DevRel Explained and How to Become a Conference Speaker

Foojay.io, the Friends Of OpenJDK!

What do people who have Developer Relations as their job description do? And how do you become a conference speaker? You'll learn in this Foojay podcast!
At Devoxx in Belgium, I got to talk to Josh Long, Baruch, Pratik Patel, and Roni Dover, who are on the stage because it's part of their job. They share many tips about being a DevRel and the plenty tasks involved in such a job. I also talked with Clo Willaerts who was my inspiration many years ago to become a speaker myself, when I saw her presentation at a marketing conference.

Guests

Clo Willaerts

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/clowillaerts/
• https://x.com/bnox
• https://clowillaerts.com/
• https://clowillaerts.substack.com/
  Josh Long
• https://x.com/starbuxman
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshlong/
  Baruch Sadogursky
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/jbaruch/
• https://x.com/jbaruch
  Pratik Patel
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/prpatel/
• https://x.com/prpatel
  Roni Dover
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronidover/
• https://x.com/doppleware
  

Content

00:57 Clo about the difference between marketing and technical conferences
02:49 Impact of ecological cost on our work
04:56 Fast changes in trending topics
07:33 How to get paid as a (keynote) speaker
12:53 Josh about being Developer Relation
14:53 How to reach the energy level of Josh
15:42 Do you have to be an expert about a topic to talk about it?
18:34 How to create a story for a new talk
19:02 Only use slides when really needed
22:29 How hard is live coding?
23:48 Baruch about the DevRel role
24:52 How to move from Dev to DevRel
25:44 The focus of Baruch
27:57 Pratik about the role of a dev team at a conference
29:50 How DevRel influences product development in their company
31:36 How Pratik became a DevRel
32:40 Good and bad of being a DevRel
34:38 Roni about the role of a DevRel
35:54 Importance of using your product (coding) as a DevRel
37:35 Back side of the job
38:43 Tip 1: Ask to be a speaker
39:31 Tip 2: Stand out!
41:01 Tip 3: The show must go on!
42:31 More tips...
48:08 One final tip from Josh
48:16 Outro
Book by Geertjan Wielenga: "Developer, Advocate!"