In this conversation, I talk with Staff Developer Advocate, James Q Quick about decision making, content creation, and career advice.
https://twitter.com/jamesqquick
Episode 94 of this developing story.
All right, what's up, y'all back again with another episode of this developing story and a. I did a lot of research early this year on creating content and a lot about YouTube actually. And there was one person who just kept coming up in my feed and getting shared on Twitter, which was James Q quick. And, uh, so I eventually reached out to him and said, Hey, we should have you on the podcast.
And when I say podcasts, I mean, JAMstack radio. Well, long story short, uh, became friends and actually found out that we. Both share a connection to my hometown. Uh, so it got a chance to meet him in person a couple months ago and then thought, Hey, you need to have you share your story on this podcast. With that said, I just want to share this story with y'all.
I hope you'll enjoy it. And I'll see you on the other side.
Yeah, I am. I'm a staff developer advocate, uh, at planet scale, uh, as of middle of November. So it's been a month and a half, almost two months. Uh, Taylor, who is a, I always say in the chat, like I'm streaming on Twitch, but Taylor, who's hanging out. Uh, it was one of my awesome teammates. Their planet is going with several team.
Uh, so I've been there a little over a month and a half before that I was in Debra developer relations at zero reference will be in the chat there. And, uh, yeah, I've been doing some combination of, uh, creating content and teaching and development professionally for. About 10 years. So I actually have a computer science degree, uh, not from any like foresight of my own, really just kind of random.
I was, I got accepted into college and was going to engineering school. And they were like, you need to pick a major. And I was like, I don't really know what of these things I would do. I didn't like chemistry. Um, so I didn't want to do like biomed or anything like that. Um, I didn't like bio, so I don't know.
I didn't know what to do. So I picked computer science. Luckily I fell in love with it. It was a pretty hit or miss thing. I think like people on the CS 1 0 1 course either really enjoyed it or really, really hated it. Um, and I happen to enjoy it and stuck with it and then was interviewing for roles my senior year.
And, uh, I got turned down at Microsoft twice, actually. Uh, one was kind of awkward. I flew out to DC for final interviews and it was a bunch of people that interviewed and the people who didn't get the position, they sent us back to the hotel. I don't limo. So it was like, that was a constellation of like getting derived at LMO as we didn't get.
Okay. That's, uh, I've heard some weird interview stories and I've got a couple of, but we'll focus on you. And, uh, but yeah, uh, limo, like, is this the bomber era? What's the deal with that? This would have been bomber. Yep. This is pre uh, Satya. Um, so yeah, this was, this is a bomber. I don't know. It, it felt super weird.
Like I also didn't know. I mean, it was like a, a level of full of six people that just got rejected for a job. Like we fought all way out there and we stayed two days in DC or whatever. And then we're all just like quietly sitting in this limo and the 20 minute ride back to the hotel anyway. Um, it was probably still warm in there, like, ah, you know what, rather than get you, uh, get you a cab.
Why don't you just take this limo back and yes, enjoy it. Yeah. It was not the most enjoyable, but it was a good experience. But the interesting thing about that is, and for people who go through interviews and get rejected, like we all do. Um, it was two jobs at Microsoft that I got turned down for before or finding the third.
And that really came from like people that interviewed me didn't feel like I was a fit for those two specific roles, but thought I would be a good fit for Microsoft. And that was kind of what. They did their interviews was like, yes, no. And, um, the middle ground was like, get that for Microsoft, just not this role.
So they found a technical evangelist for this. Which, uh, similar to what we consider a developer advocate now doing workshops and teaching and public speaking and creating content and all those things. Um, and so interviewed for that. And that went really well. So I started at Microsoft, uh, first job out of college as a technical evangelist in Southwest.
Did that for a year and a half moved up to New York city, did that area for a year and a half. And really interestingly, like I immediately was like giving talks and stuff to like rooms full of developers that have been writing code longer than I have been alive at times. Like in the. Community with people who had been around a long time.
