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> As a burgeoning field, there are many people who still haven’t discovered what developer advocacy is and some who have already drawn false conclusions. (To be

by wink 8y ago

> As a burgeoning field, there are many people who still haven’t discovered what developer advocacy is and some who have already drawn false conclusions. (To be fair, that’s easy to do when you only have one or two data points.) Was eager to read this article because that's exactly my experience - I think I only ever met 3 of them and 2 of them didn't shine a good light on the profession, acting quite arrogant at conferences (seems to be pretty common among semi-professional speakers, sadly. When I did it I sometimes had the feeling the people wouldn't even dare to approach the speakers, but I digress..) and doing nothing but trying to sell their employers' products as the best thing ever. Bonus points for acting arrogant if they were new to the company and developers using it tactfully pointed out years-old flaws... [For completeness sake, the third one was pretty awesome and didn't try to sell his company all the time, just giving good talks and being knowledgeable in the field where they operate.] So yes, maybe the problem is that a lot of them are not developers having used the product for a long time, or being too much on the people end of the role instead of the coding end, or I'm simply wrong :P But I didn't really feel a lot more enlightened after reading what they do. Maybe I'm also just set in my ways too much where I prefer to communicate with normal developers of said company and not someone who is abstracting stuff away for the masses (blog posts, tutorials).

wccrawford 8y ago
>But I didn't really feel a lot more enlightened after reading what they do. I did. After all the advice that they don't really need to be expert coders and only need to be able to have conversations about coding, and not actually do much coding at all (let alone serious coding) it's obvious to me that they're paid spokesmen who just happen to have a technical bent. They're supposed to connect the company to coders who don't current work for the company, either for PR or for recruiting. The answer to the first question really set my teeth on edge. Complaining that most of their job is staying in hotels and waiting in airports? Don't take a travel job then.
- goldfeld 8y ago
  Or just read some books at airports and hotels and become a smarter person to talk to. Sleep enough so traveling doesn't take a toll on health. People complain a lot when it comes to jobs, cushy ones even. And stay on their smartphones for longer than they should.
  - kcmastrpc 8y ago
    The airport/hotel stuff is part of the job. I purposely take a day out of my travels though to sight-see, even if the organizers and/or my employer would rather I be at the event every single day networking. This is me caring for my mental health and recharging. I'm an ambivert and I can't go full throttle all the time. On the note about getting sleep. I make sure I have 8 hours set aside for sleep, and 2 hours set aside for exercise every day. Nothing takes priority over that. Interestingly though, I've read some sleep studies where the scientists have discovered that our brains tend to stay in a more wakeful state when we're in unfamiliar surroundings. Even though I may sleep for 8 hours, I feel like I slept maybe 5 or 6. IRT coding knowledge, it's definitely slipped, but I'm building on other skills now - it used to take me a week to craft a blog post, I can now do it in a day or two. Presentations would take me weeks to create, I can build a decent one in about a week.

by wink 8y ago

wccrawford 8y ago

>But I didn't really feel a lot more enlightened after reading what they do. I did. After all the advice that they don't really need to be expert coders and only need to be able to have conversations about coding, and not actually do much coding at all (let alone serious coding) it's obvious to me that they're paid spokesmen who just happen to have a technical bent. They're supposed to connect the company to coders who don't current work for the company, either for PR or for recruiting. The answer to the first question really set my teeth on edge. Complaining that most of their job is staying in hotels and waiting in airports? Don't take a travel job then.

goldfeld 8y ago
Or just read some books at airports and hotels and become a smarter person to talk to. Sleep enough so traveling doesn't take a toll on health. People complain a lot when it comes to jobs, cushy ones even. And stay on their smartphones for longer than they should.
- kcmastrpc 8y ago
  The airport/hotel stuff is part of the job. I purposely take a day out of my travels though to sight-see, even if the organizers and/or my employer would rather I be at the event every single day networking. This is me caring for my mental health and recharging. I'm an ambivert and I can't go full throttle all the time. On the note about getting sleep. I make sure I have 8 hours set aside for sleep, and 2 hours set aside for exercise every day. Nothing takes priority over that. Interestingly though, I've read some sleep studies where the scientists have discovered that our brains tend to stay in a more wakeful state when we're in unfamiliar surroundings. Even though I may sleep for 8 hours, I feel like I slept maybe 5 or 6. IRT coding knowledge, it's definitely slipped, but I'm building on other skills now - it used to take me a week to craft a blog post, I can now do it in a day or two. Presentations would take me weeks to create, I can build a decent one in about a week.