April 1, 2025 • 52 mins
In this engaging episode, we dive into Dewan Ahmed's fascinating journey from electrical engineering to becoming a Principal Developer Advocate at Harness. Dewan shares how necessity drove his career transitions - first from renewable energy engineering to software development at IBM, and later to DevOps and Kubernetes. We explore the importance of content creation for career growth, how Toastmasters helped build his public speaking skills, and why job titles truly matter. Dewan also discusses his philosophy on resume reviews, having helped over 1,200 professionals pro bono, and shares insights on the delicate balance developer advocates must maintain between authenticity and company representation. Finally, we learn about his role organizing DevOps Days Halifax and his efforts to build the tech community in Atlantic Canada.
Where to Find Dewan
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/diahmed/
- Twitter: https://x.com/dewanahmed
- Blog: https://www.dewanahmed.com/
- Company: https://www.harness.io/
Show Links
- Toastmasters: https://www.toastmasters.org/
- DevOps Days Halifax: https://devopsdays.org/events/2024-halifax/welcome/
- Harness CI/CD: https://www.harness.io/products/continuous-integration
- KubeCon: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/kubecon-cloudnativecon/
- OpenShift: https://www.redhat.com/en/technologies/cloud-computing/openshift
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dewan (00:00):
We had a Toastmasters club within the IBM office I
worked at it was IBM CanadaMarkham Lab and what
Toastmasters does is it createsa very welcoming environment for
you to practice public speaking, where you pick a topic and
there's also a goal, likestarting with 10 speeches you do
, or 10 talks you do, and thenyour peers would give you
(00:21):
feedback feedback like how manytimes you're doing um, so
there's an um counter.
Toastmasters creates thatenvironment where you're not
scared to talk because everyoneelse is learning with you and
it's not judgmental at all.
William (00:47):
Welcome back to another show.
I'm your host, william, comingto you with a somber heart,
actually, with heavy rain cloudsover my head.
Why?
Why, you ask.
Well, in a twist that has leftmany of us reaching for the
(01:14):
tissue box, canada hasofficially bested the United
States in the Four NationsFace-Off Championship.
Yes, my friends, many, manytears were shed, many dreams
were just dashed, and somewherein Canada there's a Canadian
goalie by the name of JordanBennington who is probably still
celebrating right now.
I don't cry over sports, though, so I didn't reach for the
tissue box.
I'm an adult.
What about you, yvonne?
Did you cry last night afterthe loss?
Eyvonne (01:37):
I was so, if you can't tell, by my surroundings, for
those of you that are on thelist thing, I'm business
traveling, so leading thatglamorous life.
So I was in the rare occasionof my entire team all in one
place having dinner, and so itwas on TV, but I do have to say
that it was not at the top of myfield of vision.
(01:59):
And then when somebody pointedit out I was like, well, that's
what we get for talking mean tothe Canadians.
So it was hard to feel too bad.
I love our Canadian friends tothe north, so yay for them.
William (02:14):
I do too, and I do like their national anthem.
I do like the Canadian nationalanthem, by the way, and I like
the US national anthem too.
I think they're both great.
I wouldn't boo either of them,just for the record.
So joining us today is diwanahmed.
Um, how are you doing today,after your country captured that
incredible victory last night,doing?
Dewan (02:36):
well doing well.
It's a friday, a lot of reasonsto celebrate and I give you a
heads up that I might overwhelmwith you a lot of sorry, um,
following the event, um, butyeah, it's cold, it's snowy,
it's perfectly Canadian, righthere?
William (02:53):
when you, when you say snowing, I feel like back.
You know, in Kentucky, here wehave had so much snow and ice
lately like it's probably beenthe most snowy winter that I've
seen in Kentucky and probablylike what Yvonne like the last
10 years.
Eyvonne (03:09):
Yeah, it's, it's been a bit and, um, like I said, I've
been business traveling thisweek and a couple of weeks ago,
and both weeks I have been in awarm, sunny part of the state
and, um, my, my, my dear husbandhas been at home with kids who
have been out of school for theentire week.
So after I get off my red eyein the morning, I'm going to
(03:31):
have to be nice to the household.
William (03:35):
I thought you would just walk in the house and go
right to sleep.
Well, I love you.
Good night.
Eyvonne (03:40):
That may be the nicest thing I could do for them,
frankly.
William (03:45):
Awesome.
Well, thank you again forjoining us today, Duan.
So you have a pretty awesome, Ithink, journey and you work for
an awesome company, and yourjourney originally started in
mechanical electricalengineering.
Dewan (04:02):
Yes, one of the real engineer, the.
William (04:03):
Yes, one of the real engineerings yes, the real one,
that you have to go to schoolfor right.
Imagine that you use a hard hatto do the jobs exactly
certifications and all the youknow, yeah, but you know,
somehow you found yourself intech, though, and I think your
was your first tech company ibmofficially yes.
(04:26):
Found yourself in tech, though,and I think it was your first
tech company IBM Officially yes,okay, so how did you move from
electrical engineering to tech?
Just out of curiosity?
I think that's a cool move.
Dewan (04:40):
Yeah, yeah, it was out of necessity actually.
So I did my Bachelor's ofEngineering in Bangladesh and I
was trying to pick a major,which is like you get your
career but you also do some goodfor the world Fossil fuels
diminishing and solar and windall those do good for the planet
.
And then, once I moved toCanada in 2011, I realized that
(05:04):
not a lot of industries careabout renewable energy.
Well, in Asia and Europe that'sa much higher number of jobs
and prospects and investments.
But then here I was juststruggling to find is there any
like solar engineer jobs?
There's like technician jobs,but not research level or
professional renewable energyengineering jobs.
There's like technician jobs,but not research level or
(05:25):
professional renewable energyengineering jobs.
And also, I had to go back toschool just like a same
immigrant story all over.
And then when I was at Ryersonthere was I joined IEEE Ryerson.
One thing I was trying to do iscreate as much network as
possible to see if we knowsomeone in the industry, and one
of my friend's friend wasworking at IBM that time.
(05:48):
So I was taking my Java courseI think there are like two
courses in electricalengineering for computer science
and I happened to be okay withJava.
And then he said, hey, we'relooking for someone who's good
at Java.
I said, of course I'm not goingto get the job, but it doesn't
hurt to apply, so let me apply.
And then I got a call.
Um I think I took a taxi, uh,reached to the ibm office like
(06:13):
three hours before the interview.
Um, everything went well, andthen that I never came out of
that wonderful tech carrier.
William (06:24):
Love it.
That's awesome.
And you so, starting at IBM,you're basically kind of like
pure software developer,software engineer, but even then
you made another kind of pivot.
Is that where you found yourtrue passion of CICD, automation
(06:47):
Kubernetes, kind of likeinfrastructure and managing
infrastructure?
Is that correct?
Dewan (06:53):
That also came out of necessity.
So for four years I wasfocusing on Java and back-end
development, some cloud also,that's abstract.
So then what happened was I wasmoved to a different team at
ibm and every time I was tryingto say I'm a back-end developer,
the, the partner or whoever wasthe, the lead in the whole
(07:16):
business unit, was saying here'sour full stack developer.
If there's one thing that Iabsolutely don't get, that is
front-end development.
Like you asked me to doJavaScript, I get totally blank.
So then I realized that if itgoes like that, I'll soon be out
of job.
Like I have to find somespecialty.
(07:36):
What can I do?
So then I started watching.
Somehow some of the KubeConvideos started floating on my
YouTube and I said okay, thissounds okay, like it's not
front-end, so that's a goodthing, but it also seems to be
in demand and every time you sayDevOps, people's eyes seem to
like light up.
(07:56):
So then I started learning,like Docker, kubernetes,
openshift, and one thing I didwas every time I learned
something, I published a content, I wrote an article and before
I realized, within my few teamsat IBM, I was the OpenShift
expert and that's where I kindof found my de-DevOps expert.
(08:20):
Probably I scratched thesurface of DevOps, but I was
labeled as the DevOps expertwithin those teams.
Eyvonne (08:28):
Well, and one of the trends that I've noticed as well
is that when you're activelylearning, that's a great time to
really start creating content,because, if you think about it,
the market for beginner contentis always larger than the market
for deep, deep expertisecontent, just because there are
(08:49):
fewer people that have reachedthat level, and so it's a great
way to build a brand, to build acommunity with people in your
similar career stage ortechnical journey or technical
journey, and it's really a wayto establish yourself and
demonstrate, if not totalcompetence, a desire and willing
(09:17):
to learn and grow, which, inthis industry, is really more
important than what you'veactually mastered technically,
because it's always changing.
So I think a lot of people sitback and go well, I don't know
enough to to create educationalcontent, but actually at the
beginning is the best place tostart yeah, you got a good
(09:37):
following by, so you were earlyon in the content scene of on
with.
William (09:43):
uh, yeah, you knowvonne had a podcast, basically the
Network Collective that shefounded with a few others, and
it was pretty early maybe notearly early podcast days, but it
was when podcasts were reallystarting to get popular and
mainstream.
Just out of curiosity, yvonnedid that help you with like your
brand recognition as a person,like kind of put you on the map
(10:05):
help you with, like your brandrecognition as a person, like
kind of put you on the map.
Eyvonne (10:07):
Well, honestly, I think , looking back on it in the
moment, I didn't realize howmuch it was helping.
Like I still meet people yearslater who recognize me from that
podcast and I had no idea.
So I think that's.
The other thing is like whenyou're creating content, you
don't really it's.
It's when you speak at aconference, you have a sense of
how many people in the room orhow many people are listening.
(10:29):
When you're creating content,putting it on the internet, you
don't really get a sense and youmay be like well, you know,
only a hundred people saw that,but if you were standing in
front of a room full of ahundred people speaking, that
would feel significant, and so Ithink, like for me, that's
that's one thing I wish I wouldhave understood better is, um,
(10:51):
the impact that was having inways that I didn't see.
Um, and and I think you know,for those of us that are
creating content, it's good toremember that and just keep that
in our mind that it feels likea slog sometimes, um, but it's,
it's good to keep going.
William (11:09):
Yeah, and so another.
So another thing I read on onyour, your blog.
The one was you, uh, you joinedToastmasters club to build up
your chops for public speaking.
And for those not familiar, uh,with Toastmasters, um, would
you, you mindastmasters, wouldyou mind?
You know just kind of, you knowgoing through what the value is
(11:31):
and you know, maybe, why youneeded it at the time.
