little different, but yeah.
Yeah, I totally agree with that.
It's actually interesting because like every time I do Myers-Briggs,
it says I'm like crazy extroverted.
But then when I'm at like a conference,
even if I'm hanging with developers,
but if I'm specially hanging with non developers,
I am like wiped once I'm done hanging out with people.
But it's developers and I'm like in it.
Sorry, I got distracted by this.
Like re streams really jacked up that you and I are streaming at the same time.
They're like, well, streams are connected.
Yeah, anyway, so long story short,
got to love the derailment moments.
So I was like kind of chuckling a little bit
because as you were like, you know,
describing your new role in new company,
obviously it's like pretty new for you.
So, you know, that like learning curve
when you're a developer advocate that's supposed to advocate
for a product that you don't know yet, you're like, OK, let me,
let me just figure out that elevator speech
and you like slowly improve it over time.
And it's interesting because I was
and I'm going to get into the question here.
As I was always that part always felt like the hardest.
I felt like the biggest imposter,
like going into a new company as a developer advocate,
not as a software engineer, because I was like, oh, we're different.
It's different. We're all right in code.
But I don't know why as a dev advocate, I was like, I got to come in.
I got to know stuff.
I got to understand it.
And that like learning curve in the beginning is so hard.
And now I'm doing it with multiple clients.
And I'm like, what have I done to myself?
All these learning curves.
But how are you essentially like, I know that it's sort of new for you.
But to dive into that, like, how is the learning curve?
Like, how are you finding sort of diving into developer advocacy
versus software engineering in this case?
Yeah, well, like I alluded to before.
So like I've been working professionally in open source,
I like literally getting paid to work in open source.
I started at Dev2 and then Netlify and then I was at OpenSauce.
And now I'm here at Pomeranian and Pomeranian is open core.
So like the like the literal core of the product is open source.
You can use it even if you don't have like enterprise
or like another offering we have.
Obviously, you know, we do want to make buddy at some point.
So hopefully enterprise people, you know, go to it.
But for sure, it's I think to your point,
you're asking about like just learning the product.
You like the learning curve of a Dev advocate.
Just it feels so stupid.
I don't know why.
Do you feel like it feels so steep?
I think I don't want to say I'm different.
But because I've been full time engineering, like because like what I was
mentioning before, like I was literally full time engineering all my roles up
until now and I just kind of did did Dev advocacy as a part of it
without realizing, I guess.
But I think having a strong engineering background has made the learning curve
a lot easier. But that said, there's still like stuff I'm not aware of.
Like, and and it's kind of funny because like
they didn't really have a developer.
I'm the only developer advocate there right now.
And they didn't really have an interview process for it.
I mean, I mean, I did meet my manager who's head of marketing and stuff.
And we definitely talked about stuff.
But what I mean is they're like, we're not really sure what to interview.
Like I showed pieces I had done in videos and stuff.
But I basically did the back end interview.
So I had to basically code and and people might say like, Oh, man,
that's not fair. But honestly, I think it was a good thing
because it's a very technical product.
And so I think it was to my benefit that I had to do that.
And yeah. And it like, you know, it's not like we're building
a rocket ship to go to Saturn or something.
But it's, you know, but it is still a potentially complex product.
Like it's a I think it's easy to use.
But like anything that is easy to use, it's kind of complex to make
something simple, you know what I mean? Yeah.
So anyways, all that to say is I think
having done that test, I actually got a taste for like what the product actually does.
And I've actually used it locally because like I said, it's open core.
So like, like a hobbyist can use it.
So like I basically set it up on my own machine just to see how everything works.
But that but that said, like I'm drinking from the fire hose right now.
It's like I'm literally on day eight today.
Like I'm like seven and a half right now.
And, you know, I don't know about you, but like there's always nice
onboarding processes and stuff at most of the places I've worked at in recent years.
But my my introduction to a new role has always been baptism by fire.
And I don't know if you'll say that or if it's OK to say that.
But if somebody in the chat, if it's not cool to say that anymore, I love you,
though. But like basically, it's just like you know, yeah.
And like I still did my onboarding and stuff.
But it's just like I've already got PRs up to fix some of the documentation.
I'm posting some work to other open source
repos to show how to configure our product with theirs.
And I'm also like I think the main thing that's new for me
is I've never been under marketing.
So it's not bad thing.
It's just it's just new for me.
That's all that's all I mean.
And my team's awesome.
It's Roxie says can't cancel me.
Thanks. Well, please let me know what is it?
Baptism by by I don't know what LED light.
I don't know what do we say?
Anyways, I can't say there.
Oh, man.
That's that's a weird tangent for a second.
But I got a haircut like two days ago and because I my hair grows really fast.
And I look like the Lion King quickly.
And I was like I was like number one on the sides, which is what I normally do.
But the top it was literally like about it's like about this tall before.
And I like to go off take off half.
And I think she took off seven eighths.
So like, I don't know, basically, I got a brush cut.
So it'll it'll it'll probably back to Lion King in a week.
So we'll be like, gosh, my husband would be so jealous.
Like he started balding when he was like 21, I think.
So he's like completely bald now.
But he really wants the Brad Pitt hair in whatever that fury movie is where it like
has like to be down the middle.
So it sounds exactly like the hair he wants.
Cool. Cool. Cool.
Yeah. Anyway, sorry. Sorry for derailing that.
I blame my decision in the chat asking about hair.
But so we were just talking about reporting to marketing, like, you know,
it's happened that obviously your day eight, right?
So that's like a new thing.
I would say like marketing is my least favorite team to report to.
I'm saying that, like, and I mean, that's like not a bad way, but in just like
they have different objectives, you know, than like what you think about as like
an engineer and sort of what developers think about.
And so sometimes it's really hard to like connect all those dots together of like,
OK, you care about this, but I care about documentation.
