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.

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  
  

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!"