Dewan (11:35):
Yeah, yeah for sure.
So fortunately, we had aToastmasters club within the IBM
office I worked at it was IBMCanada Markham Lab and what
Toastmasters does is it createsa very welcoming environment for
you to practice public speaking, where you pick a topic and
there's also a goal, likestarting with like 10 speeches
(11:56):
you do or 10 talks you do, andthen your peers would give you
feedback.
Feedback like how many timesyou're doing um so there's an um
counter and how you start yourspeech and how you use the
three-point rule.
I keep realizing that you can'tsee my fingers like I did the
thumbs up, but it's out of themic.
(12:17):
So Toastmasters creates thatenvironment where you're not
scared to talk because everyoneelse is learning with you.
You're not scared to talkbecause everyone else is
learning with you, and it's notjudgmental at all.
So feedback is a gift.
Basically, that's what we keptsaying at Toastmasters.
Eyvonne (12:32):
Well, and I'm coming off of an event this week where
there have been opportunitiesfor folks to step into roles
where they can speak and in afriendly environment.
But we were kind of debriefingafterwards and part of public
speaking is you just got to getin the reps.
You've got to get in the habitof saying things out loud that
(12:55):
always sound different when theycome out of your mouth than
they sound in your head.
And there is a physical thingthat happens in your body when
you stand in front of a group ofpeople that impacts your
breathing and you may get alittle sweaty and all of those
things, and that's justsomething you got to learn to
manage and you learn to manageit.
(13:22):
Friendly environment to do thatand get some of those reps.
That way, when you show up in apublic place, you know, in
front of maybe an audience thatisn't as friendly, you've got
enough experience to manage allthose things, because I think
sometimes people are very afraidof it, but I mean it's just a
thing that you have to practiceTotally agree, I totally agree
(13:44):
with that.
William (13:44):
one have to practice.
Totally agree, I totally agreewith that.
One Go ahead, alman.
Dewan (13:48):
Yeah, like it doesn't matter if you're starting your
career or you have been doingpublic speaking for 20, 30 years
.
I've heard a couple of timeswhere you have these internal
speaking groups at somecompanies and then, let's say,
some tech executive who havebeen talking for 20 years, when
they're welcomed at these, thesepractice speaking, they said no
(14:10):
, I don't need to speak, likeI've been doing talks for 20
years.
I wouldn't say that's a verysmart approach because,
regardless of how many years youhave been doing it, there's
always something you can improve.
And when, when leadershipstarts that trend that even we
need practice, we need to getout there and make ourselves
(14:30):
vulnerable and be open tofeedback, I think that sets a
fantastic trend.
So that's something I have seenboth at my current company and
IBM, where leadership is alwaysopen to feedback.
They are there to improve.
So, whether it's publicspeaking, whether it's writing
blog, they are there to toimprove.
So, whether it's publicspeaking, whether it's writing
blog, they reach out to likealmost anyone if they need help.
That hey, like I'm doing a talkor I'm trying to do this, these
(14:54):
slides, can I get a feedback?
William (14:57):
I love that.
That's so good because it'sjust yeah, even if you've been
doing it so long.
One thing I've noticed is like,uh, times change, people change
and like what is what isvaluable and like the way that
you present yourself also change.
You know changes over time.
Like one thing I've noticed inparticular is like even at these
(15:17):
big big tech conferences or bigthings, you know big speaking
slots, lots of people likeinjecting like a little bit of
like light-hearted comedy, likenot taking it so seriously, not
being so rigid and soprocessional from beginning to
end.
Um is really important thesedays where it didn't used to be
(15:40):
that way, because you, youreally have to.
You want to find a way toengage your audience and keep
their attention.
Well, what better way to keepthe attention of an audience is,
you know, by teaching themsomething, providing value but
also making it entertaining,light-hearted, maybe a little
comedy, you know, throw littlejokes in there.
Eyvonne (15:58):
You know it doesn't have to be unprofessional but
doesn't have to be so rigid, aswell and and that's a skill in
and of itself right, Finding theright level of humor without
taking it too far, without beingoffensive, and be slightly
(16:18):
self-deprecating, without beingover the top right.
There's a sweet spot there anda lot of that.
It just takes practice.
It's just practice, likeeverything else.
Dewan (16:30):
Also, our audience have changed a lot with millennials,
gen Zs, the way you present aconcept.
So I routinely use memes on myslides, gifs or GIFs, however
you say it.
So before maybe, if you look at15 or 20 years before, like the
slides were very monotonous,like there's text, probably some
(16:51):
pictures.
This is a slide you justpresented, but now it has become
an art that where are the memes?
Like, if you have a slidewithout some nice memes, then
something is missing.
Eyvonne (17:04):
Well, and you can spice up a very boring topic.
I had a team member ask him todo a presentation on an internal
process that he's particularlygood at.
That I was like, well, I wouldlove for the team to adopt his
approach.
And he did that right.
He put together a slide deckand he interspersed some memes
and threw in some lightheartedhumor.
(17:26):
And it also makes it easier toabsorb the content right when
you add a little humor and keeppeople engaged.
So, yeah, it's pretty valuable.
William (17:38):
Yeah.
So this whole thing in and ofitself has made me jump to new
heights to engage.
I wonder if I can share myscreen on here.
This is going on YouTube, so ifyou're listening in, you're not
going to be able to see thisunless you go to the YouTube and
watch.
But I've gone to like drasticefforts to make things a little
more entertaining.
(17:59):
Let me see if I can.
It's not going to let me sharemy whole screen, but basically
what I did is I took.
So I was asked to give a talk onMicrosoft Azure and I knew the
bunch that was going to be there.
I was like, okay, I've got tospice this up somehow.
What can I do?
So what I did was I basicallydid a like Snoop Dogg was in the
(18:21):
news at the time.
You know the rapper, and he wasat the Olympics.
He was at all these thingsdoing all these commercials and
I was like, okay, I'm gonnathrow a Snoop Dogg in there and
it was like the Snoop Dogg blockparty.
So it started off with like,okay, an Azure V net.
You know it was Snoop Dogg'sneighborhood and then when you
get into that neighborhood, youhave these subnets and the
(18:42):
subnets are different houses inthe neighborhood and you know.
But then Snoop Dogg doesn'tjust want to stay in his own
neighborhood, he wants to go toanother neighborhood where the
other parties are going on.
So how did he connect from thisneighborhood to that
neighborhood?
And okay, the highway is onetype of construct and the
backroads are another type ofconstruct.
And so I wrote you know, I didthis whole thing and it was
(19:03):
maybe like one of the mostsuccess and I I didn't know how
that was going to land.
I was like, okay, I'mdefinitely taking this way too
far, like I'm having way toomuch fun with this, but people
absolutely loved it.
They thought it was great.
I've had a few people actuallyreach out and ask for the slides
or if I could like record andput it on the internet, and I'm
like, uh, I don't know if I wantto put myself in a big pit.
Eyvonne (19:25):
So props to bringing in the cultural references.
Now you need to do one for GCP,just saying.
William (19:32):
That's not a bad idea.
Yeah, there we go.
Dewan (19:35):
You're a gifted storyteller, william, because
when you're saying that I couldvisualize like the neighborhood
and then, walking across, Icould see like some barbecue
happening and then now you'regonna go to the different
neighborhood, so you are.
Eyvonne (19:48):
If you can throw in some clips of snoop dog in the
olympics, especially theequestrian events, like you, get
bonus points well, I'd actually.
William (19:55):
so I took pictures of snoop dog and I removed the
background and like put them inlike a data center and put them
in all these places in theslides so people could visualize
it.
And maybe, yeah, it was.
There's so many cool tools outthere to you know.
It used to be like you had tolike know photoshop really well
to do some removing background,simple things like that, and now
(20:19):
you have tools like canva.
It makes it so easy.
In like a minute you can removea background, use AI upscaling
to make the image better quality, just fill in pixels that
weren't there with the image.
It's pretty wild, yeah.
But anyhow, I think the nextplace that we wanted to go with
(20:42):
this we kind of talked about wasand again, you're a gifted
writer, you've written a lot andyou've given a lot of
presentations, so I was readinga lot in your blog.
But one thing that you hit onwas something I think is it's
one of those things where a lotof folks keep the truth inside
(21:05):
but they say something different.
So you basically make thestatement and sort of debunk the
whole statement of OK, jobtitles don't matter and you
share an alternate viewpointhere that like, basically, once,
once you reach like a certainpay threshold, you get that pay.
(21:26):
You know that you really wantto find happiness and joy and
value in working for the company.
And then you do want the righttitle and you want stability and
you do want the chain ofcommand, like the management, to
recognize that hey, you'redoing a good job and we're happy
with the work you're doing.
It's reciprocal, you know.
(21:47):
Do you want to expand on that,if you don't mind?
Dewan (21:54):
typical, you know.
Do you want to expand on thatif you don't mind?
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Yeah, I'm typically very openwith what I think and what I
write and it comes from my ownexperience and it might be wrong
, I might be right and peoplehave different perspectives.
So all I want to do is put myperspective out there and
probably other people can alsofeel the connection.
So when I came to Canada, I hadto go back to school, like redo
(22:17):
the entire engineering school,like imagine trying to like
spend four years for, say,finishing your bachelor's.
I had to finish that in sixbecause I was working three
part-time jobs.
I did 32 months of internshipat IBM, most of it because I had
to pay my bills, because I wasa mature student.
So when I started my firstfull-time career at IBM, I was
(22:40):
eight years behind compared tomy age.
So I had a challenge that I'meight years behind.
Now I have to catch up.
So I have to run that muchfaster to be at the same level.
Of course, there's all thisLinkedIn saying that age doesn't
matter and whatnot, but I knowit matters for me.
(23:00):
So that's why I had to runfaster and when I'm running
faster, I'm working harder.
I need to see what are themetrics of success.
Of course, pay is important.
You have to pay your bills.
Titles also matter because titlesays that the work I'm doing is
(23:24):
getting recognized and it'slike a game You're going to the
next level of the game, so nextlevel of your career.
It's like a game You're goingto the next level of the game,
so next level of your career.
So without the title, I don'tsee what I'm working towards or
where I am compared to my peerswho didn't have to go behind
eight years.
So I think that's why titlesmatter.
And oftentimes you'll seepeople who say titles don't
(23:45):
matter.
They come from a privilegedplace, let's say a CEO, or let's
say a distinguished engineer.
