How do you get people on board when you shift to a new tool or a new approach? Even if the value proposition is clear, it might be a challenge to create a practice out of the change. In this episode of API The Docs, Polina Zaichkina (Senior technical writer at Codat) and Max Clayton Cowes (Product director for experience at Codat) share insights ab…

In this episode, Naomi Pentrel and Andrew Feierabend share their journey of revamping Viam’s robotics APIs documentation. They discuss the benefits of sitting down with actual users in well-structured interview sessions with specific scripts and tasks. Learn about their approach to user research, their team’s collaborative methodology for achieving…

Byrne Reese had the opportunity to build a number of developer programs over the years. In this episode, he explains his unique Developer Pyramid framework which he uses as a guide to build a successful and scalable developer program now at RingCentral. He also dives into his passion for board games and how it influences his approach to documentati…

When it comes to learning Git, it can be daunting to navigate the plethora of learning resources out there. Recognising the need for a visually engaging all-levels experience, Anna Skoulikari (JetBrains) decided to write her own self-study book to help learners along the way.

"Key results are the things you're going to do to move that number. Here's the thing where most people spin out. There should be a break mechanism on the things that you're doing […] a culture of experimentation, and objective critique around 'Is this the right thing to be doing?” Welcome back to our two parts episode with Rachel Lee Nabors, we con…

"You can always tell when it's a novice writer or a writer and an artist who are in bad relation because there will be blocks of text everywhere explaining how the character is feeling […] There's a delicate balance to be struck and it's the same with code.” Welcome Rachel Lee Nabors, one of the creators behind the grand award-winning react.dev por…

Drawing from her role as a wayfinder, Claire Waters (Senior Manager – Product Content Experience, Cloudflare) shares her team’s using the COIN methodology for embracing AI tools as a team, and how they engage in low-stakes AI challenges to foster familiarity and comfort with AI technologies.

You need docs and headspace when a well-oiled system inevitably throws a flat tire. With Dan Grabski we talked from car racing through tech execs mediating at Burning Man, forest fire incident management systems and early expectations setting all the way to API docs and back again.

Technical writers walk a tricky tightrope between delivering accurate technical information and making it comprehensible for a wide range of users with varying levels of technical experience. In this episode, Ryan Young (Technical writer at Stripe) shares his thoughts on bridging the gap between different content layers and writing for humans in a …

How can one make their devportal accessible and useful at the same time? What can devportal owners do to support inclusive design? We were honored to ask Susanna Laurin (Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies, G3ict and IAAP Representative to the EU) about these questions in 2023’s DevPortal Awards framework. As she highlighted, …

The API The Docs Podcast brings you a Special Edition series with insights from the 2023 DevPortal Awards. Each year, the DevPortal Awards seeks the most outstanding solutions with the help of experienced jurors, who are volunteers with extensive knowledge of API programs, developer portals, and API documentation. In the Special Edition series, we …

The API The Docs Podcast brings you a Special Edition series with insights from the 2023 DevPortal Awards. Each year, the DevPortal Awards seeks the most outstanding solutions with the help of experienced jurors, who are volunteers with extensive knowledge of API programs, developer portals, and API documentation. In the Special Edition series, we …

The API The Docs Podcast brings you a Special Edition series with insights from the 2023 DevPortal Awards. Each year, the DevPortal Awards seeks the most outstanding solutions with the help of experienced jurors, who are volunteers with extensive knowledge of API programs, developer portals, and API documentation. In the Special Edition series, we …

Connected to both customers and internal teams, customer success is a powerful source of valuable information throughout the entire feedback loop. In this episode, Charlie Edwards (Customer Success Manager at CAE Technologies Limited) explains how the feedback from customer success teams contributes to the comprehensive improvement of products. The…

Adopting a beginner’s mindset allows you to explore familiar concepts through a lens of curiosity and openness. But how does that translate to documentation? In this episode, Adrienne Braganza Tacke (Sr. Developer Advocate & DevNet Community Programs Lead at Cisco) explains the unexpected benefits of writing with newcomers in mind and how it can ta…

How does a biological anthropologist become a professional docs auditor? Portia Burton, founder of DocumentWrite, narrates her meandering journey from biological anthropology to ESL China, through blockchain technology community engineering, all the way to content audit services. We talk about what to look for in an audit, and what is often critica…

Technical writing and developer relations are relatively new areas, and they have both grown out of a need for these specific skill sets. However, for newcomers in the IT landscape, it might take a while to understand what they actually mean and how they support the work of developers. Kruno Golubic (technical writer at Memgraph) and Katarina Šupe …

From rapid changes to learning on the fly, startups face unique challenges that require creative solutions. Alex Akimov (Head of API Platform at Monite) and Helen Kosova (API Technical Writer at Monite) discuss how Monite’s API council supports the adoption of an API-first approach at the company.

