Hello ,

I've been a software engineer for 8+ years. On my career roadmap, I should be pivoting to developer advocacy this year. I've had 3 interviews so far.

  • Rejected 2 offers because they didn't match my expectations
  • For the third interview, I wasn't picked at the last stage (which I later realised the company lied, and just closed the position sigh. wasted my time.)

It would have been way easier to get a role if I had prior experience as a developer advocate.

So what do I do ?

Cry ? Complain ? No.

What we do is hustle.

So this is what I did last week.

I found this really cool open source YCombinator startup that just released their product. They have a good product, good funding and a really strong founding team.

So I messaged them. message-to-yc-startup

The founder I messaged was really happy I wanted to provide value to their startup. So he replied, and we setup a call to talk more.

call-with-yc-founder

That call was 2 days ago.

Before the call, here's what I did:

  1. Researched everything I could about the startup
  2. Learned a ton about the founders
  3. Used the product. Created my account, read the docs and learned how it works

I then created a developer relations strategy document for the company.

strategy-document-for-yc-startup

I spent over 4 hours preparing for the call. Then I created this document and presented it during the call.

The next day, he sent me this message:

response-from-yc-founder

I was happy. My presentation was valuable and now I have a chance to contribute even more value to a remotely distributed team.

I will continue working on this weekly and provide value in any way I can.

So what's the takeaway for you ?

Ask yourself these three questions:

What can I proactively do today to push your career forward ?

Is there anything you can do to push your career forward ?

Maybe message an open source founder and ask that you want to start writing automated tests ? Or create a design system for them ?

Or just write a technical article for a start up ?

How can I provide value ?

What are your strengths ? What can you do really well, and how can that benefit a project out there ?

Where are opportunities for growth ?

Preparing that document helped me grow. This is a real startup with real customers and a real community.

Can you find an opportunity for growth in your own career ?

I hope my story, my hustle, and my experiences help you decide how you want to hustle for your own tech career.