So that was kind of an intimidating and abrupt learning process. Like they say trial by fire or whatever. It was pretty much like, all right, now you go out there and world what you could do. So it was an intimidating and a little bit scary, but just an amazing learning experience to all of a sudden, be a professional and be able to kind of run by.
Uh, vets and get up there and start speaking and teaching other people. Wow. That's, that's pretty cool. And he will, um, what year was that when you, when you joined as a technical evangelist, it was the summer of 2013, but, um, yeah, I mean that's, before I even knew dev REL technical evangelism was even the thing.
Um, you know, it's funny. I actually, I knew it was a thing, but I knew like the Geico wifi from apple. I did a lot of, um, I was getting my MBA when I was learning how to code and, uh, which is like a complete footnote that I always fail to mention. Um, but I did a lot of, um, uh, I did my first district Google, and I also included a bunch of like early.
Like up and coming, how the apple basically succeeded, uh, and part of that dissertation. So that's some other day, but, uh, yeah. Anyway, what I'm getting at is like the original technical evangelists, uh, and sort of going, um, city to city and we'll use user groups was because the guy Kawasaki. Yep. Yeah. And, uh, just like you said, like you.
Outside of him. You hadn't really heard of that type of role. And I think, especially at the time, like almost no one had that, this never crossed my mind. I never had any idea that there were job opportunities that weren't just writing code, uh, nine to five, right? Like I just assumed that's what all roles were.
And I think the cool thing now is that starting to change, like there's much more. Uh, Debra developer relations, developer advocate opportunities. It's a growing field. It seems more and more like a necessary part of a growing company. I think both, both you and I would. And several people in the chat would probably, uh, agree with it.
So it's, there's definitely more of those opportunities now, but at the time I had no idea what that position was going into it, and then still had lots to learn even after they told me a little bit about. Yeah. Yeah. And it it's it's what's interesting. Is I, the way I found myself in the Deborah is because I was doing Debra without knowing it was a thing.
So like I wrote a blog post. I was creating like some video, not to most of them, tons of podcasting and like guesting on podcasts. Uh, just because I was just a heavy podcast listener. And when I found out that I was like, I was like eligible to be in a dev role role. Like I didn't really believe, or even like have interest in pursuing it because I was kind of in my mind, like you learn how to code, to be an engineer and then to be an engineer, to be a senior, and then you become like a staff and then you become, you know, Whatever the engineer 12 or whatever mean at the end of that.
But then at that to the, you go start a new startup or you go into management. Um, and I just never considered dev REL until the, the founders that might the last company I worked at, which was kind of like, Hey, you're doing the job. Can we just give you the title? And like you focus on this, um, Yeah, which is it's crazy that year, your first intro was in that space, which is not too crazy.
Like there's tons of people who their first job is in Deborah, but, um, yeah, just being able to, now you're sitting here and you're working at an up and coming company. Um, I'm curious, what is, what does success look like for, for being a developer advocate? Yeah. Um, I think like specifically for me, um, this is something, uh, needed to do some, talking more with my team.
Uh, I've got some, some types of plan out, so I've been there a month and a half, and I need to try to set for myself goals that are reasonable for me. And then, uh, that align with the team and align to the goals of the cup drive. But, um, typical goals that developer relations teams are looking for one is exposure, right?
Like if you build a. You have to have people that are going to use it. See if you think about something like Uber or really any other product that gets started, um, you can have the most amazing technology, but if no one knows about it, it doesn't really do you any good. So you have to have exposure out there.
Uh, then some of it's like showing people why, why they need it, why they could use it, why it would be beneficial for them. And I think. That starts. I always reference this and it sounds a little cliche, but I think it always starts with earning a trust by providing value and the community first. Um, so I almost, none of the Deveraux jobs I've had, I almost never lead conversations with, I worked for so-and-so.