I think that's that's like, you know, sort of the barrier, at least that I feel like
most experience in that like marketing reporting structure, other than that,
like it's actually really cool because you're like end up being a superhero
because like most of them are not usually super technical.
And so they're like, oh, whatever, like they don't understand something.
And you're like, oh, it's just this.
And they're like, oh, my gosh, you're a God, which is I mean, who doesn't love that?
Yeah. No, no, no pressure, Nick. No pressure.
But no.
No, like the team's awesome.
And it's just more like, like you said, objectives are different than engineering,
obviously. But I think coming with a strong engineering background to your point
is like it's actually helpful.
And it's also, I think, good for me because like I'm under I'll understand
more about the business over time, too, because yes, you know.
So but yeah.
But no, I got I got an awesome crew.
So like and I think I think the other thing is like, I've, you know,
I've given conference talks and gone to conferences.
I'll just end up going to more now, which I'm I'm totally game for.
Yeah.
I think one thing that's different and it's it's not a bad thing, but like
people typically know me from the Web Dev community.
So like front end or full stack.
And so like, for example, I'm going to KubeCon in London
and the North America one this year.
And that's more like infra Kubernetes, obviously.
And we're like a security company.
So it's, you know, there's definitely overlaps in those communities.
But it's like to some degree, it's a new community.
And which I'm totally game to just say hey to whoever.
But it's just something different, you know what I mean?
And it's definitely not a bad thing.
It's just I get to make new friends, basically. So.
Yeah, you know, like that's absolutely probably my favorite thing about DevRel.
Because I've been able to go from like, I think like so WordPress, Dev Ops.
News, Twitter calls himself news, but social media, you know, like news.
Yeah, yeah.
Bintech.
And then over to more like one security, that one was hard getting into security is hard.
So if you need to like have battle, battle, wound, war, cries, like
you just hit me up, we can talk about that security was hard.
And then over to like AR augmented reality, which is like a whole new community.
And I will tell you honestly, I think that's my favorite thing of DevRel is
actually getting to go into now that you say this, like getting to go into
these new communities and make new friends.
Because you have to take those skills and like you might be introverted or
extroverted, but you literally have to be like, Hey, Hey, person sitting on a
bench at a conference.
I don't know anybody.
So I'm just going to start making friends everywhere I go.
Yeah.
And it is, it's definitely different.
But it's also like, I don't know.
I think it's exciting.
I don't know if it's exciting to you, but it's, it's like new friends.
Yay.
Yeah.
No, I'm excited.
And I, I mean, that said, I do know some people in the space, you know,
not super well, but like, but yeah, no, I'm just excited to meet new people.
And like one of the things about the, you know, the developer advocacy role is
like, at least right now, like I'm trying to create awareness of the product to
so like it's, it's just a friend.
It's just a fun time.
I'm going to be having people on as guests to just talk about, you know,
like, I don't know, it's, I'm curious about your thoughts.
Like we were talking briefly before the, the live stream, but like,
I am not a sales person.
Like I never will be, you know, if, if, if I worked for a company with a bad
product and they said, you're doing sales, I'd be like, you probably shouldn't buy
this, you know, like that's, that's, you know, like that said, our product is good.
That's the one I'd be, but.
Yeah.
But yeah, I lost my trade.
I thought there, but it's.
Ask me something about, and then talk about sales.
Yeah.
Yeah, I forget.
I lost it, but.
Yeah.
No, it's, yeah, it's, it's just, oh yeah.
Like there's a balance, I think that is potentially difficult for developer
advocacy where you're trying to create awareness of your product, but you can't
come across as a shill either.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Like, hey, welcome to the live stream, buy our product.
You know, obviously, I mean, I'm being a very explicit, terrible example there,
but like, you know, and.
Like, so you just have to, you know, and I will tweak this as I go along, I
think, but like, I think it's just finding that balance where like you want
to build community, you want to build awareness of the product, but you don't
want to be like some kind of come off as like sleazy sales person and nothing
against sales.
That's not what I mean.
We have some great sales people too.
That's what I'm saying.
All the wrong things.
That's okay.
I, I think you're not though.
See, that's the thing is like, I think what you're sharing is like how
developers see it, right?
Like this is how developers think, but we don't necessarily think that sales
people are sleazy, but like in our dev mind, we're like, you see, you see,
in our dev mind, we're like, you stop us from building, like go, go back.
Yeah.
And it's like, yeah.
And we've talked about this before, but like, just in terms of like a product.
Yeah.
I don't know about you, but there's very few products I buy, but when I buy
them, it's like, cause I use it all the time.
And like this is like just, I think cause there's been an explosion of dev
tooling and like, and there's a lot of cool stuff out there.
But at the end of the day, it's like, yeah, cool.
But, you know, yes, I could afford it, but like, I don't really need that, you
know, like, and like, so like, I've, I've kind of found like, like, you know,
I have a good core set of tools that I pay for.
And it's all that to say is like, I think it's difficult to find product
market fit aside from like, Hey, that's cool.
And like, and it's also, you know, like a lot of dev tools, it starts with a
lot of bottom up, which doesn't really make any revenue and there's a free
tier and that that's good to create awareness.
But like sometimes like you've seen like several companies have got rid of
another free tier because it's actually a burden to manage as well, potentially.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't have free tiers.
I think they're a good idea to get people like when I worked at Netlify,
like we had a free tier, we still have a free tier there, you know,
Vercel has a free tier too.
And the reason is like devs end up liking those products.
Yeah.
And then long term, these, these people that were using the free tier,
maybe they upgrade, but a lot of times these people end up working at
companies and they're like, Netlify is awesome or Vercel is awesome.
You know, and I think we should use that product, you know, and like,
so that's, that's where the bottom up helps.
Yeah.
But it's like, I don't know.
I don't really have an answer to what I would say.
There's just more like observations, I guess, but yeah.
