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10 Things I've learnt being an AWS Developer Advocate

Derek Bingham ☘️ on August 30, 2021

Intro So exactly 12 months ago I landed a job as a Developer Advocate at AWS. A job title, that when I left school with a rudimentary kn...
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Dhiraj Patra

Very nice Derek. I have been using AWS for more than 10 years. Doing microservices architecture on cloud I am really looking for aws advocate opportunity if i am suitable for it. Could you help me. Regards

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Derek Bingham ☘️

HI Dhiraj,
I linked to all the open roles we have ATM in the DevRel team at the end of the article. If you are passionate about helping developers build awesome solutions and love building yourself - take a look

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Dhiraj Patra

Thank you for reply, i will try Derek

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Jones Zachariah Noel

Derek, brilliant read! Almost all the points I can correlate on a personal level, and these are certain pointers which help you grow and upscale irrespective of DA or SA or even a SDE or being a Amazonian or a non Amazonian.

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Derek Bingham ☘️

Thx Jones - great feedback

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leslysandra

thanks for sharing! recently, I haven't gotten a good experience a devrel in a startup, however, I am still aim to keep trying :D
and highly totally agree with tip 3 and tip 8, those were going sadly awful in my last job haha
I will check your positions open! thanks :D

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Derek Bingham ☘️ • Edited

Thx for the feedback and good luck

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Muhammad Abdullah

It was so nice to read this. I finished it without even realizing how much I was enjoying.

What I am still not sure is what exactly is the role of DA??
May be if you can explain in contrast to other roles, that would be helpful.
Thanks

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Derek Bingham ☘️

Thx for the kind feedback - the DA role is hard to explain, the best explanation I have seen was included at the top of the post (its a twitter feed)

twitter.com/riferrei/status/142588...

Experiences may of course vary depending on which company you work for - but I think that feed captures the ethos of the role.

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Aaron Sempf

Great article Derek, love it!! I will also say that Tips 7-10 are especially useful for SAs also. While we may not be advocating for developers, we are advocating AWS services in customer and partner projects, and advocating customer and partners into the service teams (influencing service roadmaps)... I would even go so far as to say that Tip 7, 8 and 10 are foundational for any successful AWS career.

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Derek Bingham ☘️

Totally agree mate - and thx again for reviewing the scrappy draft of this

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Suman Debnath

Beautiful writeup Derek :) Specially Tip #3 and #8 :)
Tip # 11 : Learn something new every week, and Revise something old everyday :)
Tip # 12 : Follow all 10 tips judiciously :)

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Derek Bingham ☘️

Thx Suman - Wise words as ever

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Ali Khan

Great write up. Thanks for sharing.

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Rohini Gaonkar

Loved it Derek! Agree completely, I joined the team just a couple months before you and can definitely feel the authenticity of the post! Awesome!

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Derek Bingham ☘️

Tip 11 - do exactly what Rohini Does :)

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Regnard Raquedan

I've always been fascinated with DevRel. I have a couple of questions:

  • How do you balance between being a Developer and an Advocate?
  • Also, how do you keep your tech skills sharp?

Thank you!

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Derek Bingham ☘️

Great questions Regnard,

  • the balance is found for me, by finding the problems that I see Devs having building on AWS . I use these as my backlog in a way, I spend time understanding and building content that I think would help. That's the Dev part, the advocating part is finding those problems and communicating the content.

  • Like anyone in tech ATM, I choose the area to concentrate my skill base on as the scope is so broad. Right now it's front end and mobile tech and I dive deep in that to keep my skills as fresh as possible. Building something every day.

Hope that answers your questions

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Tadeh Hakopian

I have been interested in an advocate career for many of the reasons you describe in your post. It's rewarding, fun and you can make it your own format.

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Petra Barus

Love thit post, Derek! I miss the team, already!

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Derek Bingham ☘️

We miss you too Petra !!

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Sana

Niche

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Mrutyunjay • Edited

A very good read Derek, can relate to so many things but mostly the tip#2 and tip#6...
Time management else fatigue and burnout for sure.

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Derek Bingham ☘️

Thx for the feedback :)

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huncyrus

Sooooo, a DA create content to inspire others? And try to fishin' them to use some cool aws service? That's it in nutshell?