Of course it doesn't matter forthem because they don't need
the title.
Even if you see, like on Zoomor Riverside, I have my title
there.
It's not to brag or boast, it'sbecause it really matters to me
.
I worked really hard, just likea lot of other people did.
(24:05):
So that's why I'm verytransparent to say that titles
do matter.
Eyvonne (24:11):
There's a.
So I'm if folks don't know, I'ma fan of rom-coms and Victorian
movies, like that era of drama,and there's a line in this
movie I think it's in the GildedAge, is the show that it's in
and there are these aristocraticladies having a conversation
and one of them says well, youknow, money isn't everything.
(24:33):
And the only person in the roomthat is, you know, less wealthy
in the group is like, well,unless you don't have any, you
know.
And so that's that's whatyou're saying about titles as
well, is it's easy to haveachieved a certain degree of
professional success and namerecognition and then think, well
(24:53):
, titles don't really matter.
But as you're trying toestablish yourself, or if you're
looking for mobility to bebetween jobs, it can really
matter.
And I think it's reallyimportant for us to be honest
with ourselves about what wewant and what we want to
accomplish with our career andwhat it's going to take for us
to get there.
(25:14):
If you're in a place where youknow you, really it's most
important to you to feel likeyou're making a contribution.
Well, that means you're goingto be willing to be more
flexible on salary and maybemore flexible on title.
But if you want to get to anext level, then that title is
going to really matter becauseit's imbued with a certain
(25:37):
degree of capability and meaningthat matters to people who may
not know you, and so a lot of itis just self-awareness and
where you want to go and knowingwhat matters to you.
So there's not one right orwrong answer.
It is important to know theanswer for you, or you're not
(25:57):
going to get where you want togo.
William (26:00):
Yeah, and if you're applying for a job, I mean, what
is the first thing they'regoing to do?
They're going to look at yourpast experience.
Were you a senior engineer?
Ok, you're.
You're applying for a principalengineer engineer Okay, you're.
You're applying for a principalengineer?
Well, we don't want to hire ajunior engineer or just a
analyst or something they theywant someone that is either a
principal engineer or it's justan absolute rock star.
(26:22):
Is you know somewhere close andskill set?
Well, they're going to look atyour resume.
They're going to look back atyour LinkedIn profile and all
the places you've been and allthose things you were talking
about earlier.
Your public contributions.
Can you write well?
Can you communicate well?
Are you well-spoken?
Do you understand?
You know?
(26:42):
All those things are reallyimportant on top of, obviously,
doing the job and being able towrite the code and, you know,
get the work done.
But it's not just one thing.
I think these days that getsyou that job.
It's many things.
It's, honestly, it's acombination of who you know too.
Do you have someone within thecompany that can advocate for
you and maybe get you that help,get at least an interview or
(27:04):
get you a phone call, becauseeven that's hard.
These days.
Actually speaking of that, youthat's something you help folks
with a lot, right, you helprefine and give feedback on
resumes, so they can kind of getahead of that.
Dewan (27:20):
Yeah, that's something.
Probably like 10 years ago Istopped all my social media and
I thought I'm only going tospend time on LinkedIn.
And then I started building mynetwork there and then I also
thought that if I start puttinglike seeds, probably that will
grow into a nice tree and bebeneficial for both me and
(27:43):
someone else.
So I just say, okay, how aboutI check someone's resume?
I check someone's resume andthen slowly, slowly, people
started sending me their resumesand what I do is in my evenings
and weekends I block off sometime and then I review that.
My resume review is very simple.
You connect with me on LinkedIn, you share your PDF resume.
(28:04):
I do both anonymous and publicresume reviews.
If it's a public review, itgets a wide view.
Other people are seeing it.
If you don't want that, you sayyou take your name out from
your resume, like make itanonymized, and I do an
anonymous review.
I think I've done close to1,200 resume reviews over the
last 10 years.
This is completely pro bono.
I don't take a dime.
(28:26):
It's trying to help someone,but also a bit selfish from my
end because I know if I helpsomeone now when I need help and
I didn't say if I need help,when I need help, because all of
us at some point of our careerwill need some help then I have
that extra person to reach outto.
So that's a bit selfish on myend.
William (28:48):
I'm trying to help out as many people as I can because
I know someday I'll need toreach out to some people
(29:13):
reviewed because I I've reviewedI mean, I don't, I've reviewed
like maybe 15 resumes in thepast year and a half or
something.
I've helped some folks, maybemore, I don't know.
More or less.
Uh, and it's not reviewing aresume, isn't it?
Just okay you once over it anddone it takes a little bit of
time, um, it's something thatyou know.
That's, that's awesome of youto give, give back your time in
that way.
Dewan (29:32):
It takes like 45 minutes because I do a pretty deep
review.
So I check out their GitHub, Icheck out their projects, pinned
projects, non-pinned projectsIf it has a readme, if it
doesn't, because most of themare like software developers.
So I give feedback as if I wasthe hiring manager.
I check their LinkedIn, so notjust the resume, the things that
(29:54):
come within the resume projects, because now people think that
I can just upload my resume toChatGPT and then it does a
pretty good job.
It does give you a review, buta year or two years before
someone, especially a lot ofpeople who worked at a company
(30:14):
for 10 years and they forgot howto even write their resume or
how to even like apply for a job, like that thing completely was
blank.
So I think all of us can takemaybe 15 minutes out of our time
and help someone you never know.
You might need that help lateron.
Eyvonne (30:33):
And getting a job is a skill that may not be aligned
directly with the skillsrequired to do the job, and I
think you know yes, you know ourgeneral AI tooling is going to
be able to give you some goodfeedback on.
You know how to write yourresume, but the more ubiquitous
(30:55):
those tools become, the moreresumes are all going to start
looking alike.
I mean, they already do Right,and so you've got to find ways
to differentiate yourself.
Differentiate yourself, and itcan be really helpful to have
somebody look at your resume asa neutral third party and tell
you what they see, because a lotof times you will telegraph
(31:19):
things in your resume that youdon't realize that you're saying
, and to have somebody from theoutside just take a look at that
and say, hmm, I see this, thisis what I see, is this what you
intend to communicate or doesthis align to the kind of job
that you're looking for?
It can be incredibly helpful,because I don't think any of us
(31:39):
see ourselves objectively.
Now we can talk about whethersome people see themselves more
positively than they should andothers see themselves more
negatively than they should, butthey, you know we don't see
ourselves as somebody.
You know that we don't know, soI think that could be really
helpful.
Dewan (31:58):
Totally, totally.
And I'll mention some of thepatterns I've observed when
reviewing resumes.
Some people who are not, let'ssay, originally from North
America, they put their entirelife history in their resume.
They have their passport number, their parents' names.
In one resume I found bloodgroup.
So those are something, yes,the blood group as well.
(32:22):
So those are the things that,when it comes to me, I can say
please don't make these thingspublic.
The other common trends I'veseen is putting Microsoft Office
on their resume under skills.
You're working in tech.
Knowing Microsoft Office is notconsidered a skill.
Also, putting Linux just as akeyword.
(32:43):
I know Linux.
I said what do you know aboutLinux?
When you put Linux on a resume,it's expected that you know
Linux in an administrativecapacity, not once you logged
into a Linux computer.
So those are the things that,if your listeners are listening,
check your resume if you have,especially if you have blood
(33:04):
group on there.
Please, please, don't keep itthere.
William (33:08):
Wow, wow, yeah, that's intense, yeah it.
Yeah.
It's funny too because, likelately I've seen this, so it
went from like it used to bewhat it, what is like acceptable
to put on your resume, what isnot, and when you had humans
viewing it all the time, thatwas one thing, but now you have
a lot of ai that's doing a lotof filtering of a lot of the
(33:31):
noise and I think some things itdoes a good job with and some
things it doesn't, and I thinkit makes it actually harder to
get hired these days, from whatI hear from the recruiters I
talked to, because, um, ai isbasically looking for specific
things and what you have isfolks that know that and they're
gaming the system and they'reupdating their resume based on,
(33:52):
like they'll take the jobdescription, filter it through a
GP, doing, you know, puttingexactly what their skills are
prescriptively on their resume.
(34:21):
So that's an interesting timeright now is how to how to gain
the AI without beingdisingenuous or dishonest while
at the same time disingenuous ordishonest, while at the same
time, yeah, I, I don't know witha you know and and people
approach it differently.
Eyvonne (34:40):
For for me, like resumes especially if you're
working in an organization thathas a formal hr screening
department you know, really yourresume is there to get you past
that at the you know and to getyou to an interview.
And a lot of times I willreview, just give a resume, a
(35:05):
high level overview, but Ireally want to have a
conversation with the person.
Right, I want to see do they,especially, you know, in in
roles where you're hiring peoplethat are going to be customer
facing, the most important thing, yeah, they've got to have the
technical skills.
They've also got to be able tocarry a conversation.
(35:25):
They've got to you know,they've got to be able to relate
with you as a human being,because ultimately, that's what
a lot of you know technicalmarketing and technical selling
is.
And so you, you also, like,have to think about it from the
perspective of all the differentstages that happen in hiring.
One is like can can you getthrough the screening?
Can you get past the HR personthat that may not understand the
(35:53):
technical work?
And really they're doing a lotof pattern matching and keyword
alignment, and then, if you'refortunate, you'll get an
interview, and a lot of peopledon't think about that process
and all the differentstakeholders in that process and
how to meet their needs to getthrough it.
One of the things I will say,though, is and I gave this
(36:14):
advice to somebody who reachedout to me in the last week or
two asking you know, thinkingabout growing in their career
and what's next, and you justcannot understate, you cannot
overstate, the importance ofnetworking and knowing people in
the industry, and you do that,like what you're talking about,
(36:35):
through LinkedIn.
You do that through conferencesand events.
You do that through talking tothe people you work with in
parallel organizations, parallelorganizations, and, um, that,
(36:56):
that word of mouth,recommendation or referral is,
is still, and, and I think willalways be incredibly important,
because we all have to filtersomehow, and if you know a great
person who recommends somebodywho they say is a great person,
that um, that, that that putsthem at the top of the heap,
just by default.
There's no guarantee, but atleast it gets you seen, and, in
(37:16):
this world, being seen is 75% ofthe battle.
William (37:23):
Yeah, especially with the saturation of software
developers, DevOps practitionersso many folks are coming out of
college now.