Well, I think like, you know, to kind of speak to like what you were saying
there, right, is that you're going to kind of navigate that beginning of like,
how do you start to build those relationships without feeling salesy?
Yeah.
Honestly, the best technique that I have had was office hours.
So like Pitchett office hours.
And so this is like what I have done in the past anyways, doesn't mean it's
the way to do it, but brought together like the team, right?
So can someone from product come, can someone from Eng come, depending on if
they want to be involved with customers or not, right?
That's a whole thing.
But, you know, maybe someone from product marketing has come just to kind of
like the dynamic and what the team objectives are, like who wants to
start to meet devs, but very much friendly.
They love seeing DevRel in there.
They love seeing product in there because then they could talk about the product.
What do we expect?
They could ask for things and then DevRel could kind of dive in.
Then we have partner engineer who was like technical in this case, because
DevRel was more community, but long story short, just a candid conversation,
right?
An hour long, whatever, even if you want to do two hours long where it's like
come and go and it's an open time, they're like incredibly lucrative
because then devs just sort of join.
They don't have to say anything.
They can kind of just walk and hang out.
But then when it's like, oh wait, I feel comfortable or they're talking about
something I care about, then they can jump in and then like over time,
that actually was the technique that I've leveraged many times to get devs into
the community forums to start empowering other developers, right?
Start to help the other developers and you start to like create what you were
just talking about with like favorite products, like your advocates, you know?
Like if we love something, we will go and talk about it.
So if you can create those customers, right?
Like that's, yeah.
So anyways, that's what I love Office R's for.
It feels very authentic to join, but it's very like lucrative on the tail end too.
Yeah, for sure.
And like in terms of building that community, because I've literally done
this before, I worked at Dev2 and like we like, I think a lot of times naively
people, hey Fatuma, good to see you.
Sorry, Fatuma, just joined the chat.
Definitely say hi.
You know, I think people think community is potentially just microwavable.
Like, okay, create Discord, press start.
Okay, 300,000 people.
And I know Jason's in the chat from Torq and like he's doing a great job
building out community, but it takes time.
Like when I started working at Dev2 in January 2020, and I think,
I can't remember the number of members we had at the time, but it was
probably like maybe a hundred thousand.
By the time I left, we were like over a million in like 20, is that 20,
it was like mid 2022.
And I remember that.
And the reason why, I mean, I still think it's a good platform, but the
reason why was we were so engaged with the community.
Like even though I was full-time engineering, I was always like commenting
on people's posts and like, and it's, you know, and just like, like you said,
creating awareness of like, like at one point, like people just
associated me with Dev2 because like I was always out there.
That's how we met, I'm pretty sure, or got first.
Yeah, exactly.
But like, all that to say is like, I think having a community around your
product is important, but it's not, it's not going to happen overnight.
And I think sometimes people think of that unrealistically, you know,
just throwing that out there for anybody who's starting a community,
because like I've literally gone through it.
And it takes a lot of time because like, at one time, like Dev2
eventually became like, Dev2 still exists, but like the main product became
this generic platform that you could use.
And so like we were dog-fooding it.
And basically I created my own community.
I had vscodetips.com, which I still own the domain if anybody wants to buy that.
But like I created the community just to make sure like the product was
working well.
And I was putting time into it, but then I closed down the community eventually
because it was literally just me managing it.
And I just did not have the time to do it.
And it was unfair to me and unfair to the community.
So like, you know, and that's just another thing where you need people
to kind of step up in the community.
You don't literally have to say like you need to become a moderator.
But like I see like Jeff Jesse's in the chat who's awesome.
He's been a moderator at Dev2 for years now, you know, like, and like I
remember even Stack Overflow in the early days, like I became a moderator.
And like it's weird because like people built this product, they're making
money off of it, but you're still happy to contribute to it in some way.
You know, which, which if you think about it, like why am I doing this for free?
Like if you, if you go like forget emotions or anything, but it's just
like people just get invested in these things, you know, and it's like,
and anyways, community.
No, I loved it.
I think you were on a beautiful rant.
I agree with that.
Like the way that I actually got started into like actually building websites
was building a huge guitar hero community of like tournaments.
And getting like recognized in their forums and I was a moderator and got
cool swag and like, yeah, it's a, I think it's just like our way of like
getting involved, right?
And I know that developers specifically, like we really enjoy hanging out
with their peers, whether we're extroverted or introverted, like this
is true of all developers, like they all want to spend time with their peers.
Yes, they could get tired and need to like rest and recuperate, right?
But they still want to do it.
And I think it's the same with like any passion we deeply have, right?
Like I was just seriously nerding out on guitar hero and video games at that
stage in my life, right?
And so it was just a beautiful thing for that part of my life.
Yes.
See, Roxy gets it.
Every time I see guitar hero, I'm just like, it's like my heart skips a beat
again.
It's just, but I haven't played it in years except for at bar arcades.
Anyways, but I do agree.
There is definitely a lot of, there's a lot of time.
And effort.
Like if you ask Jason, you know, someone in the chat that you'd mentioned,
how much energy he puts in the community building, I can only imagine.
Like I know that he's on his phone.
He texts people, he's talking to people, he's building relationships.
Like it is a ton of work, like a ton of for sure.
Yeah, no 100%.
And yeah.
And also just want to say hi to Richard in the chat.
I'm trying to say hi to everybody, but I don't want to just end up saying hi,
hi, hi the whole.
No, it's all good.
You're really good on your stream with like bringing people's comments and
stuff up where I'm like deep ingrained in the conversation.
So I'm like, oh, hey, there is a chat.
Yep.
Cool.
It takes time to navigate that because like, I'll be live coding.
I'll be checking the chat.
And if I have a guest, so it's like, I don't know, not that I think people
think live streaming is easy, but like it, there's a lot more going on than
you realize.
So.
Plus the beverages.
We had to talk about this ahead of time, like run around quickly and get all
my beverages.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
Got to be ready.
