Forem: Taylor Singletary

Productivity in developer relations

Taylor Singletary — Thu, 06 Apr 2023 22:57:30 +0000

There are many ways to remain productive while working on a developer relations team like ours at Slack.

Activities like these will make a high-performing developer relations practitioner no matter what company you work for, which discipline you specialize in, or who your developers are.

Doing these things will move the metrics you measure. They will make developers happy.

Productive activities

thinking about a developer
developing like a developer
writing a product idea or spec
learning a new technology
participating in a developer or other professional community
coding something. Anything at all. For any reason.
writing notes
writing docs
writing comments
writing messages on Slack or other collaborative tools
thinking about a problem
thinking about a problem space
thinking about API design
recording videos!
editing videos!
watching videos!
tweeting
reading tweets
subtweeting (but not too much)
figuring out how to broadcast to developers in a post-Twitter world
building tools
testing tools
building apps
trying apps
helping partners
talking to partners
building code samples
building code for partners directly
advocating for partners
advocating for developers
advocating for builders
reviewing feedback
tabulating feedback
reporting on feedback
planning a quarter
asking questions
reporting status
telling jokes
writing tutorials
owning a problemspace
creating a CMS
comparing and contrasting CMS software
struggling to get invoices paid through finance
sharing your favorite kind of snack
chipping in with the CE team
reviewing apps for the directory
doodling about the platform maybe?
feeling out rough edges
researching competitors and comparables
just fixing the problem yourself
reporting bugs
writing lists
paying attention
paying half-attention
backchanneling
playing an instrument while you watch an all hands
attending all hands'
trying to figure out how to say or write the plural of all hands
editing out possessive uses of your company's name
attending 1:1s
occasionally meeting in person even
taking a walk while thinking about work
taking a walk to think about anything but work
surveying (the land | the platform | your developers | your team)
taking the lead
falling in line now and then but always with the
calling out bullshit and
believing your own
going rogue
reaching out to colleagues and comparators
finding new ways to help people learn
to help the platform grow
to help people understand
and do the best work of their lives whoever they are
planning a week, a month, a quarter, a quietude
talking to other companies about developer relations or platforms
writing blog posts
making something extraspecial
documenting problems
coming back from going rogue and sharing what you found out
celebrating successes
venting to a coworker
responding to GitHub issues
filing GitHub issues
CLOSING GITHUB ISSUES
but most of all helping people out
translating
doing it now
saving it for later
thoughtfully dropping it without telling anyone because it wasn't one of the things that mattered
apologizing because it actually did matter
adding metadata to anything you do makes it better
automating and scripting your work
documenting your process
still reading this? Thank you.
organizing your workspace, virtual or otherwise
checking metrics
defining metrics
SELECT metrics FROM your.heart
many fingers are typing in Slack.
clicking in workday is work. Concur and okta too.
playing a video game while watching an all hands
doing work while watching an all hands
turning that bad all hands off
intentionally building community
passively building community
working on our CMS
helping a coworker with the API
helping a coworker with anything
showing up at a conference
going above and beyond at a conference
TCB
traveling across the world
just staying put
taking care of a kid while thinking about work
taking care of a kid while taking a break from thinking about work
the same but with animals
the same but with yourself
or any loved one
napping can certainly be productive.
calling out hubris
committing hubris
saying "hummus"
forgetting things
deprioritizing things
managing teams
picking things up on the fly
picking something up out of the pig sty
easy jobs. hard jobs. everything in between.

Thank you for being part of a productive, lovable, distributed developer relations team!

The life, death, and resurrection of my dear friend Charlie proxy

Taylor Singletary — Tue, 29 Aug 2017 17:11:49 +0000

When Charles expires, he no longer breathes in your traffic orchestrations. His little thready lungs simply stop working, the ports all closed. Charles’ eyes shut, and he stops remembering and recording.

Insert a coin to continue what was a pretty good life for Charles. Helping you.

Maybe Charles remembers more than he lets on. Maybe Charles is still alive enough to pass a few packets around to NORAD. Charles is waiting for your payment.

I have a Charles Proxy license I purchased in 2010. That makes Charles and I pals. I actually call him Charlie. I don’t think the 4.0-series Charles likes nicknames.

Of course, Charles was way cooler back then before everyone else heard of him. He used to play LARPAnet festivals with his band, Charlie Proxy & the Unsecured Connections: the Masquerade. When I hear about the kids today not paying for their Chuckles, I just get mad.

What about James?

James is a far left deadbeat free as in who cares black sheep of a brother to Charles. They never really got along, though when James was young Charles showed little Jimmy everything he knew about port forwarding. Charles trusted Jimmy then but then he got hard into secured tunnel packet sniffing, stealing shared secrets just to keep the habit. Based on my friend Charlie’s advice alone, Debian refuses to package James to this day.

You finally buy a license

Charles restarts but is not what he once was. His lurking all murky. His wild patterns match too greedily, lazily even. He refuses to check or sum, drops shady characters as the bits rolls by, confusing ones for zeroes and zeroes for elevens and elevens for line noise.

If only you’d paid for Charles sooner.

Mr. Nosey by Charles Roger Hargreaves

How I fail developers

Taylor Singletary — Thu, 16 Mar 2017 18:48:19 +0000

I don’t tell you about the unknown. Even though it’s known to me.

I won’t tell you what something doesn’t do. Though I know what you want to do instead.

I don’t tell you about the quirks. I don’t want to believe in them.

I don’t clarify how this thing is different from that other thing. I let you figure that out instead.

I don’t tell you why it’s this way. It’s none of your business.

I don’t tell you what I don’t know. Though I know I don’t know it.

I didn’t discover what I didn’t know. I wasn’t curious enough.

I didn’t revise something old. Though I knew it was moldy.

Who edited this?

I was wrong. It took too long. I used too many words. I didn’t use enough.

I forgot to include a picture. Honestly, I forgot how.

My code sample was only hypothetical.

(too many parentheticals)

I didn’t ask for help.

I didn’t test it.

I didn’t change it.

I couldn’t test it.

I couldn’t change it.

My argument for how it could be different did not win.

I just write the docs.