I mean, when I started workingin tech, not everybody in the
planet wanted to work in tech.
I was a smaller group of people, but it's just grown and it's
grown and it's grown and it'sgrown.
Like I have cousins and secondcousins and friends, and
(37:47):
everybody seems to.
I think there's this thing oflike okay, you know, tech is one
of those jobs where I don'thave to.
You know, I'm not going out andfixing plumbing every day, or
I'm not going out to theseremote locations or driving a
truck or having to be on the goall the time, or, you know, I
could potentially have theoption to work from home and it
(38:08):
gives me a better work-lifebalance and the pay is also not
terrible.
So that's, there's a lot ofsaturation in the market right
now.
There's just a lot of folks togo around and in some
disciplines there's a need forjobs.
It's hard to find skilled folks, but in other disciplines
there's a lot of good folksgoing around and there's just
(38:28):
not enough jobs.
So, yeah, supply-demand 101.
So another thing you make astrong case for which I thought
was you know, it kind of hithome for me as well, because I'm
so you're a developer advocate,I'm kind of like a tech
evangelist, so we kind of do thesame thing, kind of different.
(38:48):
I really don't know what thedifference is at the end of the
day between these two things.
But uh, you, you make this thisstrong case that, um, you know,
as far as brand is concernedlike when you're putting on that
harness io zip up that you haveon like your personal brand is
actually attached to the companybrand then you know you, you're
(39:11):
going and you're advocating forthis product and that means you
really have to love and believein the product.
Because if you didn't, and ifthe product was not a good
product and you you got a lot offolks to use it and then it
just wasn't good for them, thenyou tank your reputation and
that means you can't continuebeing a good advocate of
(39:34):
technology in general and forthe companies you work for in
the future, because yourreputation can and will take
hits.
But I think that's a reallygood like the way that you, um
spelled that out.
I was just like yeah, yeah,this, you said that perfectly.
You want to.
You want to talk about that alittle bit why that's important.
Dewan (39:52):
Yeah, I think so.
We're not in the business ofselling shoes.
If it was that simple, we'djust say, hey, look at these
nice shoes, it's bendable, it'swaterproof, and then just wear a
shoe, okay, next day.
Hey, now, look at this hikeboot or trail boot.
We're in the business ofselling very complex technical
products and we first have touse that complex technical
(40:13):
products to explain that, why itdoes the job and why it's
beneficial to a group of peopledevelopers who can very easily
sense if someone is lying.
Just because of the complexityof things you can't fake.
And also you mentioned aboutyour authenticity, your
(40:34):
reputation, there are specifictechnologies which I don't
believe in.
I don't want to name thosetechnologies, but I won't work
in those technologies justbecause it won't be genuine.
I believe in the products thatwe're offering.
Like I've used actually HarnessCICD before.
(40:54):
I took on my role as part ofthe interview and it seemed this
is fantastic, this is mucheasier than Jenkins or this
gives me so many ways ofadvanced deployment for
Kubernetes.
Yes, I do see myself advocatingfor that and I think this is
important.
A lot of companies.
(41:15):
They confuse developeradvocates with influencers.
I can keep going on that, so Idon't need to start on that.
But you have to be technical inorder to advocate for a
technical product.
That's a heel I'm willing todie on.
So that's why I feel that you,you have to be authentic in what
(41:40):
you evangelize, if you use therole you have.
Eyvonne (41:44):
Well, and I think the thing that you have to do as a
technical person showing uprepresenting a company in the
marketplace is that you have tobring some kind of value to the
community.
Either you have to educate themon a thing that they didn't
know about, you have to behelping them solve their
(42:06):
problems.
You have to provide some sortof meaningful information or a
perspective that's going to helpthem, and you can do that lots
of different ways.
You can do that being deeplytechnical.
You can do that showing up as alearner.
You can do that saying hey,here are the big picture things
(42:27):
that I've seen in my world thatmay be helpful to you, that may
give you a window into how theindustry works that brings value
to people.
And the tension that a lot oftechnical marketing folks face
is how do I represent my companywell and also show up
(42:51):
authentically to my community?
And sometimes those things areintention and, frankly, if
they're never intention, you'refailing one side or the other,
and part of the job is to standin that gap and to speak in both
directions in ways thatrepresent the other side, and
it's super important and that'show you it's in those moments
(43:14):
when you actually grow incredibility, even if you feel
like either your company or thecommunity is against you,
depending on how it's going inthe moment.
Dewan (43:24):
That's such an important point you mentioned A lot of
times we confuse that if we talkabout our product, are we going
to be all like he's trying tosell, or he or she's trying to
sell something.
It's not.
Someone's there is facing aproblem and then you're there to
help solve.
I love my sales colleagues,like they help pay my bills.
(43:48):
But developer advocates are abit different.
When we go out there we're nottrying to sell, so in that way,
someone in the audience, theydon't have that pressure that oh
like they're there just so thatthey can pitch their product or
sell their product.
We are there as, as yvonnementioned, that we are genuinely
trying to help, whether it'susing an oss tool, whether it's
(44:11):
using a product, but it shouldhelp you at the end.
William (44:15):
if it doesn't, we are both wasting our time yeah, I
think some one thing I've seen alot lately is I mean, there's
certain companies out there thatwill see someone with like a
ton of followers and they'rekind of a maybe like a micro
influencer of some sort.
They've just made content,they've built a big following
and they'll hire them, or try tohire them, and then basically
(44:37):
say, okay, you're only gonnabasically talk about our product
strategy.
Now you go out and just talkabout us only and use that
platform.
That's why we hired you.
We kind of bought you for yourinfluence and you can't you know
, we don't like it.
When you talk about other stuff,you know you need to cut that
out and that might have like avery short-term gain, extremely
(44:57):
short-term but that person willend up becoming what is referred
to in all the circles I see asa vendor shill and that's their
life and they will start losingcredibility and then they'll
start losing that audience thatthey worked so hard to build.
Eyvonne (45:14):
And then the value of their personal brand declines,
which means their value to thepeople that hired them declined,
and they've created thisnegative cycle as opposed to,
you know, giving people a voiceand letting them show up as
their authentic selves.
And look, there have to beboundaries, like you know, like
(45:35):
it's fine to be, like, hey, wereally don't want you commenting
on politics and being supervocal on certain very hot button
issues.
You know, if you're going to bea brand advocate, at the same
time, if we fell short somewhere, like it's, we have to own it.
William (45:55):
right, I kind of interrupted you, william, sorry
no, you, yeah, I mean that'sperfect and like it's just such
an I mean we I was talking tosomeone a few months ago that it
was kind of fell into thiscategory where they went to work
somewhere and the basically the, the product marketing folks
were basically like, okay, we'regonna write what you say.
Now they literally wanted towrite this person's like, give
(46:17):
them a script for everythingthat they produced personally
and professionally on all theirsocial media platforms.
And they were like, no, I'm notdoing that, this is not what I
signed up for.
And yeah, I mean I guess thatkind of shows because I've seen
a lot of different product teamsout there and you know product
management isn't easy.
(46:44):
You know you're, you'reultimately gauge like the
success of the product team is,you know, making sure that
you're building something thatis useful to the population, and
then you can find a way to getthat market fit, to make it
sticky, to get those newfeatures used, to get traction.
So you're, you know you want todo everything that you can
possibly do to make that happen.
But at the same time, you don'twant to do like to me that the
(47:05):
whole like, oh, hire aninfluencer and make them say X,
y and Z, that's, first of all,it's a shortcut, because it's
not about the product at all.
You're just looking for a shortterm win, yeah.
And second of all, I mean Idon't think that ever is going
to end well usually.
I mean maybe sometimes it does,but yeah, yeah that's sorry.
Eyvonne (47:26):
Go ahead, yvonne.
Oh, I was just going to say atthe end of the day, most of our
systems run on trust.
You know, and you have to havetrust with the individual like
developer, advocate, technicalmarketer, and their company Like
the company, has to trust thatthey're gonna show up well.
And your responsibility inthere is to show up well and to
(47:47):
use, like, some wisdom anddiscretion but also be yourself.
But ultimately, what you'realso trying to build is trust
between yourself and a communityand a brand and a community,
and I think we don't talk enoughabout that.
You know the economy of trust,that we have to have to get
things done.
So now, duan, go ahead.
Dewan (48:08):
Totally agree with both of what you said.
I think a lot of times and wehave, like developer advocates,
have been guilty of that is wesay we only will talk about the
pure open source version.
If I even mention about myproduct or my company, I'll be
doomed.
That's one extreme.
The other extreme is like onlytalking about product features
(48:29):
and thinking about how I canconvert all the meetup attendees
into paying customers.
The ideal balance is somewherein the middle.
At the end, harness is payingmy bills, so I have to think
that what I'm doing, how it'sadding value to harness.
Now, of course, it doesn't haveto be short-term gain, whereas
I'm just trying to scan badgesand make them paying customers.
(48:49):
This is a long-term gain wherepeople who have never heard
about the company if I go outthere with this hoodie, now they
hear about this.
So this is brand awareness.
The other thing is I have togenuinely provide value.
Without that, they don't havesort of choices like, whether
it's devops tools, cic tools,everything has 10 different
(49:11):
choices yeah, such a good pointthere.
William (49:15):
Yeah, so like, basically, what you said was hey
, imagine that it is a goodthing to have a balance, to not
go extreme one way and not goextreme in the other way.
Imagine that having a balancewould be, could be valuable in
both directions.
Eyvonne (49:30):
You mean we're not going to swing the pendulum from
one side to as hard as we canto the other?
William (49:36):
Hopefully not.
Not everybody on this callanyway.
Eyvonne (49:41):
That's right.
William (49:42):
So I guess the last thing I know we're kind of
getting, we're kind of going alittle long here.
At one point I said that wewere going to try and make these
30 minutes, which is just toohard.
But you're a DevOps Daysorganizer, halifax, yeah,
halifax.
So how did that start and how'sit going?
Dewan (50:04):
So after pandemic or right at the middle of pandemic,
I moved from Toronto to Moncton, new Brunswick so this is
Atlantic Canada for provincesand I tried to find meetups.
There was absolutely no techmeetups, no tech events, but
there were people like workingin tech, mostly like remote jobs
and then one of the otherdeveloper advocate.
(50:27):
She was also in Halifax and westarted talking that why don't
we set something up here?
So we had a few options whetherto start something from scratch
or whether to bring somethingwhich is already well-recognized
, well-reputed.
