One thing about me? I LOVE a working lunch🍜

I can tell you the exact night I first heard the words “developer advocate.” I was a bootcamp student at RubyConf on an opportunity scholarship. A few advocates were incredibly kind to me. On the flight home, I wrote about whether that could be a job. It could.

I almost made this video private. It’s the first technical talk I ever gave, and watching it again had me in tears. It’s my 2018 capstone demo from @adaacademy: an iOS app that helped teenagers find community service projects, and I taught myself React Native in the 3.5 weeks I had to build it. And watching it now, I can see the moment I figured out how I learn best: by building. I also remember spending a significant chunk of that project on encrypting student data. It’s no coincidence that data protection mattered to me then, and that it still shapes the work I choose today.  And though I didn’t know it at the time, my hiring manager from Amazon was in the audience that night. Something in that talk convinced him I was the person from our cohort he wanted on his team. That night helped me clarify something I'd been struggling with throughout my time at Ada. Yes, I wanted to become a software engineer, and I knew I needed real hours writing production code to earn the respect of the developer communities I hoped to serve. But I also wanted to keep teaching. Amazon gave me those engineering hours. Meanwhile, I kept speaking at meetups around Seattle to build my skills and confidence, and eventually I felt brave enough to apply for a developer relations job, where I could do both. To me, teaching is the core of Developer Relations. Even as the discipline, the way we serve developers, and the audience itself continue to change. In 2020, we wrote tutorials for developers. Now we also teach the AI agents those developers build with. It’s funny, I recognize a lot of the speaking habits I still have in this 2018 version of me. Today I use them on purpose. Back then, they just came out of me. Full talk, nervous hand gestures and all: youtube.com/watch?v=nfQDEmr3…

not a bad view for planning what's next📍

One season of @shefiorg sponsorship got @MidnightNtwrk: - a hire - 2,400+ follows through a sponsor quest - 546 member posts about privacy - 400K+ impressions from members tagging sponsors - New devs still show up in Discord saying, “I came from SheFi” to this day

7 years ago, I sat on these letters under a banner I still believe: “We will change the direction of tech together.” This week @AnitaB_org canceled @GHC 2026, citing sponsorship “significantly below” expectations. Why sponsors should keep funding this work🧵

Took some inspo from one of the best in the biz and refreshed my portfolio too: LoLoCoding.com