Fireside with Voxgig

On this podcast, we’re always a fan of our guests, but it’s not as often that our guest is a fan of us! This episode, we’re speaking to Tara Walton, herself a listener of the Fireside podcast. Tara is a test automation developer and a community builder, and she joins us to talk about how being a jack of all trades means Developer Advocacy might just be the right step for you. Tara has done a lot o...

We’ve all heard the phrase “herding cats”, but could it be replaced by the equally apt “herding developers”? James Cook is on the podcast to let us know. James is Director of DevOps at Coyote, a PropTech SaaS provider serving the real estate sector, as well as being a certified Microsoft MVP. He joins us for a chat about his role, his outlook, and why communication has been his most powerful tool...

We’re fortunate on the Fireside podcast to be able to speak to so many people at the top of their game, and this week's guest is no different. David Cramer is the Co-Founder and CTO of Sentry, the app monitoring platform designed to quickly help developers get to the root of code problems. David has helped bring Sentry to the top of the pile in this category - to the extent where, in his words, th...

This episode is a slightly futuristic one. Or potentially not futuristic? We’re talking about AI with Rex St John and he’s here to tell us why the "future” of AI is looking more and more like it will soon be the present. Rex is the Founder of Taroko Technologies and an experienced DevRel and Technical evangelist. Rex takes us through his history, from marketing, to software engineering to a techni...

We’ve got a familiar face on the Voxgig podcast today, if not yet to you, then to us, as we’re speaking to our host Richard’s former colleague, Conor O’Neill. Conor is the Director of Product and Engineering at Axonista, an interactive video CMS, where he’s helping them transform video from a fun accessory to a key feature of their customer’s platforms. Now, as Conor explains, though video may be...

We’re continuing to kick off the new year in style with this episode’s wonderful guest, Cassandra Faris. Cassandra is a Technologist and former community manager with Veeam. You might remember that our previous guest Julia Furst Morgado is also a technologist Veeam, so we can only assume that Veeam has a well kept secret for recruiting highly talented DevRels. In her own words, Cassandra focuses o...

Fireside with Voxgig is back! A new year means new opportunities to speak with amazing people and share their insights with you, our audience. This episode’s guest is Andrew MacLean. Andrew is the developer relations manager at DevCycle, a feature flag management platform for developers. If you’ve never heard of feature flag management, that’s probably because it’s a relatively new space, despite...

We’re taking a deep dive into the history of Node with this episode’s guest, Charlie Robbins. Charlie isn't just a greatly experienced engineer, who now lends his advice and consultancy skills to others - he was also one of the earliest adopters of Node, and is uniquely placed to give us a lesson not just in history, but also in the unique factors that gave Node the dominance it now holds. So how...

The practice of DevRel is something that can vary hugely amongst those who engage in it, so it’s always fascinating to see how different companies approach DevRel. In this episode, we’re speaking to Liran Tal, director of developer advocacy at Snyk, about how his team makes use of DevRel. Liran is a big believer in empathy, and infuses it into every aspect of his developer advocacy work. It’s a th...

At this time of the year, evergreen trees and plants are brought indoors as we cling to reminders of freshness and hope for freshness to return in the spring. Here's an evergreen podcast episode on developer relations. Suze Shardlow is a freelancer with the strategic thinking your organisation needs if its going to develop and implement developer relations as a key business function. At the time o...

It’s always fun to talk about the futuristic potential of virtual reality, but it’s even more fun to talk about it with Ciara Sheahan, because she actually knows some real information about this topic. Ciara is a radio presenter, journalist and tech entrepreneur, and provides us with proof that you don’t have to be a former coder to be a founder who does cool stuff with tech. Ciara is the founder...

Two podcasters go head to head in this episode, as we invite Patrick Akil, host of Beyond Coding to speak with Richard about his personal journey and insights into the art of podcasting. Patrick works in the software development unit at Xebia, and he talks about how their value of knowledge sharing led to their desire to support a podcast. When he heard about it, Patrick jumped at the opportunity....

