What DevRel Taught Me About Product Management

Seven years of DevRel turned out to be the best PM training I could have asked for.

How I Automated the Worst Part of Product Management

The synthesis problem for PMs managing large portfolios, and how AI agents changed everything.

Triaging Ideas When Execution Is Cheap

Ideas have always been cheap. Now execution is too. The real constraint is ruthlessly filtering which ideas are actually worth your time.

My Annual Review Process

A structured process for reviewing the entire year (not just work accomplishments) to understand how you actually spent your time, what you cared about, and what you neglected, then using that honesty to plan the next year more intentionally.

The Shitty First Step

How taking imperfect first steps can break through inertia and help you get unstuck, whether you're fixing a chair, troubleshooting a problem, or exploring new interests.

Bee First Impressions

First impressions of the Bee AI wearable

Building an Effective Developer Marketing Plan

Practical steps to authentically and effectively reach developers.

A Practical Guide to Developer Journey Analysis

How to analyze and improve the developer journey.

How to Create Developer Personas that Actually Work

Target the right developers with your developer motion.

Building a Developer Motion

How to build and drive developer adoption, from personas to marketing.

Monthly and Quarterly Reviews

Strategic thinking for sustainable progress.

Weekly Review and Planning

Building momentum through consistent reflection.

The Daily Shutdown Ritual

The key to sustainable productivity.

Building a Progress System

How I prevent burnout and stay balanced.

Understanding and Recovering from Burnout

My journey from burnout to building a better progress system.

Migrating from Gatsby to Astro

After putting it off for nearly two years, I finally migrated my website from Gatsby to Astro. Here's how I did it, what I learned, and why it was worth the effort.

How to Think Strategically

How to think strategically in your career and in your work.

The Most Valuable Non-Technical Skill of 2021

Personal Knowledge Management can take your thinking and creation to a totally new level.

Growing Your Career as a Developer Advocate

How do you know if you're making progress in your career as a dev advocate? How do you grow and succeed?

The Secret to Getting Really Good at Something

If you want to get really good at something, teach it to a total beginner.

Deep Work and Analog Productivity

Sometimes you need to disconnect in order to do the important work.

How to Get a New Job When All Your Work is Private

How do you get a new job when all of your work is closed source or private?

Getting Support on Role Changes

What do you do if someone won't give up their authority?

Setting Quarterly Goals as a Developer and Developer Advocate

How do you set goals as a developer or developer advocate?

The Upside of Your Unfinished Projects

It's easy to feel discouraged about all those unfinished projects. Did you know there's a hidden upside to them?

How to Be a Great Podcast Guest

'Just act natural' is terrible interview advice. In this article, I'll give you some practical advice on how to sound natural and prepared for podcasts.

Re-Purposing Day Job Work to Make Career Moves

One of the best wasy to grow in your career is to re-purpose your day job work. I'll show you how in this article.

Adapting to Sudden Change

Sudden change can be scary. In this article, we'll talk about some ways you can make it through sudden change while preserving your mental health.

When and How to Charge for Your Content

Learn how to get paid what you're worth and know when to create content for free.

Powering Up with Capacity Tests

Learn how to grow your skills through challenging yourself.

How to Get Unstuck in 10 Minutes

Stuck on a project or a goal? Here's quick process to unblock yourself.

Embrace 1% Days

Any progress is good progress.

How to Link JavaScript to HTML

This article shows you how to include JavaScript in your HTML files.

What is a Full Stack Developer?

If you're interested in learning to code, you might hear the term 'full stack developer' used. What does 'full stack developer' mean? How do you become one?

Publishing Your First Tech eBook: A Chat with Caitlyn Greffly

Caitlyn Greffly and I had a chat about overcoming writer's block and publishing your first ebook.

Get Started with Obsidian as a Developer

Obsidian is an amazing tool for developer and developer advocates. You can use it as a second brain, for content creation, and more.

How to Start Doing Dev Rel Right Now

You don't need a title to start doing dev rel work.

The Counterintuitive Secret to Shipping Better Articles Faster: Talk Resources

Don't get stuck taking forever to write long articles. Build consistency through small wins.

Advice for New Tech Speakers

Tips and resources I wish I had when I started doing technical speaking.

The 90-Day Rule (and Other Secrets to Consistency)

Doing anything consistently is tough. In this article, I'll share some lessons I've learned over the last few years that have helped me hack my brain into writing or creating content consistently as well as build better exercise and eating habits.

How to Get Started with Technical Writing

If you feel like you should finally get around to blogging but feel overwhelmed, check out the TIL format to get started with technical writing today.

Learning to Say No to Things

Helpful people tend to get buried by saying yes to everything. How do we improve at saying no? How do we know what to say no to?

Avoiding the Shiny Chase: How to Maintain Focus

How to maintain focus at three different levels.

How to Prioritize Projects

How to evaluate projects and pick which ones to work on.

How and Why to Reduce Your Scope

How do we pick projects that will challenge us but also actually get completed? I'll show you in this article on how and why to reduce your project scope.