Okay.
So you spoke to a little bit of some of the stuff that you're doing in your
day job already eight days in like pretty impressive.
Let's like double tap back into that.
You had mentioned some docs.
I think you're doing some partnerships, some connections with some other open
source repositories.
Super cool.
That's like meaningful work.
Do you want to kind of speak to that a little bit more?
Yeah.
I don't have the PR up yet, but like, it just, it's a little technical, not a
big deal, but like basically our product can act as a reverse proxy.
So like post-hog it, which is a pretty popular analytics platform for capturing
events, whatever.
If anybody has an ad blocker, like you block or, or similar, or your browser
just blocks like, you know, ads and stuff.
Yeah.
So it recognizes like known like analytics platforms.
So what you can do is like say like my site, Nikki T.co.
If I added post-hog to it, I could add a sub domain like called like E.
Nikki T.co.
And that could be a proxy to post-hog.
And then because it's under my domain, it, the, the, you know, the blockers
won't block it because it's like, Oh, it's traffic from your own site.
You know what I mean?
So like there's many ways you can do this.
There's other, there's other offerings that do this, like the docs on
post-hog.com, which is a open source repo, by the way.
You know, there's like set up for Vercel, Netlify, Remix, Cloud front, a few.
And anyways, like, Pomerium is, is a good use case for that too.
So basically I just opened up an issue said, Hey, like I'd like to add
Pomerium to one of the options and, you know, the, one of the
maintainers from post-hog is like, Yeah, it's cool.
Yeah, go for it.
Just, just tag me when, when the PR is up.
So it's, it's a, it's a nice thing because one is creating awareness about
the product, but it actually, it actually solves an actual problem too.
It's not, it's not just like put my thing in there kind of thing, you know,
and yeah, aside from that, yeah, I've been, I've been going through our docs
just to like, I don't know about you, but like, even though our product is
super technical, I want to be able to go through the docs and I can literally
copy paste things and just run it.
And so like, stupid, stupid stuff.
Yeah.
So I found some things where it's just like, just be more explicit.
Like this is how you can set this setting.
Just some, just some improvements.
And like, this is going to be an ongoing thing, but like, because I have to
showcase the product at some point.
And if I point to the docs and I can't just say, copy this and then you're
good to go kind of.
So, so I've been doing that too.
And one thing I've been doing too is like just asking lots of questions and
we have like a dev channel in our Slack.
And I've definitely had some one-on-ones with people on the team already,
like my whole team, I met with Bobby, our CEO for a one-on-one and setting up
some recurring one-on-ones, just to, you know, like, hey, how's it, you know,
just to catch up, but also just like, hey, how do you think this is working?
Or like, tomorrow I got a one-on-one with Svetlana, one of our QA.
So just want to hear about the work she's doing and also she's working on a
Terraform provider.
She's testing it.
And so like, I don't know anything about that yet.
So I just want to kind of ask her questions about that.
So, yeah, I think, I don't know.
I guess one of the things that attracted me to the product is I've really been
enjoying working in open source.
And even though there is an enterprise aspect and a paid tier for this,
it's still open source at its core, like literally open core.
And, and I don't know, ideally, if I can work in open source and get paid the
rest of my life, that would be ideal for me.
But like, you and I are the same here.
So it's just fun and like, like I alluded to this before talking about
community, but like literally one of my favorite things is like hanging on a
stream like this or like having a guest on, doing some live coding,
talking about somebody's project, you know, and like, and these things have
nice, nice side effects eventually, you know, but, and it's, and it's, it all
comes back to, you know, just building the community, you know, and it's
like, and again, I can't reiterate this enough, but it just takes time to
build a community.
It really does.
Yep.
It does.
And I mean, when you think about it too, it's like building a relationship.
Like I like to compare community to like dating, but I also, my, my favorite
analogy is actually a garden.
So I should probably use that instead.
Like, instead of swipe left.
Swipe right.
Well, the dating thing is like, you don't just roll in and you're like, oh,
do you want to make out?
You know, it's like, that is just not a thing you do.
You like cord situations.
You're like, yes, right?
Like you build it up.
Well, well, you could, but you know, results may vary.
Right.
Results may vary.
Same to community, right?
You roll in and start talking to a Dev and you're like, hey, you want to
come hang out?
They're going to be like, who are you?
But the garden analogy actually is really fitting because it's like, I always
say that it's like, put the seeds in, right?
You're planting the seeds.
So like right now you're planting seeds, you know, and like, you've got a few
months before you're like, oh, my seeds are starting to sprout.
Oh, Jason, here we go.
Excuse me.
Your seeds are starting to sprout, you know, and then you can start to grow.
Probably shouldn't have made that silly comment, but that's how you do it.
Don't worry.
This isn't live.
We can edit it later, right?
Yeah, there we go.
There we go.
I will say if I wasn't married, how you do and probably would work on me,
honestly, even if someone was rolling in to try to get me to join their
community because I'm obsessed with friends.
So, hey, sometimes it is knowing their personality.
But all joking aside, right?
It's like, it is not easy.
And I think that that actually has been really, one of the things for me in
my business has been kind of hard because I really want to have that as a
service deliverable, right?
That I am like effectively building community.
But there it is, it's not impossible to prove, prove, prove that there is
something happening.
But how do you get someone to keep investing to be like, it's not the results
you want yet, but they're getting there.
Like I'm, I'm close.
That's not like no one wants to see that.
And so it's been more fundamentals of what is strategically need to happen.
And here's how your, your team can go build community, which is fine.
But man, do I miss actually being the one to build it.
So that's what the built for that.
How this for?
Yeah.
Who knows?
Maybe, maybe, maybe try in the community.
Hey, want to make out if it's not in the code.
I don't know.
In all seriousness, no, though, don't do that.
Don't do that.
Yeah.
That is not the way to introduce.
Yeah.
