March 16, 2021

Building a platform to stand on 5 years later

The best thing I did for my career was creating a podcast with no listeners and invite startup founders and engineers to join me for a 30 min conversation.

5 years ago

In 2017, I worked as an engineer and developer advocate at Netlify (yes, I had two jobs). Like Netlify, folks were starting to learn who I was, and it was starting to get easier to get on stage speak at conferences. I was also beginning a renaissance with content by shipping a blog post a week.

Looking back at that time, I was doing a lot, but the only thing that I can show for it is a Free Code Camp course and the Jamstack Radio podcast. Quite a few of my blog posts are also still viewable on the site.

I am greatful for the oppoortunity I had at Netlify, but I also can’t help to think about the content I created and the impact it had on the growth of my career.

Starting from scratch (again)

With all this said, I realized I had very little to stand on when I left Netlify. Initially, when I joined GitHub, very little content and knowledge transferred. At the time, the closest comparison to Netlify was GitHub Pages, but it did not make sense to create content around the feature since it was not a focus for the company.

I instead rebuilt my DevRel presence around the GitHub API and Integrations. I built a network of content to build GitHub Apps using Probot. The launch of GitHub Actions has propelled me back into doing regular DevRel engagements and content.

I am now rethinking in my approach with content and owning portions of it. While I am now growing a YouTube presence, I realize I have videos that I created pulling in 40k + views, but unfortunately, those videos live on other channels that I do not own. I am all for building up the company I work for, but I also want to ensure the content I produce is sets me up for success 5 years later.

If you are building content for your company, I implore you to also share on your blog and channels.

What’s next?

Suppose you know of folks looking for podcast, streaming, or conference guests. My calendar is open. I am looking for places to share on open source maintenance, GitHub Actions, and content creation.

You can find me in Discord.

Blog posts

Here are more of my thoughts in a recent blog post.

4 things you didn’t know you could do with GitHub Actions | The GitHub Blog

GitHub Actions empowers your team to go from code to cloud from the comfort of your repositories. @bdougie walks through some DevOps examples.

AI-powered visual regression testing with Applitools and GitHub Actions - DEV Community

Applitools provides several SDKs that allow you to integrate them into your existing workflow easily....

YouTube

• Everything I thought about Developers Relations was a lie

• Compress Images for the Web with GitHub Actions

Places to find bougie.live

https://www.meetup.com/GitHub-Virtual-Meetup/events/276614133/