Tiny Experiments Example: Video Courses

Let's look at a practical example of using the Tiny Experiments framework to create your first video course.

How to Finish What You Start

Finally make a dent in that endless list of project ideas.

How to Review Your Progress

Reviewing your progress is the missing puzzle piece of improving as a developer or developer advocate. In this article, you'll learn how to effectively determine where you're at in reaching your goals and finishing your projects.

Document Everything: The Secret to Measuring Progress

It can be very difficult to sense whether we're making progress. The first piece of that puzzle is documenting what you're working on.

How to Self-Mentor

It's very common to want a mentor, but not that common to actually have one. How can we find ways to improve when we don't have a single guide on our developer journey? This article shows you how.

How to Ask for Feedback

Asking for feedback is often fruitless. Why is that? In this article, we look at why most requests for feedback fail and how to effectively ask for feedback to improve.

Writing and Publishing My First eBook

In September 2020, I wrote and published my first eBook. In this article, I go over what I learned, what worked, and what didn't work.

How to Become a Developer Advocate

How do I become a developer advocate? In this article, you'll learn what employers are looking for in a dev advocate, red flags to avoid, and the dev rel career ladder.

What is a Developer Advocate?

In this article, you'll learn what a developer advocate does and what their daily responsibilities are.

What is Developer Relations?

What is developer relations?

Seamlessly Switch Project Contexts with Keyboard Maestro

Switching project contexts causes needless friction and opportunities for distraction as we try to pull up related tabs and applications. We can use Keyboard Maestro to create palettes of shortcuts grouped by context.

Where to Start with AWS as a Developer

AWS is massive, so where do you get started as a developer? In this article, you'll learn key AWS concepts for developers, essential resources, and an overview of all of the available AWS certifications.

Leveling Up Your Developer Career with Ambassadors Programs

Ambassadors programs are great ways to level up your career as a developer or prepare for becoming a developer advocate. In this article, you'll learn what ambassadors programs are and what they can offer you. I've also curated a list of current ambassador programs for you.

Getting Started in Developer Relations Book Resources

If you're curious about dev rel but don't know where to start, Getting Started in Developer Relations is the book for you. This article is a supplement to the book and includes links and resources to help you in your journey.

Securing Your GraphQL Backend with JWTs: Talk Resources

Building a Learning System: Talk & Resources

Slides and resources for my talk on Building a Learning System. This talk is to help developers and developer advocates build a sytem for predictable and repeatable growth.

Building a Learning System to Stay Sharp as a Developer Advocate

How to Use Route Parameters in Angular

We often need to pass a parameter like an ID to a route and then access that ID in order to call an API to get some data. In this article, we'll look at how to define a route with a parameter, how to use params with the routerLink directive, and how to use the route snapshot to use a param in a component.

Navigate Between Routes in Angular with routerLink

How to Add Routing to an Existing Angular Project

When we first create an Angular app with the Angular CLI, it gives us an option to add routing. Sometimes we don't know whether we want to add routing yet, so we say no. What do we do, though, if we decide to add routing later?

Finding the Path from AngularJS to Angular

Finding your way from AngularJS to Angular can be really confusing. In this article, Sam Julien uncovers the different paths for migration and how to choose the one right for your company.

Creating a Pinned Articles Component in Gatsby

I wanted an easy way to pin articles to the front page of my website. It turns out Gatsby and GraphiQL make this process much easier than you'd think!

Managing Time as a Developer Advocate (Without Losing Your Mind)

Developer Relations can be dizzying and overwhelming at first. Without some good systems in place, it would be incredibly easy to work all the time. In this article, I share lessons I've learned for being productive while having a life.

Refetching Data with RxJS Subjects in Angular

One of the things that drove me crazy when I was first learning RxJS in Angular was how difficult it seemed to reload a collection after I added or deleted an item. With promises, we could just use .then(), but what do we do with observables? In this lesson, I'm going to show you one way using RxJS Subjects.

Use a Proxy with the Angular CLI to Fix CORS Development Problems

When we first try to use a local server in development, we get a rude CORS error in the console and nothing works. This is because we're running the server and the client on different ports. We can fix this by setting up the Angular CLI to proxy requests to the API so they appear to be coming from the same origin.

Write a Basic GraphQL Client for NgRx

Confused on how to use a GraphQL API with NgRx? Sam Julien and Mike Ryan walk through a basic implementation of a GraphQL client.

Scoped & Global Styles in Angular

Sam Julien teaches how to use scoped and global styles for web apps written in Angular. Two videos and sample code!

Use Cascadia Code with Gatsby

Using Airtable with Gatsby to List Talks

Use Single File Components By Default in Angular

Angular Basics: Create Your First Angular App

Angular is a really powerful framework, but can be intimidating for beginners. I've created a new free collection on egghead.io of Angular basics.

Keynote Animation Basics

Automating Screencasting with Keyboard Maestro

Speaker Stuff No One Tells You About: Applying to Conferences

The Painfully Shy Developer's Guide to Networking for a Better Job (Without Being Creepy)