But I think it's interesting too, cause I really think that like sort of developer
relations generally, right?
If we kind of like take a step back, it's like, it is just this idea of like hanging
out with their peers and the same exact way that you and I are doing this.
Like if you and I were coding with your company's product, boom, you're like
working, right?
But you're doing something that you like love doing.
And I think that's, that's like, I love it so much.
It's like, I'm just like, yes, yes.
I get to like hang out with my people and get paid to like hang out with them.
Yeah.
Totally, totally.
And I think I don't, I don't think it's a spicy take, but I think like it's super
important to be super technical as well.
Like there was, there was like a period during the Zerp era, like the 2020s to
2023, maybe like, there's a lot of layoffs in DevRel and stuff.
But there's also like, I don't know, like I'm kind of generalizing here because
like, for example, Rizelle Scarlett, who we both know, she's awesome.
And she started off as a junior developer advocate, but she just crushed it.
But like, there was other people that just came in, like no engineering
experience and just like, you kind of don't have any credibility.
You know what I mean?
Yep.
You know, like I'm a developer advocate.
Oh, what have you built?
This is my first job.
Like, yeah.
And, and I'm not saying that to discourage people from getting into the
field.
That's not what I mean.
It's just like, I think it's more valuable if you actually have engineering
experience first before doing that.
And be Dougie, Brian Douglas, my old CEO from OpenSauce, who is, he headed
developer relations over at GitHub and he's doing that over at the Linux
Foundation now.
And he's basically saying like, kind of the way I was operating, like
before I was an actual DevRel is like, how old school DevRel used to work.
You were like an engineer, and then you give a talk and then you would talk
about the product.
And I think it kind of skew.
This is just my observations.
So don't, you know, take it as you will.
But like, I think there was a huge shift where it all just became content at
one point.
And not to say that there weren't super technical people in the field still,
like they're, you know, like, I'm sure you remember, like Microsoft, like
assembled like the Avengers, basically of DevRel.
And like, I think it was like 2016 or something you had like, like just like
a huge amount of talent, like Emily Freeman.
And I can't remember all the people, but like Ashley Willis and like, I don't
know these people personally, but like, like they were like basically like the
elite of that field.
And like they just assembled them and, and then like, I don't know what
happened there, but like, but then like, I feel like, again, just observations,
but I felt like things from a DevRel perspective just became more about
talks and content.
And I think it's important to come back to having like a, like obviously just
the technical aspect of it too, like, you know, and like literally like, like,
I personally think like I will have failed at my role if I don't understand
the product inside and out after, I don't know how many months, but like,
you know what I mean?
Yep.
So maybe spicy, maybe not.
I don't know.
I think it's a spicy take for people.
Okay.
It's going to be a spicy take for someone who may have fallen into this category,
right?
And ended up doing this role unknowingly realizing likely that that
DevRel was sort of going in a direction that I don't think any of us wanted to
go.
So like, I'll tell you that right now.
Like I definitely saw that happening too.
And like, I started the show for the whole purpose that like my own technical
skills have like literally disappeared.
I went to get into terminal the other day and I was like, holy mother of,
I couldn't do anything.
I was like, whoa.
Then I was like, I don't even have an SSH key on my computer.
I'm like, what has happened to me?
I think that it happened so quickly, right?
And like I ended up in leadership and, and I think probably the last at least
five to six, you know, years I was in, but I would say it's very much a business
leadership type of roles.
I think, you know, essentially Twitter was probably the last time that was in
2020 where I was in a role that I felt like I was still sort of a developer,
but that role actually pulled me away from that because I was strictly community.
And so I was strictly like what I called taking our negative checkbook and trying
to get us to a zero balance in the developer love space because obviously
Devs gated us.
We took away a bunch of stuff.
And so we were re-rolling out the next version of the API.
And so I would say that's probably when my, my tech skills went downhill,
but I'll tell you what, like I fully agree.
I was the absolute best developer advocate that I could have ever possibly
been when I was in the weeds of using the product, building with the products.
And in that role, I was also training customers.
Like I had a very hybrid type of a role because if you understand it,
you're building with it.
Then when someone comes in and they're like, I have this really intricate
problem and they've checked everywhere, right?
They're like, I can't find a solution.
And you're like, ding, I know my product so well that I can tell you about this
like hack work around that actually is like pretty great with our product.
So it's good enough for you to want them over and switch, you know,
like you have to have the intel and the knowledge to be able to not sell them,
but like authentically solve their problems.
And it just so happens that it's through the products that you're working with.
Yeah.
I will say about my, I guess, spicy take then is like that was a general
observation, but there were still people doing what I said is like the good thing,
which is they're super technical still and, and, and doing all the other things.
But like, yeah, I just, I don't know.
It was just interesting and like, and I'm, I'm pretty much convinced that
like that's why there was a lot of these layoffs to potentially, you know,
so I think the other, the other piece that goes into that.
I think, and this is like, you know, again, just a hypothesis and I'd love to hear
what you think.
And honestly, like, I'd love to have this conversation a year from now after
you've been at your computer a year because here's the other side that I think
I think that at that time, Deverell was so sought after that they were pulling
engineers, they were pulling whoever right to come into these roles.
And like sometimes great if you came from a non traditional engineering,
but you, you were like a teacher and you taught yourself how to code P.
J.
Man, you're awesome.
Right.
Like you, it was, there was some that was very beautiful.
Yeah.
But I think that there were also a lot that where they just pulled an engineer
in and was like, you're going to be a developer advocate or an engineer was
like, I can't get the job, but Deverell is crazy right now.
And they didn't understand business.
That is a huge fundamental sort of drawback.
If, if and only if, right, you are strategically guiding that entire
Deverell function, which at that time it was higher.
The one and only developer advocate have no strategy for them and then
expect a magic to just come out.
Yeah.