On this episode, we’re joined by developer advocate Christina Monti. Christina is the senior technical product manager for PayPal, and she brings us not just her expertise, but also an insight into why she chooses to centre empathy in her work with developers. Christina joins our list of guests from a slightly unconventional background. Christina came to DevRel through a career in finance, and she...

Today we bring you a repeat of Alvin Bryan's conversation with Richard for a few reasons. Alvin is Developer Advocate with Contentful, and they came on board several months ago as sponsors of the Dublin DevRel Meetup we organise. (Join us next Wednesday, link below!). Their support of the meetup makes a lot of sense as you listen to Alvin discuss meetups and the challenges around creating them. An...

We’re joined for this episode by the wonderful Kelly M. She’s the founder and Executive Director of Sweet Trades, a non-profit focused on helping individuals land living wage jobs, a Senior Software Engineer at a fortune 100 company, and a Data Scientist at a U.S. National Lab. So you can see why we were excited to book her in for a chat. Kelly switched into DevRel from technical writing, but befo...

On this episode of the podcast Richard speaks to Wesley Faulkner. You may have heard Wesley described as the philosopher of DevRel, and true to his moniker, he brings the deep questions with him to this chat. The nuts and bolts of tech is all very interesting, but equally important to the success of DevRel is the ability to step back and take in the big picture. Wesley has us covered in this depar...

This is another career guidance episode! Julia has a background in law, marketing and now is a successful developer relations guru. Julia generously shares her journey to DevRel in an accessible chat and with an achievable pathway. But be prepared to commit time and effort to community building. According to Julia Furst Morgado, if you work in DevRel, you need to be able to code. And Julia defends...

This time we dip back in to the recent archives and repeat the conversation with Daniel Bryant, who has got Richard into a lot more conferences than he cares to admit. Daniel is a self described technical storyteller and is a news manager at InfoQ. At the time of the interview last year, Daniel was head of DevRel at Ambassador Labs. Daniel was pretty much there from the start and has had the exper...

On this episode of the podcast we’ve got Niall Cusack, Co-Founder and CTO of Outcaster, to chat with us about the problem of ‘posting-fatigue’; having to post essentially the same messaging to a slew of social channels, and individually tracking each of them to measure engagement. It’s a problem that plagues DevRel and tech companies, as well as just about any business that has a social media pres...

So many good reasons to dip in to the archive and bring this podcast episode with Debbie Forster back to the top of the list. One reason is to promote again the work of Tech Talent Charter. In this episode, Richard sits down with Debbie Forster, CEO of the Tech Talent Charter. Debbie is an American who has lived in England for over 30 years. Her fascinating career is full of twists and turns, from...

On this episode, we've got Sebastian Witalec from Weaviate to chat to us about his work at the company and his role as head of DevRel. Weaviate is rather popular in the AI space. It's an open source vector database that allows you to store data and vector embeddings from machine learning models. It's similar to putting information on an XY plane. Similar data points will have similar coordinates....

Today we’re joined by Ethan Lewis and Simon Cheng, CTO and DevRel of Vaunt.dev for a discussion on how their work enables individuals and companies to nurture their open source communities. Vaunt is a SaaS tool that was built on a key ethos: saying thank you. It’s no secret that thanking people for their work creates a rewarding environment where they feel encouraged to continue making that work....

Don’t you just love a familiar face? We certainly do here on the Fireside with Voxgig podcast, as we’ve got another guest coming back for a catch-up interview! Sandy Dunlop is a mythology expert and brand identity consultant. He helps brands to define their identity with the help of ancient myths and legends. In his last appearance on the podcast, he told us about the power of storytelling. This t...

Manifesting things in physical space – this one is for the makers! Matthias and Richard discuss the genesis of Flux.ai, which was created to help democratise hardware design following the example of software development. The Flux.ai website is impressive and is a testament to the progress Flux have made since the very early days when they had to communicate to their first project users and manage...

What to do if you don’t have magic pixie dust to sprinkle on your role in devrel? Jono Bacon and Richard discuss this and other relevant career conundrums in this entertaining episode. There needs to be clear understanding of each role within the many parts of developer relations function. Founders and executives needs help and support to understand the good fits for each role and the expectations...