With Anthony Pichardo, product manager at Visa Developer Platform, on the value of user-centered design and building non-zero sum environments where everyone wins. Community is not just an afterthought, it’s an integral part of strategy. The platform team conducts regular user research to gauge pain points, and constantly strives to minimize the le…

We explore how developer documentation hubs enable a unified information architecture, at least outwards: our guests Christoph Weber (Pronovix) and Kristof Van Tomme (Pronovix) talk about the nuanced, socio-technical nature of large scale documentation processes, the need for a central API docs team, and the future use of private LLMs.…

Developers are the ones who know their APIs best, but they need an easy documentation process that wouldn’t be too different from the coding lifecycle to produce the technical documentation at scale. Senior technical writer Paula Cristina Vaz outlines the Documentation Framework at Farfetch, created to process markdown files and convert them to Con…

Daniel Izquierdo (Bitergia) and Kristof Van Tomme (Pronovix) explained their journey with innersource and open-source communities. They also discussed what a company can do with documentation islands (or silos), and what are the role of technical writers in this process. What is the connection between innersource and documentation? How can we defin…

Business and technical personas may have different skills, and in many cases, they use different terminology. Luca Vettor (Information Architect at Deltatre) explained how Domain Driven Design and event storming create transparent communication between the two personas. What is induced and intrinsic complexity? How could we define the problem space…

Why did Fabrizio Ferri-Benedetti (Senior Staff Technical Writer at Splunk) write a love letter to technical writing? How could technical writers create a bridge between the different parts of a company? With an MSc in cognitive psychology, Fabrizio shares a nuanced perspective in his ‘Docs' hierarchy of priorities’ and associated metrics.References…

Anna Tsolakou (Developer Advocate) and Mathieu Pincovai (Customer Success Specialist) shared with us the journey on how Amadeus for Developers created consistent and clear documentation. We also talked about why the docs-as-code approach is so crucial for them, and how they can create the right documentation for their APIs.…

Spotify Senior Developer Advocates Serah Njambi Kiburu and Alvaro Navarro talked with us about the two enemies of developer empathy, and their practices to optimise and scale for the community’s real needs. We also asked why Spotify even needs an API developer portal, and why isn’t it built on backstage? (spoiler alert) They have good reasons for t…

Our guest Emese Hallgató works as a UX researcher at Pronovix Developer Portals. Her education and experience in computer programming and in psychological research open the door to better understanding developers and their needs. How do developers approach coding, and what do they need to reach a state of flow? We talk about the archetypes of syste…

In Part 2 of our conversation with Miro's DevRel Lead Anthony Roux and Senior Techwriters Mira Balani and Marco Spinello, we walk deeper into how their respective teams complement each other, and we will also get a detailed narrative from Anthony about their process to aggregate all types of feedback, whether it's a feature requests, bugs, or docum…

With our three Mironeer guests, DevRel Lead Anthony Roux and Senior Techwriters Mira Balani and Marco Spinello, we talked about how they joined their teams, what they learnt since, how and by whom their developer docs came to be as they are today, and what two documentarians are to do if they disagree.…

Our guest is Anthony Sansone, staff technical writer at MongoDB, who has spent 20+ years in computer hardware, software, and services, specializing in data protection and user security. His experience ranges from startups to large multinational companies. In this episode, Anthony shares his insights about the techwriters’ onboarding and the inspira…

Or, maybe you could map it: what does each of you do, why, and how? We converse about integration of practices and practice networks with Marc Burgauer, co-founder of Contextualise. Together with Chris McDermott, they assist large organizations in their transformation efforts through maturity mapping. We are teasing out our ideas on how can the und…

Or, maybe you could map it: what does each of you do, why, and how? We converse about integration of practices and practice networks with Marc Burgauer, co-founder of Contextualise. Together with Chris McDermott, they assist large organizations in their transformation efforts through maturity mapping. We are teasing out our ideas on how can the und…

We asked DevRel Kristyn Bryan and Application Architect Dmitry Pashkevich from the Calendly API team about the new, v2 of their API and the upgraded devportal. Why and how did they redesign the legacy API? They adopted a design-first approach to building APIs. How does this new strategy manifest in their daily jobs, what are they now doing differen…

Interview with Ruby Batallones, Technical Writer at Adyen and Aleksei Akimov, Head of API at Adyen Involve your technical writers already from the API design discussions: this can help ensure a consistent user experience across all APIs, and in finding the middle ground between the usability requirements and the architecture requirements. At Adyen,…