Speaking of PJ Metzia, I haven't, I haven't met him in person, but I know he's
good people and I think he's still, is he still like GitHub education now?
Yeah.
He moved over there.
His dream job coming from being a teacher.
Yeah.
And I got to give a shout out to my old coworker, Becca too, who's at the
Linux foundation now.
Love her.
She is amazing too because she, she was a literal English teacher and I can't
stress enough how important teaching skills are.
Like if, if, if, like career changers, I think in general it's, it's a good
thing.
Yep.
But like if you're a teacher, you're coming in with like hot superpowers,
you know what I mean?
Cause like, you know, cause she's able to convey things and she, she writes
really well too.
Um, and like that's, that's definitely her super power along with building
community.
Like she started virtual coffee, which I've been a part of since pretty
much the beginning.
And so like, yeah, she's awesome too.
So just got to, got to give a shameless shout out to, to my old coworker and
friend.
I love that very much.
Um, I feel the same way.
So absolute shout out to Becca.
She is phenomenal.
I think I get to talk to her on Friday, um, which I'm super, not on the
show, but I realized I need to get her on the show now that you brought
that up.
So she'll be on the show in the future cause I'll beg for it to be on the
show.
Um, but yeah.
Actually, like when I think about open source and like bringing developers
together, she is like the first person that comes to mind.
And it is, it's really just because of like her absolute love for the
developer community.
Like she started virtual coffee.
Like if anyone who has been a part of that network, it's a beautiful
developer ecosystem and network.
And so I don't know.
She's, um, she's sort of like what I feel like really represents like true
open source, like developer community building.
She gets it.
Does it.
And yeah.
Big time, big time.
So lucky for you, Linux foundation.
Yeah, exactly.
Lucky for them.
Actually oddly enough, um, not going to chat about it too much, but I had a
client opportunity yesterday.
That's an open source project.
Um, that actually like has a budget and I was like, Holy crap, can I get an
open source client that has a budget that I can actually work with.
So when you were mentioning earlier about if I could just work on open
source, like that would be my life.
And I was like, huh.
Like that's awesome.
If that works out.
I know, right.
I think it would be awesome.
Honestly, I'd love to bring Becca in a little bit.
It's a Linux foundation project.
So I mean, I feel like there's a little now, maybe there's some love to be
shared, but, um, yeah, I think open sources is really, really quite a
very beautiful thing.
Um, honestly, I don't really know many developers that don't love open source.
Yeah.
Well, the thing is like, like I started off in closed source.
Like I was, I, I, most of my career has actually been in the dot net
ecosystem, like C sharp ASP.net, ASP.net NBC.
From like 2000 to like 2016 mid 2016.
That was just all dot net and stuff.
And, um, open source literally transformed my career for the better.
I was working at a dot net shop.
Um, we were using angular one dot four dot three at the time.
I think this is pre angular type script.
Yep.
And for context, like little history here, react came out of the
year.
React came out in 2013.
This is 2016.
I was interested in working with react.
We weren't going to use it at work.
So I started contributing to a couple of projects.
Well, one, I wanted to get in.
I was always a fan of JavaScript.
So, uh, I've been using TypeScript pretty early since 2016.
Um, cause for more history, but TypeScript's been around since 2012.
Um, so,
Could you and your dev history?
Yeah.
I mean, I was like, people know what encyclopedia Britannicus.
Does anybody in the stream know that?
Uh, maybe not, maybe not.
But, uh, but like, I was just like, I was always a fan of JavaScript.
And I was like, react looks cool.
And I wanted to get into no jet because I wanted to get an open source.
And all these things were open source.
And at the time.
Dot net wasn't like, you know, it just, it just wasn't a thing.
And no, it wasn't to their credit though.
Like dot net, uh, is open source now.
And like, like people like Scott Hanselman or like definitely spreading the good
word about that. But at the time it's like, it just wasn't an option for me.
So like, I kind of went full tilt on that.
And I started contributing to this react boilerplate project, which, uh, is essentially like, we have
frameworks today, but before frameworks, we had boilerplate projects.
So I ended up contributing to one that Corey house, who's a pretty well known react
consultant, uh, created called react slingshot.
And then eventually I became a maintainer and this led to landing a role at a fintech
company where I was doing type script and react in 2016.
And, and like the whole trajectory of my career changed after contributing to open
source, um, for the better.
Uh, got, got paid more.
Uh, I got to meet people I never would have interacted with before.
Like, so lots of pluses.
Like there are some downsides to open source, like, like funding and like
sometimes there's just bad actors, but like overall, like open source for me has been amazing.
So I agree.
I think yeah, definitely bad actors.
Like that's a whole conversation over in the WordPress community right now, huh?
Like, well, yeah, yeah, yeah, that, uh, seeing that come to light, right?
But I do agree.
I think that, you know, at the end of the day, like, I think that developer relations
or developer advocacy is a thing and has become a thing, um, so predominantly because we
really do coming back to it, developers just want to hang out with each other.
And so I think like when we can sort of sit elbow to elbow talking about, you know, technology
and what someone is building, I think it's, that's where sort of that fire and passion
comes in.
So when you think about open source, right, it's like the epitome of, of dev rel.
That's what open source is.
Is like, if you can take the techniques and, and sort of tactics of open source, that's
your, that is dev rel.
It's like getting involved in a community, right?
Giving back to that community, helping other developers, contributing to a beautiful project
or product, right?
Um, so I think it's, uh, yeah, I don't know, they go hand in hand.
Okay.
So, um, I try to, I try to like end these at 30 minutes, but good grief doesn't happen.
And the conversations are so good.
So I'm like, sorry.
End it.
No, no, no, this is great.
I, are you good until the hour mark?
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm good to the hour.
I have a stand up at in 16 minutes.
So I am good.
Perfect.
Okay.
Well, then we can kind of dive over into, you've shared a lot of like things that you enjoy,
a lot of like your career.