So DevOps Days was an easychoice.
Like they have the whole setupdone, from websites to branding
and everything.
(50:49):
So we reached out and they arefantastic people Like, if you're
thinking about like starting aDevOps Days, like I haven't seen
a more friendly bunch of peoplethan the maintainers and the
core team of DevOps Days.
So I reached out and last yearwas the first year and whoever
has hosted conferences or events, you can imagine how the first
year is.
But thankfully we're able topull it off and we're planning
(51:13):
DevOps Days Halifax 2025.
So if you're looking to promoteyour brand to more than a few
thousand tech professionals inAtlantic Canada, halifaxdevorg.
We'll also publish about ourCFP beautiful Atlantic Canada
during summer.
So more information on thewebsite.
William (51:37):
Awesome, yeah, you heard it here first folks, and
I'll definitely plug that in theshow notes as well with any
other links here.
So, yeah, thank you.
I just want to thank you somuch for being so just free with
your time.
You know, we've kind ofrecorded pretty long here.
Really appreciate the time.
And for folks that don't knowyou, where can they find you
(52:02):
online?
You said LinkedIn.
Dewan (52:03):
You're not on the other social platforms at this point I
have a profile on x slashTwitter, but I'm just a mere
observer there.
So, devanahamedcom, that's myblog.
All the links are there.
Linkedin is where I live.
Basically, I spend most of mywaking hours there.
So, yeah, that's probably thebest place to find me.
We had a Toastmasters club within the IBM office I
worked at it was IBM CanadaMarkham Lab and what
Toastmasters does is it createsa very welcoming environment for
you to practice public speaking, where you pick a topic and
there's also a goal, likestarting with 10 speeches you do
, or 10 talks you do, and thenyour peers would give you
(00:21):
feedback feedback like how manytimes you're doing um, so
there's an um counter.
Toastmasters creates thatenvironment where you're not
scared to talk because everyoneelse is learning with you and
it's not judgmental at all.
William (00:47):
Welcome back to another show.
I'm your host, william, comingto you with a somber heart,
actually, with heavy rain cloudsover my head.
Why?
Why, you ask.
Well, in a twist that has leftmany of us reaching for the
(01:14):
tissue box, canada hasofficially bested the United
States in the Four NationsFace-Off Championship.
Yes, my friends, many, manytears were shed, many dreams
were just dashed, and somewherein Canada there's a Canadian
goalie by the name of JordanBennington who is probably still
celebrating right now.
I don't cry over sports, though, so I didn't reach for the
tissue box.
I'm an adult.
What about you, yvonne?
Did you cry last night afterthe loss?
Eyvonne (01:37):
I was so, if you can't tell, by my surroundings, for
those of you that are on thelist thing, I'm business
traveling, so leading thatglamorous life.
So I was in the rare occasionof my entire team all in one
place having dinner, and so itwas on TV, but I do have to say
that it was not at the top of myfield of vision.
(01:59):
And then when somebody pointedit out I was like, well, that's
what we get for talking mean tothe Canadians.
So it was hard to feel too bad.
I love our Canadian friends tothe north, so yay for them.
William (02:14):
I do too, and I do like their national anthem.
I do like the Canadian nationalanthem, by the way, and I like
the US national anthem too.
I think they're both great.
I wouldn't boo either of them,just for the record.
So joining us today is diwanahmed.
Um, how are you doing today,after your country captured that
incredible victory last night,doing?
Dewan (02:36):
well doing well.
It's a friday, a lot of reasonsto celebrate and I give you a
heads up that I might overwhelmwith you a lot of sorry, um,
following the event, um, butyeah, it's cold, it's snowy,
it's perfectly Canadian, righthere?
William (02:53):
when you, when you say snowing, I feel like back.
You know, in Kentucky, here wehave had so much snow and ice
lately like it's probably beenthe most snowy winter that I've
seen in Kentucky and probablylike what Yvonne like the last
10 years.
Eyvonne (03:09):
Yeah, it's, it's been a bit and, um, like I said, I've
been business traveling thisweek and a couple of weeks ago,
and both weeks I have been in awarm, sunny part of the state
and, um, my, my, my dear husbandhas been at home with kids who
have been out of school for theentire week.
So after I get off my red eyein the morning, I'm going to
(03:31):
have to be nice to the household.
William (03:35):
I thought you would just walk in the house and go
right to sleep.
Well, I love you.
Good night.
Eyvonne (03:40):
That may be the nicest thing I could do for them,
frankly.
William (03:45):
Awesome.
Well, thank you again forjoining us today, Duan.
So you have a pretty awesome, Ithink, journey and you work for
an awesome company, and yourjourney originally started in
mechanical electricalengineering.
Dewan (04:02):
Yes, one of the real engineer, the.
William (04:03):
Yes, one of the real engineerings yes, the real one,
that you have to go to schoolfor right.
Imagine that you use a hard hatto do the jobs exactly
certifications and all the youknow, yeah, but you know,
somehow you found yourself intech, though, and I think your
was your first tech company ibmofficially yes.
(04:26):
Found yourself in tech, though,and I think it was your first
tech company IBM Officially yes,okay, so how did you move from
electrical engineering to tech?
Just out of curiosity?
I think that's a cool move.
Dewan (04:40):
Yeah, yeah, it was out of necessity actually.
So I did my Bachelor's ofEngineering in Bangladesh and I
was trying to pick a major,which is like you get your
career but you also do some goodfor the world Fossil fuels
diminishing and solar and windall those do good for the planet
.
And then, once I moved toCanada in 2011, I realized that
(05:04):
not a lot of industries careabout renewable energy.
Well, in Asia and Europe that'sa much higher number of jobs
and prospects and investments.
But then here I was juststruggling to find is there any
like solar engineer jobs?
There's like technician jobs,but not research level or
professional renewable energyengineering jobs.
There's like technician jobs,but not research level or
(05:25):
professional renewable energyengineering jobs.
And also, I had to go back toschool just like a same
immigrant story all over.
And then when I was at Ryersonthere was I joined IEEE Ryerson.
One thing I was trying to do iscreate as much network as
possible to see if we knowsomeone in the industry, and one
of my friend's friend wasworking at IBM that time.
(05:48):
So I was taking my Java courseI think there are like two
courses in electricalengineering for computer science
and I happened to be okay withJava.
And then he said, hey, we'relooking for someone who's good
at Java.
I said, of course I'm not goingto get the job, but it doesn't
hurt to apply, so let me apply.
And then I got a call.
Um I think I took a taxi, uh,reached to the ibm office like
(06:13):
three hours before the interview.
Um, everything went well, andthen that I never came out of
that wonderful tech carrier.
William (06:24):
Love it.
That's awesome.
And you so, starting at IBM,you're basically kind of like
pure software developer,software engineer, but even then
you made another kind of pivot.
Is that where you found yourtrue passion of CICD, automation
(06:47):
Kubernetes, kind of likeinfrastructure and managing
infrastructure?
Is that correct?
Dewan (06:53):
That also came out of necessity.
So for four years I wasfocusing on Java and back-end
development, some cloud also,that's abstract.
So then what happened was I wasmoved to a different team at
ibm and every time I was tryingto say I'm a back-end developer,
the, the partner or whoever wasthe, the lead in the whole
(07:16):
business unit, was saying here'sour full stack developer.
If there's one thing that Iabsolutely don't get, that is
front-end development.
Like you asked me to doJavaScript, I get totally blank.
So then I realized that if itgoes like that, I'll soon be out
of job.
Like I have to find somespecialty.
(07:36):
What can I do?
So then I started watching.
Somehow some of the KubeConvideos started floating on my
YouTube and I said okay, thissounds okay, like it's not
front-end, so that's a goodthing, but it also seems to be
in demand and every time you sayDevOps, people's eyes seem to
like light up.
(07:56):
So then I started learning,like Docker, kubernetes,
openshift, and one thing I didwas every time I learned
something, I published a content, I wrote an article and before
I realized, within my few teamsat IBM, I was the OpenShift
expert and that's where I kindof found my de-DevOps expert.
(08:20):
Probably I scratched thesurface of DevOps, but I was
labeled as the DevOps expertwithin those teams.
Eyvonne (08:28):
Well, and one of the trends that I've noticed as well
is that when you're activelylearning, that's a great time to
really start creating content,because, if you think about it,
the market for beginner contentis always larger than the market
for deep, deep expertisecontent, just because there are
(08:49):
fewer people that have reachedthat level, and so it's a great
way to build a brand, to build acommunity with people in your
similar career stage ortechnical journey or technical
journey, and it's really a wayto establish yourself and
demonstrate, if not totalcompetence, a desire and willing
(09:17):
to learn and grow, which, inthis industry, is really more
important than what you'veactually mastered technically,
because it's always changing.
So I think a lot of people sitback and go well, I don't know
enough to to create educationalcontent, but actually at the
beginning is the best place tostart yeah, you got a good
(09:37):
following by, so you were earlyon in the content scene of on
with.
William (09:43):
uh, yeah, you knowvonne had a podcast, basically the
Network Collective that shefounded with a few others, and
it was pretty early maybe notearly early podcast days, but it
was when podcasts were reallystarting to get popular and
mainstream.
Just out of curiosity, yvonnedid that help you with like your
brand recognition as a person,like kind of put you on the map
(10:05):
help you with, like your brandrecognition as a person, like
kind of put you on the map.
Eyvonne (10:07):
Well, honestly, I think , looking back on it in the
moment, I didn't realize howmuch it was helping.
Like I still meet people yearslater who recognize me from that
podcast and I had no idea.
So I think that's.
The other thing is like whenyou're creating content, you
don't really it's.
It's when you speak at aconference, you have a sense of
how many people in the room orhow many people are listening.
(10:29):
When you're creating content,putting it on the internet, you
don't really get a sense and youmay be like well, you know,
only a hundred people saw that,but if you were standing in
front of a room full of ahundred people speaking, that
would feel significant, and so Ithink, like for me, that's
that's one thing I wish I wouldhave understood better is, um,
(10:51):
the impact that was having inways that I didn't see.
Um, and and I think you know,for those of us that are
creating content, it's good toremember that and just keep that
in our mind that it feels likea slog sometimes, um, but it's,
it's good to keep going.
William (11:09):
Yeah, and so another.
So another thing I read on onyour, your blog.
The one was you, uh, you joinedToastmasters club to build up
your chops for public speaking.