I think you should use it. It's more like getting to know PDs that they're already in being on Twitter spaces and live streams and meetups and. Being there and being a part of the conversation and just being genuine with people. And then like, as I create content that references planet scale in this case, uh, or any other company I've already kind of, uh, earn people's trust.
And now they, now they're kind of interested in what I have to share. They may never use the product. They may never check it out, but, um, having earned that trust means a little bit of visibility for the stuff that we create. Um, so there's a lot of community engagement. There's a huge teaching aspect of it.
Um, I think. Has secretly been the number one thing in my career that I've just really enjoyed and never quite thought of myself as a teacher. Although I have been an instructor for bootcamp twice, actually, but that's where this like passion for tennis comes from, like all the things that come along with Everwell, speaking at conferences, creating YouTube videos beyond Twitter, like all these things come from a place of wanting to share with other people and help them grow and help them.
Um, so I never grew up wanting to be a teacher per se, but I think that's a lot of what I do now. And I think the last big chunk of this is not only that, not only like stuff out there externally, but going the other way around and taking in feedback from people. So again, if I'm a trusted resource for people, as they potentially try out the product, they're going to give me real feedback.
They're going to say this thing, or this is really good. Or, Hey, here's a suggestion on something you might change. And one of the cool things about being. How much younger company for me and planet scale at this point is like, that feedback is extremely valuable because I've already had like feedback that I've shared, like in the first two weeks of working there and like an hour later, they're like, all right, we updated this and it's good to go.
Like, that's really cool for me to not only provide my feedback, but also to be the avenue for other people, like community to provide feedback and then see that actually make a change in that product. Yeah. Yeah. I love that too. That weirdness thing. And like being able to be that sort of conduit for the feedback, like you're, you're at the time I don't play the scales pretty.
They're pretty new a couple of years. Well, they've been on Robin for a handful of years, but, um, the team's been growing in the last year for sure. Um, and I think that's something that can't be missed. I think a lot of times. Telling people like a lot of people don't know that they need, they need something like a plane of scale.
Um, and like being able to educate someone and build that awareness is it's, it's probably one of the most exciting things about Debra. For me, a developer advocacy is being able to build that awareness. If I can, you know, what. You're the way you're doing, you're being a developer and you're shipping code, it's working, but what if we can improve the experience like 10%?
And like when that aha moment comes through and it's like, oh, you know what, what she said was actually correct, but it was 20% improvement of my productivity. Then that's, that's what then becomes. This sort of advertisement for like, imagine a developer uses of scale. And now they're telling all their developers that data plan scale, and that's where you sort of get that, that the hooks, which is like, uh, like I shy away from like using straining and sales tariffs, but let's kind of what you do want to build awareness.
So that way. They can't, they don't want to leave planet scale because it's, it's too easy. And now they're, they're basically stuck in using the best database scaling solution, uh, known demand, which, um, I'm just sort of distorting words out there. You'll have to, you'll have to confirm that with some of your content the next couple of months.
No, I think we, I think we should just quote that and put that on all of our bad hours from now on. Does exactly what you just said. You touched on. The marketing aspect of it. And it is really interesting. I feel like Debra has never quite fully fit, no matter what part of the organization you put yourself in, like at Microsoft, we were part of the sales team or part of the sales org.
And we went to this big sales conference and they're using words like customers, which us and Debra, we almost never use customers. We're just talking about developers. And so it, like, it was kind of an uncomfortable thing. Like it was fun to be there, but it was just like, none of it seems super relevant to us.
And then some of the marketing speak that like, if you're in marketing, it just never is a full fit. Cause it's a little bit unique, but like in the marketing world, we're still. Driving the same goals, right? We're driving that exposure. We're driving people to use the product, to provide feedback. If they have a good experience, like you said, they're going to Devereaux for you and they're going to share with their friends.
And then they'll take that back to their office and say, Hey, I know we need a new database solution that does this thing. Here's one that I've been using. And I really like it. So like, even though it is not a perfect fit for a lot of places, there is so much overlap because we're driving a lot of this.