I didn't ask you, what is your developer education?
If you have any specific?
Yeah.
So, uh, I did go to university.
I did study computer science, but, um, to, to be fair, I did not apply myself as much as
I should have.
Uh, so I went, I went to school in the Maritimes of Canada.
Uh, it's great out there, but, um, I ended up playing rugby down there and like, I didn't
know they had a team when I went there.
That's not why I joined there.
I, I just, I decided to go to that university because my cousin from Ottawa had done a computer
science co-op program there.
So she recommended it.
And I don't know about you, but like, I had friends growing up in high school where they,
they knew like, I'm going to be a doctor.
I'm going to be a whatever.
I'm like, I don't even know what I had for lunch.
You know, like, let me check what's in my tooth.
You know, like, uh, you know, so like, I, I went to university to study computer science
just cause like, uh, you know, I did well at math and stuff.
So I was like, uh, and I did like, like, you know, I started doing HTML, JavaScript and
CSS in like the early nineties with like, uh, internet super, uh, you know, internet
providers used to have like space you could actually put on their own homepage on like
your local internet provider.
And then there's like stuff like geo cities and stuff.
So like that got me interested in things.
I went to university, but like once I got there to be fair, like I basically focused more on rugby.
I mean, don't get me wrong.
I still graduated, but like also it's a little different in Canada.
Like I had university does not cost as much as the States.
Like I think at the, I think at the time it was $5,000 Canadian a year.
So, man, that's amazing.
And, and I left with no debt because my, my parents set up a education fund.
Like you can, I don't know what they call them in the States, but you can basically put money
aside to pay for school.
And then I also did a co-op program.
So I basically left with no debt, which is definitely, definitely different than the States.
I know, but, but anyways, like, yeah, the thing I'll say though is like, like, I love playing rugby there.
Like I was playing first division university traveling all over the provinces.
And the one thing I learned, like I did still learn some fundamentals of computer science, obviously,
even though I did fail, I did fail data structures a couple of times.
But the main takeaway I had is like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like,
I do think it was still good.
Like even years later, I'm like, Oh yeah, I remember that thing from school now.
And now it makes sense because like I was, I was less concerned about learning in university,
which sounds kind of funny.
As soon as I left university, I was always just trying to soak up stuff, which is kind of funny.
It's like, like if I go on the beach now and I'm like with friends or like my buddy Scott will be like,
are you reading one of those nerd books?
Like he's like this salesperson, a guy I played rugby with. So he just told fun at me all the time.
But it's like, you know, I'm lying on the beach reading a book about rust or something.
And he's like, okay, whatever, man.
But, but anyways, what I would say though about the education aspect is one thing that I learned is like your network is super important.
So like for people who maybe have not played a lot of organized sports,
I got to university. I literally knew nobody.
I went to a rugby practice. I immediately knew 70 people and then we had a women's team.
So I met all of them as well. So that's like another 70 people.
So all of a sudden I had this immediate community.
We hung out all the time together everybody.
And even years later now, like I go to a reunion there.
It's like every five years.
And there are literally people from the literal first team that was in 1969.
And so like we're talking like 80 year old people or whatever, all the way up to like the most recent team.
And that is an entire network of people that like have your back typically.
And like even that's amazing.
Even playing even playing club rugby here like in Montreal, I played for the Montreal Irish.
The way we set up things when new people joined the team was like, like if somebody came from out of town.
Oh yeah, Johnny just came from England. Somebody get him a job.
Like that that was like, you know, just, just like hook him up.
Like sometimes it didn't work out, but like the goal was always like we've got some new players, somebody hook them up, you know.
And that's how I got my first job in tech actually is amazing.
I was, I was working, I finished university, wasn't landing a job, took me like a year.
I was doing internet technical support.
I was doing administrative work and then I was at practice one day and I'm forever grateful for my friend and teammate Bob Mögge.
He, we were typically, I'm going talking a lot of rugby, I know, but basically we'd practice twice a week at club.
And then we'd go for like beers and like a meal after and he was just asking me after practice one night, like, are you still looking for work?
And basically he literally gave me a visual basic six CD ROM and said like, if you want to, like I'm looking for a junior dev.
If you want to come work with me, take this CD ROM, do the tutorials over the weekend and come in on Monday.
I might be skewing that story a little bit, but like essentially I had beers with my boss, future boss, whose head was on my butt every game of a rugby match.
If people want to know about rugby, I used to play hooker, which is like the person right in the middle.
And you're called a hooker because you literally use your leg to hook the ball back.
And then there's, then there's like another, there's two people, there's three people in the front, two in the middle and the two people in the middle are called second row because it's the second row.
So my boss's head was always on my like left or right butt cheek every weekend.
I found kind of funny.
So anyways, I'm sorry to say that network is important.
Yeah.
Well, bringing back the friends references.
That's the only way that I know anything about rugby. So thank you for the insights into rugby because now I know roller derby also super cool.
Yeah, something out of the world.
Yeah, I would love to do that.
Like Roxy can like old women do that now.
Like my roller blades are literally right there and I'm like obsessed with rollerblading, but I have never done it.
Nick was a hooker.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly. Somebody's going to read that out of context on LinkedIn and I'm going to get flagged. But yeah, it's, it was fun though.
Okay.
One last question selfishly because I want to hear about it.
Nick was a hooker when he played rugby.
Nick also does some other cool sports stuff.
So what other types of sports and things do you have?
I heard some some rumors and some things in your backyard that I think the listeners hear about.
Yeah. So aside from rugby and like I work out in my gym and I snowboard a bit in the winter, but I build an ice rink in my backyard.
So for context of people are just joining.
I'm in Montreal, Canada.
So similar weather to anywhere East Coast in the States.
And one of my daughters plays a sport called ring it.
It's more Canadian than American.
But basically this sport came about when women weren't allowed to play hockey.