And for those not familiar, uh,with Toastmasters, um, would
you, you mindastmasters, wouldyou mind?
You know just kind of, you knowgoing through what the value is
(11:31):
and you know, maybe, why youneeded it at the time.
Dewan (11:35):
Yeah, yeah for sure.
So fortunately, we had aToastmasters club within the IBM
office I worked at it was IBMCanada Markham Lab and what
Toastmasters does is it createsa very welcoming environment for
you to practice public speaking, where you pick a topic and
there's also a goal, likestarting with like 10 speeches
(11:56):
you do or 10 talks you do, andthen your peers would give you
feedback.
Feedback like how many timesyou're doing um so there's an um
counter and how you start yourspeech and how you use the
three-point rule.
I keep realizing that you can'tsee my fingers like I did the
thumbs up, but it's out of themic.
(12:17):
So Toastmasters creates thatenvironment where you're not
scared to talk because everyoneelse is learning with you.
You're not scared to talkbecause everyone else is
learning with you, and it's notjudgmental at all.
So feedback is a gift.
Basically, that's what we keptsaying at Toastmasters.
Eyvonne (12:32):
Well, and I'm coming off of an event this week where
there have been opportunitiesfor folks to step into roles
where they can speak and in afriendly environment.
But we were kind of debriefingafterwards and part of public
speaking is you just got to getin the reps.
You've got to get in the habitof saying things out loud that
(12:55):
always sound different when theycome out of your mouth than
they sound in your head.
And there is a physical thingthat happens in your body when
you stand in front of a group ofpeople that impacts your
breathing and you may get alittle sweaty and all of those
things, and that's justsomething you got to learn to
manage and you learn to manageit.
(13:22):
Friendly environment to do thatand get some of those reps.
That way, when you show up in apublic place, you know, in
front of maybe an audience thatisn't as friendly, you've got
enough experience to manage allthose things, because I think
sometimes people are very afraidof it, but I mean it's just a
thing that you have to practiceTotally agree, I totally agree
(13:44):
with that.
William (13:44):
one have to practice.
Totally agree, I totally agreewith that.
One Go ahead, alman.
Dewan (13:48):
Yeah, like it doesn't matter if you're starting your
career or you have been doingpublic speaking for 20, 30 years
.
I've heard a couple of timeswhere you have these internal
speaking groups at somecompanies and then, let's say,
some tech executive who havebeen talking for 20 years, when
they're welcomed at these, thesepractice speaking, they said no
(14:10):
, I don't need to speak, likeI've been doing talks for 20
years.
I wouldn't say that's a verysmart approach because,
regardless of how many years youhave been doing it, there's
always something you can improve.
And when, when leadershipstarts that trend that even we
need practice, we need to getout there and make ourselves
(14:30):
vulnerable and be open tofeedback, I think that sets a
fantastic trend.
So that's something I have seenboth at my current company and
IBM, where leadership is alwaysopen to feedback.
They are there to improve.
So, whether it's publicspeaking, whether it's writing
blog, they are there to toimprove.
So, whether it's publicspeaking, whether it's writing
blog, they reach out to likealmost anyone if they need help.
That hey, like I'm doing a talkor I'm trying to do this, these
(14:54):
slides, can I get a feedback?
William (14:57):
I love that.
That's so good because it'sjust yeah, even if you've been
doing it so long.
One thing I've noticed is like,uh, times change, people change
and like what is what isvaluable and like the way that
you present yourself also change.
You know changes over time.
Like one thing I've noticed inparticular is like even at these
(15:17):
big big tech conferences or bigthings, you know big speaking
slots, lots of people likeinjecting like a little bit of
like light-hearted comedy, likenot taking it so seriously, not
being so rigid and soprocessional from beginning to
end.
Um is really important thesedays where it didn't used to be
(15:40):
that way, because you, youreally have to.
You want to find a way toengage your audience and keep
their attention.
Well, what better way to keepthe attention of an audience is,
you know, by teaching themsomething, providing value but
also making it entertaining,light-hearted, maybe a little
comedy, you know, throw littlejokes in there.
Eyvonne (15:58):
You know it doesn't have to be unprofessional but
doesn't have to be so rigid, aswell and and that's a skill in
and of itself right, Finding theright level of humor without
taking it too far, without beingoffensive, and be slightly
(16:18):
self-deprecating, without beingover the top right.
There's a sweet spot there anda lot of that.
It just takes practice.
It's just practice, likeeverything else.
Dewan (16:30):
Also, our audience have changed a lot with millennials,
gen Zs, the way you present aconcept.
So I routinely use memes on myslides, gifs or GIFs, however
you say it.
So before maybe, if you look at15 or 20 years before, like the
slides were very monotonous,like there's text, probably some
(16:51):
pictures.
This is a slide you justpresented, but now it has become
an art that where are the memes?
Like, if you have a slidewithout some nice memes, then
something is missing.
Eyvonne (17:04):
Well, and you can spice up a very boring topic.
I had a team member ask him todo a presentation on an internal
process that he's particularlygood at.
That I was like, well, I wouldlove for the team to adopt his
approach.
And he did that right.
He put together a slide deckand he interspersed some memes
and threw in some lightheartedhumor.
(17:26):
And it also makes it easier toabsorb the content right when
you add a little humor and keeppeople engaged.
So, yeah, it's pretty valuable.
William (17:38):
Yeah.
So this whole thing in and ofitself has made me jump to new
heights to engage.
I wonder if I can share myscreen on here.
This is going on YouTube, so ifyou're listening in, you're not
going to be able to see thisunless you go to the YouTube and
watch.
But I've gone to like drasticefforts to make things a little
more entertaining.
(17:59):
Let me see if I can.
It's not going to let me sharemy whole screen, but basically
what I did is I took.
So I was asked to give a talk onMicrosoft Azure and I knew the
bunch that was going to be there.
I was like, okay, I've got tospice this up somehow.
What can I do?
So what I did was I basicallydid a like Snoop Dogg was in the
(18:21):
news at the time.
You know the rapper, and he wasat the Olympics.
He was at all these thingsdoing all these commercials and
I was like, okay, I'm gonnathrow a Snoop Dogg in there and
it was like the Snoop Dogg blockparty.
So it started off with like,okay, an Azure V net.
You know it was Snoop Dogg'sneighborhood and then when you
get into that neighborhood, youhave these subnets and the
(18:42):
subnets are different houses inthe neighborhood and you know.
But then Snoop Dogg doesn'tjust want to stay in his own
neighborhood, he wants to go toanother neighborhood where the
other parties are going on.
So how did he connect from thisneighborhood to that
neighborhood?
And okay, the highway is onetype of construct and the
backroads are another type ofconstruct.
And so I wrote you know, I didthis whole thing and it was
(19:03):
maybe like one of the mostsuccess and I I didn't know how
that was going to land.
I was like, okay, I'mdefinitely taking this way too
far, like I'm having way toomuch fun with this, but people
absolutely loved it.
They thought it was great.
I've had a few people actuallyreach out and ask for the slides
or if I could like record andput it on the internet, and I'm
like, uh, I don't know if I wantto put myself in a big pit.
Eyvonne (19:25):
So props to bringing in the cultural references.
Now you need to do one for GCP,just saying.
William (19:32):
That's not a bad idea.
Yeah, there we go.
Dewan (19:35):
You're a gifted storyteller, william, because
when you're saying that I couldvisualize like the neighborhood
and then, walking across, Icould see like some barbecue
happening and then now you'regonna go to the different
neighborhood, so you are.
Eyvonne (19:48):
If you can throw in some clips of snoop dog in the
olympics, especially theequestrian events, like you, get
bonus points well, I'd actually.
William (19:55):
so I took pictures of snoop dog and I removed the
background and like put them inlike a data center and put them
in all these places in theslides so people could visualize
it.
And maybe, yeah, it was.
There's so many cool tools outthere to you know.
It used to be like you had tolike know photoshop really well
to do some removing background,simple things like that, and now
(20:19):
you have tools like canva.
It makes it so easy.
In like a minute you can removea background, use AI upscaling
to make the image better quality, just fill in pixels that
weren't there with the image.
It's pretty wild, yeah.
But anyhow, I think the nextplace that we wanted to go with
(20:42):
this we kind of talked about wasand again, you're a gifted
writer, you've written a lot andyou've given a lot of
presentations, so I was readinga lot in your blog.
But one thing that you hit onwas something I think is it's
one of those things where a lotof folks keep the truth inside
(21:05):
but they say something different.
So you basically make thestatement and sort of debunk the
whole statement of OK, jobtitles don't matter and you
share an alternate viewpointhere that like, basically, once,
once you reach like a certainpay threshold, you get that pay.
(21:26):
You know that you really wantto find happiness and joy and
value in working for the company.
And then you do want the righttitle and you want stability and
you do want the chain ofcommand, like the management, to
recognize that hey, you'redoing a good job and we're happy
with the work you're doing.
It's reciprocal, you know.
(21:47):
Do you want to expand on that,if you don't mind?
Dewan (21:54):
typical, you know.
Do you want to expand on thatif you don't mind?
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Yeah, I'm typically very openwith what I think and what I
write and it comes from my ownexperience and it might be wrong
, I might be right and peoplehave different perspectives.
So all I want to do is put myperspective out there and
probably other people can alsofeel the connection.
So when I came to Canada, I hadto go back to school, like redo
(22:17):
the entire engineering school,like imagine trying to like
spend four years for, say,finishing your bachelor's.
I had to finish that in sixbecause I was working three
part-time jobs.
I did 32 months of internshipat IBM, most of it because I had
to pay my bills, because I wasa mature student.
So when I started my firstfull-time career at IBM, I was
(22:40):
eight years behind compared tomy age.
So I had a challenge that I'meight years behind.
Now I have to catch up.
So I have to run that muchfaster to be at the same level.
Of course, there's all thisLinkedIn saying that age doesn't
matter and whatnot, but I knowit matters for me.
(23:00):
So that's why I had to runfaster and when I'm running
faster, I'm working harder.
I need to see what are themetrics of success.
Of course, pay is important.
You have to pay your bills.
Titles also matter because titlesays that the work I'm doing is
(23:24):
getting recognized and it'slike a game You're going to the
next level of the game, so nextlevel of your career.
It's like a game You're goingto the next level of the game,
so next level of your career.
So without the title, I don'tsee what I'm working towards or
where I am compared to my peerswho didn't have to go behind
eight years.