As marketing and sales uh long-term but we get to do it in a much more developer focused way. And at all, zero, it ended up becoming like a developer marketing segment of marketing, which I thought was such a perfect fit. Because again, we have those similarities, but it's just specifically did ad developers and the way that developers are looking to be interacted with and the things that developers are looking to learn and need as they expand their tool sets and building.
Yeah. I, 100% confirmed that too as well. I'm like, that's the question that comes up a lot is like, should dev REL be in marketing? Should it be in sales? Should it be in engineering? Uh, so it sounds like you were in a sales organization doing Debra at Microsoft at planet scale. Are you like, did it, is it big enough that you have an org that you're in marketing or product or.
Uh, we're in marketing and we happen to have our fearless leader. Jared is listening in as well. So hopefully I'm doing a good enough job live. Yeah, we are we a part of marketing. Okay. At pilot scale. Yeah. Which awesome. The Jared's here. And in listening to everything you say, Jared, uh, taking over some shore.
Yeah. James, scene's a race. But, uh, the one thing that I like about, so, uh, at my role at GitHub, we were originally in marketing and now we're in product. And, uh, that kind of felt very distinct differences in the two, since I've been at get hub. And the kind of difference is that marketing had a huge budget and product has a realistic budget.
Um, so I don't know if it's the same thing I played at scale. Like, you don't have to divulge that you can, you can talk with Jared about this app and it was different. We had different approaches, uh, when we were in realization, uh, where I pre previously we had, we were everywhere, uh, and we wanted to be everywhere.
And now with product, like we're specifically pitching, uh, stories that we know can impact the product and engagement and usage usage as well. Yeah. Yeah. I'm actually. I will have some budget this year to kind of do some similar stuff that I did it all Sierra, which is more external, like content creator engagement.
Um, I'll be looking to reach out to extra for some, um, hopefully creating some pretty amazing pieces of content. But I think to your point, Um, budgets, sales and marketing as two examples. They like those concepts have been around for a very long time. Right? And it's been like using air quotes, proven that like you invest money in these places and it's gonna bring you X, Y, and Z.
Although Devereaux is so much more popular and it seems to be a growing necessity for a growing tech company, especially it's still a relatively new thing. So I think it's still a struggle. And this is one of those areas has always done a really good job at it. And working with that. Is your having to articulate the benefits and the outcome develop relations to people who aren't used to looking at those types of outcomes.
And what I mean is like with marketing and sales, a lot of times you're looking at exact dollars, but that doesn't necessarily, it's not necessarily the outcome. And it's not necessarily an, especially not necessarily the immediate outcome of deaths, the engagement and awareness and the feedback and all that kind of stuff.
So I think the continually evolving thing is being art, being able to articulate what the benefit is of Deborah in relation to those other parts of product or sales or marketing, whatever they are, and then being able to use that advocate for budget to drive more. Yeah. Yeah. I love that too, as well. I think the, this I've definitely had like the right, my list of random questions that asked every different person, which I can touch on a couple of those, which is, we already talked about how to.
What is success when it comes to Debra, but also like metrics is another thing that comes up a ton, especially all these Devereaux conferences around. How do you, how do you measure that you're doing your job correctly? Uh, and the one thing that you, you, you had mentioned in passing is like engaging content creators, um, is a way you can, not only can we scale the team, but also you can have a very clear metric of like, Hey, you know, Uh, these YouTubers to do a quick interview with one of our, about plaintiff scale or, or get hub or et cetera, whatever.
And like, that's a number you could put to that. But what I love about that, and I've mentioned this to you offline our conversation, IRL, um, like one of my biggest, like, things that I love doing is. Like this conversation that we're having right now. Yes, I we've chatted before and I want, I want your story to be out there and I want you to be able to, uh, make sure that everybody knows that what you're doing at point of scale and what you've done in dev REL should be heard.
But also I love the connection that we have. Uh, so like in the future, If get hubs doing a thing and I need, uh, somebody in the data space, uh, to, you know, talk about like right now, I'm working with this, making sure that we can contain our containerized environment. So that way things just work out of the box.
