Hey, friend!

A few weeks ago I attended a conference called link/, thrown by PluralSight, a tech education platform. I've heard good things about the company, but I mainly attended based on my respect and friendship for their director of dev relations, Aisha Blake. That means I showed up not knowing anyone and not 100% sure why I was there.

The thing is, this conference was targeted mainly at developer relations folks. If you're not familiar, that's someone who works at a product/service company whose clients are developers (think something like Stripe) whose job it is to build relationships with those developers. They write docs, improve SDKs, throw events, hang out in forums and Discords, live stream, blog, speak at conferences, and generally just try to help build connections between their company and the developer community.

But here's the thing: I'm not a dev rel. I'm the owner and tech director of a dev shop. We are targeted by dev rels, but not devrels ourselves.

Over the last few years, however, I've started to realize that much of my work is devrel... I am just one of a very, very small group of people who do that at dev shops instead of at product companies.

I write docs, improve SDKs, throw events, hang out in forums and Discords, live stream, blog, speak at conferences, and generally just try to help build connections between my company and the developer community. All the same things as a devrel!

As soon as I arrived at that conference and heard PluralSight's CEO describe why we were there, I knew it was the perfect place for me. "You're here", he said, "because you love teaching and helping people. You're always the ones giving the talks, running the conferences, taking care of everyone; for once we wanted you to just be able to come and hang out and relax."

The conference was a joy. Not just attending it, but the freedom I felt to not be on the entire time. And the affirmation that I am doing something unique, and the inspiration to do it more.

So.. I'm feeling very inspired and excited. Great things to come, y'all, great things to come.

What Else?

Matt Stauffer YouTube

Web3 for Bootstrapping Businesses, with Ian Landsman

Things Worth Learning

Web3 for Bootstrapping Businesses, with Ian Landsman

Popular Tweets

We talk a lot at@TightenCo about the dangers of "clever" code--code that might impress other programmers, or that you think is more "pure". Time and time again, the best code is the code--even if, *gasp*, it's more repetitive, or less concise--that's *clear* and understandable. (Tweet)(Quote Retweet)
I had to get to the heart of an extremely important question with my girlfriend earlier tonight. What a freaking relief she answered well—I think she’s a keeper. (Tweet)(image)
I've got a friend starting @laravelphp on Windows, & I'm asking him to help make sure all of our tools & tutorials & docs all are super Windows friendly. That said, I need him to *get started* first. What's the best tutorials for starting Laravel dev on Windows (WSL2 I presume)? (Tweet)
Today, in therapy: Therapist: "OK, now I'm going to need you to get a big piece of paper and some crayons. Do you have crayons?" Me, a dad: "FINALLY, AN ASSIGNMENT I'M FULLY PREPARED FOR" :runs excitedly to the crafts bookshelf and comes back flashing a 120-crayon box: (Tweet)

That's it for now!

Until next time...

Your friend,
Matt Stauffer