So I think that's why titlesmatter.
And oftentimes you'll seepeople who say titles don't
(23:45):
matter.
They come from a privilegedplace, let's say a CEO, or let's
say a distinguished engineer.
Of course it doesn't matter forthem because they don't need
the title.
Even if you see, like on Zoomor Riverside, I have my title
there.
It's not to brag or boast, it'sbecause it really matters to me
.
I worked really hard, just likea lot of other people did.
(24:05):
So that's why I'm verytransparent to say that titles
do matter.
Eyvonne (24:11):
There's a.
So I'm if folks don't know, I'ma fan of rom-coms and Victorian
movies, like that era of drama,and there's a line in this
movie I think it's in the GildedAge, is the show that it's in
and there are these aristocraticladies having a conversation
and one of them says well, youknow, money isn't everything.
(24:33):
And the only person in the roomthat is, you know, less wealthy
in the group is like, well,unless you don't have any, you
know.
And so that's that's whatyou're saying about titles as
well, is it's easy to haveachieved a certain degree of
professional success and namerecognition and then think, well
(24:53):
, titles don't really matter.
But as you're trying toestablish yourself, or if you're
looking for mobility to bebetween jobs, it can really
matter.
And I think it's reallyimportant for us to be honest
with ourselves about what wewant and what we want to
accomplish with our career andwhat it's going to take for us
to get there.
(25:14):
If you're in a place where youknow you, really it's most
important to you to feel likeyou're making a contribution.
Well, that means you're goingto be willing to be more
flexible on salary and maybemore flexible on title.
But if you want to get to anext level, then that title is
going to really matter becauseit's imbued with a certain
(25:37):
degree of capability and meaningthat matters to people who may
not know you, and so a lot of itis just self-awareness and
where you want to go and knowingwhat matters to you.
So there's not one right orwrong answer.
It is important to know theanswer for you, or you're not
(25:57):
going to get where you want togo.
William (26:00):
Yeah, and if you're applying for a job, I mean, what
is the first thing they'regoing to do?
They're going to look at yourpast experience.
Were you a senior engineer?
Ok, you're.
You're applying for a principalengineer engineer Okay, you're.
You're applying for a principalengineer?
Well, we don't want to hire ajunior engineer or just a
analyst or something they theywant someone that is either a
principal engineer or it's justan absolute rock star.
(26:22):
Is you know somewhere close andskill set?
Well, they're going to look atyour resume.
They're going to look back atyour LinkedIn profile and all
the places you've been and allthose things you were talking
about earlier.
Your public contributions.
Can you write well?
Can you communicate well?
Are you well-spoken?
Do you understand?
You know?
(26:42):
All those things are reallyimportant on top of, obviously,
doing the job and being able towrite the code and, you know,
get the work done.
But it's not just one thing.
I think these days that getsyou that job.
It's many things.
It's, honestly, it's acombination of who you know too.
Do you have someone within thecompany that can advocate for
you and maybe get you that help,get at least an interview or
(27:04):
get you a phone call, becauseeven that's hard.
These days.
Actually speaking of that, youthat's something you help folks
with a lot, right, you helprefine and give feedback on
resumes, so they can kind of getahead of that.
Dewan (27:20):
Yeah, that's something.
Probably like 10 years ago Istopped all my social media and
I thought I'm only going tospend time on LinkedIn.
And then I started building mynetwork there and then I also
thought that if I start puttinglike seeds, probably that will
grow into a nice tree and bebeneficial for both me and
(27:43):
someone else.
So I just say, okay, how aboutI check someone's resume?
I check someone's resume andthen slowly, slowly, people
started sending me their resumesand what I do is in my evenings
and weekends I block off sometime and then I review that.
My resume review is very simple.
You connect with me on LinkedIn, you share your PDF resume.
(28:04):
I do both anonymous and publicresume reviews.
If it's a public review, itgets a wide view.
Other people are seeing it.
If you don't want that, you sayyou take your name out from
your resume, like make itanonymized, and I do an
anonymous review.
I think I've done close to1,200 resume reviews over the
last 10 years.
This is completely pro bono.
I don't take a dime.
(28:26):
It's trying to help someone,but also a bit selfish from my
end because I know if I helpsomeone now when I need help and
I didn't say if I need help,when I need help, because all of
us at some point of our careerwill need some help then I have
that extra person to reach outto.
So that's a bit selfish on myend.
William (28:48):
I'm trying to help out as many people as I can because
I know someday I'll need toreach out to some people
(29:13):
reviewed because I I've reviewedI mean, I don't, I've reviewed
like maybe 15 resumes in thepast year and a half or
something.
I've helped some folks, maybemore, I don't know.
More or less.
Uh, and it's not reviewing aresume, isn't it?
Just okay you once over it anddone it takes a little bit of
time, um, it's something thatyou know.
That's, that's awesome of youto give, give back your time in
that way.
Dewan (29:32):
It takes like 45 minutes because I do a pretty deep
review.
So I check out their GitHub, Icheck out their projects, pinned
projects, non-pinned projectsIf it has a readme, if it
doesn't, because most of themare like software developers.
So I give feedback as if I wasthe hiring manager.
I check their LinkedIn, so notjust the resume, the things that
(29:54):
come within the resume projects, because now people think that
I can just upload my resume toChatGPT and then it does a
pretty good job.
It does give you a review, buta year or two years before
someone, especially a lot ofpeople who worked at a company
(30:14):
for 10 years and they forgot howto even write their resume or
how to even like apply for a job, like that thing completely was
blank.
So I think all of us can takemaybe 15 minutes out of our time
and help someone you never know.
You might need that help lateron.
Eyvonne (30:33):
And getting a job is a skill that may not be aligned
directly with the skillsrequired to do the job, and I
think you know yes, you know ourgeneral AI tooling is going to
be able to give you some goodfeedback on.
You know how to write yourresume, but the more ubiquitous
(30:55):
those tools become, the moreresumes are all going to start
looking alike.
I mean, they already do Right,and so you've got to find ways
to differentiate yourself.
Differentiate yourself, and itcan be really helpful to have
somebody look at your resume asa neutral third party and tell
you what they see, because a lotof times you will telegraph
(31:19):
things in your resume that youdon't realize that you're saying
, and to have somebody from theoutside just take a look at that
and say, hmm, I see this, thisis what I see, is this what you
intend to communicate or doesthis align to the kind of job
that you're looking for?
It can be incredibly helpful,because I don't think any of us
(31:39):
see ourselves objectively.
Now we can talk about whethersome people see themselves more
positively than they should andothers see themselves more
negatively than they should, butthey, you know we don't see
ourselves as somebody.
You know that we don't know, soI think that could be really
helpful.
Dewan (31:58):
Totally, totally.
And I'll mention some of thepatterns I've observed when
reviewing resumes.
Some people who are not, let'ssay, originally from North
America, they put their entirelife history in their resume.
They have their passport number, their parents' names.
In one resume I found bloodgroup.
So those are something, yes,the blood group as well.
(32:22):
So those are the things that,when it comes to me, I can say
please don't make these thingspublic.
The other common trends I'veseen is putting Microsoft Office
on their resume under skills.
You're working in tech.
Knowing Microsoft Office is notconsidered a skill.
Also, putting Linux just as akeyword.
(32:43):
I know Linux.
I said what do you know aboutLinux?
When you put Linux on a resume,it's expected that you know
Linux in an administrativecapacity, not once you logged
into a Linux computer.
So those are the things that,if your listeners are listening,
check your resume if you have,especially if you have blood
(33:04):
group on there.
Please, please, don't keep itthere.
William (33:08):
Wow, wow, yeah, that's intense, yeah it.
Yeah.
It's funny too because, likelately I've seen this, so it
went from like it used to bewhat it, what is like acceptable
to put on your resume, what isnot, and when you had humans
viewing it all the time, thatwas one thing, but now you have
a lot of ai that's doing a lotof filtering of a lot of the
(33:31):
noise and I think some things itdoes a good job with and some
things it doesn't, and I thinkit makes it actually harder to
get hired these days, from whatI hear from the recruiters I
talked to, because, um, ai isbasically looking for specific
things and what you have isfolks that know that and they're
gaming the system and they'reupdating their resume based on,
(33:52):
like they'll take the jobdescription, filter it through a
GP, doing, you know, puttingexactly what their skills are
prescriptively on their resume.
(34:21):
So that's an interesting timeright now is how to how to gain
the AI without beingdisingenuous or dishonest while
at the same time disingenuous ordishonest, while at the same
time, yeah, I, I don't know witha you know and and people
approach it differently.
Eyvonne (34:40):
For for me, like resumes especially if you're
working in an organization thathas a formal hr screening
department you know, really yourresume is there to get you past
that at the you know and to getyou to an interview.
And a lot of times I willreview, just give a resume, a
(35:05):
high level overview, but Ireally want to have a
conversation with the person.
Right, I want to see do they,especially, you know, in in
roles where you're hiring peoplethat are going to be customer
facing, the most important thing, yeah, they've got to have the
technical skills.
They've also got to be able tocarry a conversation.
(35:25):
They've got to you know,they've got to be able to relate
with you as a human being,because ultimately, that's what
a lot of you know technicalmarketing and technical selling
is.
And so you, you also, like,have to think about it from the
perspective of all the differentstages that happen in hiring.
One is like can can you getthrough the screening?
Can you get past the HR personthat that may not understand the
(35:53):
technical work?
And really they're doing a lotof pattern matching and keyword
alignment, and then, if you'refortunate, you'll get an
interview, and a lot of peopledon't think about that process
and all the differentstakeholders in that process and
how to meet their needs to getthrough it.
One of the things I will say,though, is and I gave this
(36:14):
advice to somebody who reachedout to me in the last week or
two asking you know, thinkingabout growing in their career
and what's next, and you justcannot understate, you cannot
overstate, the importance ofnetworking and knowing people in
the industry, and you do that,like what you're talking about,
(36:35):
through LinkedIn.
You do that through conferencesand events.
You do that through talking tothe people you work with in
parallel organizations, parallelorganizations, and, um, that,
(36:56):
that word of mouth,recommendation or referral is,
is still, and, and I think willalways be incredibly important,
because we all have to filtersomehow, and if you know a great
person who recommends somebodywho they say is a great person,
that um, that, that that putsthem at the top of the heap,
just by default.
There's no guarantee, but atleast it gets you seen, and, in
(37:16):
this world, being seen is 75% ofthe battle.
