The Work of A Developer Evangelist
The world has changed drastically over the past few decades and programming has brought about a lot of professions, one of which is now “Developer Evangelism”.
As a developer Evangelist, sometimes it’s really hard for people to understand what you really do. Your mum thinks you just travel around the world skateboarding, your friends think you talk a lot, your pastor thinks you have become his rival, even your enemies think you’ve found a new weapon for mass destruction because of your eloquence in delivering inspirational speeches that drive lasting convincing thoughts in other humans.
A Developer Evangelist doesn’t necessarily need to code all day long but it’s very paramount to stay updated with the latest technologies in the community.
Now, this is actually the work of a Developer Evangelist:
Promote Developer Content: A developer Evangelist is always looking for great content fashioned by developers to promote. If a developer writes 5 lines of code that makes a machine work twice as fast, a developer evangelist jumps at it and tells the world about his new found Miracle.
Mediate: A developer Evangelist is a mediator. It’s hard a lot of the times for core developers to explain whatever they are working on especially to non-technical persons. The role of a developer Evangelist is to represent developers interests in such situations and bridge the gap of understanding between both parties.
Inspire: A developer Evangelist is a product aliased “Inspiration as a Service”. A developer Evangelist is passionate and very enthusiastic about technology, his role is to increase people’s vibe about a product, make developers feel special, needed and well valued. Another interesting thing is the ability to inspire non-technical people to become developers and drive a community to be well-involved in a particular technology or product.
You want to become a Developer Evangelist?
A developer evangelist should be very enthusiastic, passionate and also love technology, technical problem-solving and teaching.
A developer evangelist must be technically sound and have a strong developer background, unless the very savvy audience will tear you into shreds.
A developer evangelist should love to travel.
A developer evangelist should also possess good writing skills: Writing code samples, informational blog posts, quality slide presentations.
A developer evangelist should be persuasive: The Ability to get people to use a particular API, product or service is key.
A developer evangelist should feel very comfortable speaking publicly.
As a Technical Trainer at Andela. I have discovered over time that my work is not just to train young bright African talents to become World Class Developers. It’s much more. It also involves Igniting other people’s passion in programming and technology, raising their confidence and giving them the right exposure to view themselves as Leaders that would change the World with their works.
Now, how many of you want to change the World?
Inspiring them daily to push the frontiers of Technology.