Well, if we need to understand how we can get my SQL working in a dev container on the code space. Uh, I'm going to be reaching for someone at planet scale to help test this out and build some valuable content. And if it's not, you, it's someone else on the team or somebody within your network who is an expert in that space.
And, uh, and that's what I do pretty much every week, whenever I'd make, make a meeting with it, like the interviews like this is, I now have a network or feel some of my efforts with yeah, it's huge. That's like, I think that's one of the reasons that for me, 2020 starting off COVID and all that kind of stuff.
Like I had just started Devereaux at all zero and I had been out of that space for a while. So I hadn't been traveling to many conferences, but I had been online and I was so excited to then have a full-time position to be traveling and meeting and engaging with these people that I'd been talking to online in person.
Like that was what I was so excited about. So that was extremely disappointing. It's not have that aspect. Similar to you though. Like I did weekly live stream, um, over the past year and a half or so bringing guests on. And it's just so amazing because I just enjoy talking to people. I enjoy learning about their backgrounds.
I enjoy learning about their products and most importantly, or not most importantly, but another aspect. It's like, if I have a question about a product that I want to use, I can go to that person or those couple of people directly and not just get lost in a forum. Like, I think that's a huge advantage that I slash we would both have is you have that connection to go and talk to somebody and get a much better answer in my mind then.
And quicker answer than going to an open forum where you don't know necessarily when you'll get that response. So on the, like my liberal side of this being a developer advocate, I think. Not not to just like represent the company. I think it's important for me to be my own person that is connected to the company.
If that makes sense. And let me clarify a little bit more when people think about planet scale or whatever company I'm working at, or anyone else is doing Debra, I want them to think of the company, but also an individual that they trust and they can go and ask those questions because they have that relationship.
So that is a huge thing. I'm glad you brought that up again. And another reason why I was so exciting, I think for us, or for. For us, the person a few weeks ago. Yeah. And I wanted to ask another one of these, a Hottie hit heading questions, which is around influencers. And I'll use that to influencer. I'm curious if you, if you like the term influencer and what it means inside of developer spaces, but also do you have to be an influencer to do dev.
I think Mike, most of the answer comes down to how you define influencer and the, at the end of the day, I don't really care. Like, yes, I think everybody that does any amount of Deborah is an influencer of some sort like you can't, you can't not have an influence on people. If you create a YouTube and you can not have an influence, it'd be speaking at a conference that people listen to you.
Can't not be an influencer. If you're on Twitter and people pay attention to the stuff that you tweet. Like, regardless of what specific definitions people may have. Yes. I consider everybody that does any amount of content to be an influencer. The one thing I also have learned as I've gained more of a following in this space is that that does come with a bigger and bigger responsibility.
Um, and you see people either get caught out publicly or not publicly behind the scenes for things that they said or done or not paying attention to how it affects different people. It is. It is a bigger responsibility to make sure that the stuff that you create is inclusive for your audiences. And it's engaging the people of various backgrounds to encourage the continued growth and the tech ecosystem.
So I think the benefit of being an influencer, it's hard. So that's like maybe not, that's not the benefit, but there is so much of a learning opportunity and I approach things differently almost every single day based on things that I've seen other people do, or that I've seen myself doing this. A big cliche, like people are doing bad things.
It just is like the more exposure you have, the more people pay attention to what you say. And the more effort and intentionality you have behind the things that you say and the concept that you create for them. All right. So that was JMC cook y'all and uh, I mentioned at the top of the podcast, Tons of content on YouTube.
He actually runs a podcast which is compressed FM with Amy Dutton. Uh, definitely check it out. Actually, I was one of the latest episodes on there as well. So, um, check that out and, uh, if you aren't already following James on Twitter, please go follow James and tell him how much you enjoyed his story on this podcast.
I would much, very much appreciate that. And, uh, with that being said, I'll see in the next one.