So ring it is essentially think of a hockey stick with the blade cut off and instead of a puck, you're basically skewering like a round ring that looks like a uncooked bagel.
Oh, nice. Okay, got it.
I got the vision.
Anyways, yeah. So anyway, she started playing and this was during this is when the pandemic started lockdown and all that.
Yep.
And like just something for her to do.
So I spoke to one of the guys I played rugby with from Australia.
So an Australian showed a Canadian how to build an ice rink.
That's amazing.
But basically I built one in my backyard.
It was 16 feet by 24 feet.
And it's not as complicated as it sounds like I'm, I will admit I am not that handy.
So basically I bought deck boards and didn't really cut them.
So I just screwed them together.
And then you just reinforce it with some screws and a bit of rebar.
It's not as complicated as it sounds.
And then the magic pieces you buy a liner that you put in and then you just fill it up with water.
And I did this the first year and then I posted them on socials and like people are like, oh, that's cool.
That's cool.
And then like literally since the first time every year when it gets close to the time of when I built that first one.
We will say like, oh, are you building the rink this year?
Like people get excited about it.
And this year we were kind of like, okay, I think we're done with it because like she's just busier with other stuff too.
But just built a scaled down version.
So it's only 12 by 10 now, but it's just a practice shooting.
So there's photos on my socials about it, but it looks really nice in the dark because I have lights hanging on the clothesline.
So it actually looks really nice, but it's not as complicated as people might think it is to make it.
I love that screw people for saying that women can't play hockey.
I used to play hockey all the time got hit in the mouth by a puck though.
That was not fun.
My mom flipped because like if anyone has ever like if you've ever been hitting the mouth like it bleeds so much.
So when by the time I got home, it was like, I was like, coked coated in blood.
Lots of fear.
I don't think I've ever had something hit me in the face, but I've definitely been punched in the face.
Right.
And it's usually like, yeah, no, that didn't really feel great.
Yeah, no, doesn't feel great.
Lots of blood.
Yeah.
There's a lot of blood in your head, even cutting yourself shaving, but anyways.
Yeah, that is so true too.
Okay, well, we have like five minutes left.
I also like to ask people how they get unstuck.
So if you want to elaborate that in like two minutes and then would love to talk about how folks can find you online and then we'll let you get to it.
Cool.
The only thing I'll say about women's hockey is women can definitely play hockey.
Yes, they can.
In university, I wrestled in the off season of rugby to stay in shape and our coach.
We saw the court.
Yeah.
That really is me.
Somebody asked me if that was me.
It really is me.
But the coach coordinated a practice with the women's field hockey team.
And for context, even though I'm Canadian, I'm a terrible skater.
I've never played hockey.
So I put on all the equipment wrong.
I get on the ice and Tina Cormier, who is like triple a maritime champion in field hockey just slides right into me and like hip checks me and knocks me on the ground.
So I can, I can definitely confirm that women can play and a lot of Canadian women's national champions came from my university too.
So anyway, shout out to women in hockey.
But the good stuff.
Yeah.
So what we were saying, what was the question again?
How do you get unstuck?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
I'm going to say obvious stuff, but like people do not do these things still.
Things aren't working, working out, go for a walk, literally change a scenery.
Like I'm at my desk now.
I never eat my lunch at my desk as well.
I used to do this all the time.
And when I used to work in an office, I'd be like, gotta eat my lunch so I can get back to work, you know, and like it's totally wrong approach.
You need a change of scenery.
If not so much in the winter, but like in the summer and fall and spring, I'll literally go sit on my deck outside at lunch and eat lunch there.
Even if it's like 10 minutes outside or whatever.
Yep.
But literally stepping away and sometimes, and I didn't do this when I was younger in my career, but like sometimes you just got to tap out and say it's not working today.
Like just regroup tomorrow and your brain is like super awesome.
Like you go to bed and your brain is still processing things.
And it's like, I guarantee you, you're going to wake up the next morning and you're either going to be unstuck or maybe like the whole thing.
It just, you know, it's, there's a revelation in the morning and like, I really do think stepping away.
That said, like obviously, if something critical is happening at work, you can't really do that.
But like, if it's not something like that, definitely just step away.
Exercise for me has always just, it just clears my head.
Like squats are like my favorite exercise.
And it's like, I literally feel like the weight coming off my shoulder.
So, that's what I would say.
And I know it's general advice, but I guarantee you a lot of people still don't do that.
So yeah, I will say I'm really guilty of not doing that too, even though I do actually know that it is better for me to get away from my desk and go outside or like go, go work out.
I'm not happy actually, when happy or when I work out yet, I still don't prioritize it as a primary thing.
Okay, so you have awesome live stream that you do as well, very fun, casual, hanging with devs.
You're also across the internet.
So where can folks find you if they want to come hang out with you?
Yeah, for sure.
No, thanks. Thanks for letting me plug that.
Easiest way is just to go to literally nicky t dot online and all my socials are there, including my blog and also the stream schedule, but like YouTube,
Instagram, whatever, it's all there.
So that's the best way to find me.
And I'm literally Nikki T online everywhere.
And some people have asked me where that name came from and it's because when I played rugby, in sports, people usually call you by your last name like Taylor, Creasel.
But at one point people started calling me Nikki T.
And it's a terrible handle to be honest, because like clearly I'm online if I'm on the internet, but I just never changed it.
So it's Nikki.
That's why Nikki T online exists, but it made it made for fun when I'm offline.
So if I say something that's like after hours, people call me Nikki T offline.
I love it.
I have no cool, cool story for mine at all.
I was like, man, made sense.
That was it.
That's my user.
Yeah.
Okay.
I love that.
Well, go check out Nick's live stream.
It is awesome.
It's been fabulous having you on great conversation this morning per usual.
And I hope you have a fabulous rest of your day along with everyone else.
Cool.
Thanks for hanging everybody.
Thanks for watching.