MongoDB is one of the most popular NoSQL database programs, providing both on-premise and cloud-based solutions. Tony works as a senior technical writer on cloud based tools. He has 20+ years experience in computer hardware, software, and services, specializing in data protection and user security, and he is a long-time supporter of API The Docs. I…

Confidence and Critical Thinking: techwriting is life-long learning - Interview with Anthony Sansone, Senior Technical Writer at MongoDB MongoDB is one of the most popular NoSQL database programs, providing both on-premise and cloud-based solutions. Tony works as a senior technical writer on cloud based tools. He has 20+ years experience in compute…

Building a DevRel Team - Interview with Lorna Mitchell, Head of Developer Relations at Aiven. Lorna is an open source software developer and project maintainer, published author, blogger and conference speaker, who is with us today to talk about the skills and roles that contribute to successfully operating a devrel team: Priorities and structure w…

Alex Hoffer is a DevRel engineer at Plaid. Previously, she was managing the QA team at Dropbox for 6 years. At Plaid, she's been working on documentation and an overhaul of the Plaid developer docs. Developer experience is extremely important at Plaid and the docs are a big part of that. Tune in to hear more about how to create an excellent develop…

Former technical writer, previously a journalist and now fronted engineer, conference speaker and workshop organizer. Tune in to learn about Carolyn's career journey. How did she transition from journalism to technical writing and how did her previously acquired journalism skills support that journey? Why and how did she become a software engineer?…

Today our guests are Liam Gallagher (UX Designer/API Platforms) and Jake Eastham (Front-end Developer and Accessibility Champion) from Barclays: “It's very easy to get caught up in aesthetics, you want to design something that is really cool and you think it is amazing.. You actually want to show it to everyone, but you completely messed up the acc…

Meet the Developer Relations & API product management team on Amadeus for Developers - Open API Product for the travel industry. Our guests are Alvaro Navarro and Anthony Roux. “Building trusted relationships is actually what matters in our job.. and empathy is what makes the big difference. Put yourself into the shoes of the other person, that's h…

Our guest is Barry Rosenberg, technical writer at Google and co-author of courses Technical Writing One and Technical Writing Two. At the beginning of his professional journey, Barry was starting out as a teacher for a smaller group of undergraduate students at MIT. How did he become a teacher of a highly scalable class for thousands of engineers a…

We ask Ilona Koren-Deutsch about the Women in APIs initiative, and her advice on how to diversify a team. We talk about considerations to ensure accessibility for your content, and what can propel the company-wide use of a conscious inclusive style guide. Where should you be channel agnostic as a techwriter? Does feedback need feedback? Tune in to …

We are talking with Liz Couto, Product Marketing Manager at Shopify, about the role of marketing and an amplifier, where the CTA is often pointing to the developer documentation. How did Shopify empathize and empower in 2020 with the exponentially growing community? Can there be too many communication channels, should you let go of some if ever? Ho…

“It’s a misconception to think that documentation is a solitary endeavor” says Uwana Ikaiddi (Documentation Manager, BigCommerce). Getting involved in cross-team discussions as early as possible while preparing for a project is a key element of a documentation workflow. But how do you avoid death by collaboration? The interview also explores how yo…

The Good Docs Project aims to create open source documentation templates, and most recently an information architecture template too. Erin McKean, one of the central orchestrators behind the Good Docs Project, is our guest for this episode. We talk with Erin about why it is so important to intentionally include jargon in your technical documentatio…

What are the main principles a documentation team operates on in a fast-moving industry? How to adopt DocOps? How does a documentation team decide on what should be automated? What is hard to automate? What is the point when you should not neglect the human eye? These are key questions that we try to find answers to in this interview with Paula Hen…

How can you onboard new technical writers when your office just turned into remote-first? This podcast episode focuses on the mistakes Karen Sawrey (Contract Technical Writer) made and the issues she’s encountered and solved when joining a team of tech writing colleagues. The interview also touches upon documentation security and testing, the impor…

“When you’re working on APIs that developers use, they need to know exactly how to use them. Great documentation is the way to do this & it gives development a chance to make things more user-friendly.” In this podcast, Milecia McGregor (Developer Advocate, Conducto) reviews why API docs are important and she also shares some tips about how to mana…

Vonage’s developer platform journey started in 2017. Little did they know the impact that some of their design decisions were going to have now. In this interview, Fabian shares how the platform evolved over the years, what challenges the team needed to overcome and what new features are in the pipeline. Tune in to get some tips about separating th…