William (37:23):
Yeah, especially with the saturation of software
developers, DevOps practitionersso many folks are coming out of
college now.
I mean, when I started workingin tech, not everybody in the
planet wanted to work in tech.
I was a smaller group of people, but it's just grown and it's
grown and it's grown and it'sgrown.
Like I have cousins and secondcousins and friends, and
(37:47):
everybody seems to.
I think there's this thing oflike okay, you know, tech is one
of those jobs where I don'thave to.
You know, I'm not going out andfixing plumbing every day, or
I'm not going out to theseremote locations or driving a
truck or having to be on the goall the time, or, you know, I
could potentially have theoption to work from home and it
(38:08):
gives me a better work-lifebalance and the pay is also not
terrible.
So that's, there's a lot ofsaturation in the market right
now.
There's just a lot of folks togo around and in some
disciplines there's a need forjobs.
It's hard to find skilled folks, but in other disciplines
there's a lot of good folksgoing around and there's just
(38:28):
not enough jobs.
So, yeah, supply-demand 101.
So another thing you make astrong case for which I thought
was you know, it kind of hithome for me as well, because I'm
so you're a developer advocate,I'm kind of like a tech
evangelist, so we kind of do thesame thing, kind of different.
(38:48):
I really don't know what thedifference is at the end of the
day between these two things.
But uh, you, you make this thisstrong case that, um, you know,
as far as brand is concernedlike when you're putting on that
harness io zip up that you haveon like your personal brand is
actually attached to the companybrand then you know you, you're
(39:11):
going and you're advocating forthis product and that means you
really have to love and believein the product.
Because if you didn't, and ifthe product was not a good
product and you you got a lot offolks to use it and then it
just wasn't good for them, thenyou tank your reputation and
that means you can't continuebeing a good advocate of
(39:34):
technology in general and forthe companies you work for in
the future, because yourreputation can and will take
hits.
But I think that's a reallygood like the way that you, um
spelled that out.
I was just like yeah, yeah,this, you said that perfectly.
You want to.
You want to talk about that alittle bit why that's important.
Dewan (39:52):
Yeah, I think so.
We're not in the business ofselling shoes.
If it was that simple, we'djust say, hey, look at these
nice shoes, it's bendable, it'swaterproof, and then just wear a
shoe, okay, next day.
Hey, now, look at this hikeboot or trail boot.
We're in the business ofselling very complex technical
products and we first have touse that complex technical
(40:13):
products to explain that, why itdoes the job and why it's
beneficial to a group of peopledevelopers who can very easily
sense if someone is lying.
Just because of the complexityof things you can't fake.
And also you mentioned aboutyour authenticity, your
(40:34):
reputation, there are specifictechnologies which I don't
believe in.
I don't want to name thosetechnologies, but I won't work
in those technologies justbecause it won't be genuine.
I believe in the products thatwe're offering.
Like I've used actually HarnessCICD before.
(40:54):
I took on my role as part ofthe interview and it seemed this
is fantastic, this is mucheasier than Jenkins or this
gives me so many ways ofadvanced deployment for
Kubernetes.
Yes, I do see myself advocatingfor that and I think this is
important.
A lot of companies.
(41:15):
They confuse developeradvocates with influencers.
I can keep going on that, so Idon't need to start on that.
But you have to be technical inorder to advocate for a
technical product.
That's a heel I'm willing todie on.
So that's why I feel that you,you have to be authentic in what
(41:40):
you evangelize, if you use therole you have.
Eyvonne (41:44):
Well, and I think the thing that you have to do as a
technical person showing uprepresenting a company in the
marketplace is that you have tobring some kind of value to the
community.
Either you have to educate themon a thing that they didn't
know about, you have to behelping them solve their
(42:06):
problems.
You have to provide some sortof meaningful information or a
perspective that's going to helpthem, and you can do that lots
of different ways.
You can do that being deeplytechnical.
You can do that showing up as alearner.
You can do that saying hey,here are the big picture things
(42:27):
that I've seen in my world thatmay be helpful to you, that may
give you a window into how theindustry works that brings value
to people.
And the tension that a lot oftechnical marketing folks face
is how do I represent my companywell and also show up
(42:51):
authentically to my community?
And sometimes those things areintention and, frankly, if
they're never intention, you'refailing one side or the other,
and part of the job is to standin that gap and to speak in both
directions in ways thatrepresent the other side, and
it's super important and that'show you it's in those moments
(43:14):
when you actually grow incredibility, even if you feel
like either your company or thecommunity is against you,
depending on how it's going inthe moment.
Dewan (43:24):
That's such an important point you mentioned A lot of
times we confuse that if we talkabout our product, are we going
to be all like he's trying tosell, or he or she's trying to
sell something.
It's not.
Someone's there is facing aproblem and then you're there to
help solve.
I love my sales colleagues,like they help pay my bills.
(43:48):
But developer advocates are abit different.
When we go out there we're nottrying to sell, so in that way,
someone in the audience, theydon't have that pressure that oh
like they're there just so thatthey can pitch their product or
sell their product.
We are there as, as yvonnementioned, that we are genuinely
trying to help, whether it'susing an oss tool, whether it's
(44:11):
using a product, but it shouldhelp you at the end.
William (44:15):
if it doesn't, we are both wasting our time yeah, I
think some one thing I've seen alot lately is I mean, there's
certain companies out there thatwill see someone with like a
ton of followers and they'rekind of a maybe like a micro
influencer of some sort.
They've just made content,they've built a big following
and they'll hire them, or try tohire them, and then basically
(44:37):
say, okay, you're only gonnabasically talk about our product
strategy.
Now you go out and just talkabout us only and use that
platform.
That's why we hired you.
We kind of bought you for yourinfluence and you can't you know
, we don't like it.
When you talk about other stuff,you know you need to cut that
out and that might have like avery short-term gain, extremely
(44:57):
short-term but that person willend up becoming what is referred
to in all the circles I see asa vendor shill and that's their
life and they will start losingcredibility and then they'll
start losing that audience thatthey worked so hard to build.
Eyvonne (45:14):
And then the value of their personal brand declines,
which means their value to thepeople that hired them declined,
and they've created thisnegative cycle as opposed to,
you know, giving people a voiceand letting them show up as
their authentic selves.
And look, there have to beboundaries, like you know, like
(45:35):
it's fine to be, like, hey, wereally don't want you commenting
on politics and being supervocal on certain very hot button
issues.
You know, if you're going to bea brand advocate, at the same
time, if we fell short somewhere, like it's, we have to own it.
William (45:55):
right, I kind of interrupted you, william, sorry
no, you, yeah, I mean that'sperfect and like it's just such
an I mean we I was talking tosomeone a few months ago that it
was kind of fell into thiscategory where they went to work
somewhere and the basically the, the product marketing folks
were basically like, okay, we'regonna write what you say.
Now they literally wanted towrite this person's like, give
(46:17):
them a script for everythingthat they produced personally
and professionally on all theirsocial media platforms.
And they were like, no, I'm notdoing that, this is not what I
signed up for.
And yeah, I mean I guess thatkind of shows because I've seen
a lot of different product teamsout there and you know product
management isn't easy.
(46:44):
You know you're, you'reultimately gauge like the
success of the product team is,you know, making sure that
you're building something thatis useful to the population, and
then you can find a way to getthat market fit, to make it
sticky, to get those newfeatures used, to get traction.
So you're, you know you want todo everything that you can
possibly do to make that happen.
But at the same time, you don'twant to do like to me that the
(47:05):
whole like, oh, hire aninfluencer and make them say X,
y and Z, that's, first of all,it's a shortcut, because it's
not about the product at all.
You're just looking for a shortterm win, yeah.
And second of all, I mean Idon't think that ever is going
to end well usually.
I mean maybe sometimes it does,but yeah, yeah that's sorry.
Eyvonne (47:26):
Go ahead, yvonne.
Oh, I was just going to say atthe end of the day, most of our
systems run on trust.
You know, and you have to havetrust with the individual like
developer, advocate, technicalmarketer, and their company Like
the company, has to trust thatthey're gonna show up well.
And your responsibility inthere is to show up well and to
(47:47):
use, like, some wisdom anddiscretion but also be yourself.
But ultimately, what you'realso trying to build is trust
between yourself and a communityand a brand and a community,
and I think we don't talk enoughabout that.
You know the economy of trust,that we have to have to get
things done.
So now, duan, go ahead.
Dewan (48:08):
Totally agree with both of what you said.
I think a lot of times and wehave, like developer advocates,
have been guilty of that is wesay we only will talk about the
pure open source version.
If I even mention about myproduct or my company, I'll be
doomed.
That's one extreme.
The other extreme is like onlytalking about product features
(48:29):
and thinking about how I canconvert all the meetup attendees
into paying customers.
The ideal balance is somewherein the middle.
At the end, harness is payingmy bills, so I have to think
that what I'm doing, how it'sadding value to harness.
Now, of course, it doesn't haveto be short-term gain, whereas
I'm just trying to scan badgesand make them paying customers.
(48:49):
This is a long-term gain wherepeople who have never heard
about the company if I go outthere with this hoodie, now they
hear about this.
So this is brand awareness.
The other thing is I have togenuinely provide value.
Without that, they don't havesort of choices like, whether
it's devops tools, cic tools,everything has 10 different
(49:11):
choices yeah, such a good pointthere.
William (49:15):
Yeah, so like, basically, what you said was hey
, imagine that it is a goodthing to have a balance, to not
go extreme one way and not goextreme in the other way.
Imagine that having a balancewould be, could be valuable in
both directions.
Eyvonne (49:30):
You mean we're not going to swing the pendulum from
one side to as hard as we canto the other?
William (49:36):
Hopefully not.
Not everybody on this callanyway.
Eyvonne (49:41):
That's right.
William (49:42):
So I guess the last thing I know we're kind of
getting, we're kind of going alittle long here.
At one point I said that wewere going to try and make these
30 minutes, which is just toohard.
But you're a DevOps Daysorganizer, halifax, yeah,
halifax.
So how did that start and how'sit going?
Dewan (50:04):
So after pandemic or right at the middle of pandemic,
I moved from Toronto to Moncton, new Brunswick so this is
Atlantic Canada for provincesand I tried to find meetups.
There was absolutely no techmeetups, no tech events, but
there were people like workingin tech, mostly like remote jobs
and then one of the otherdeveloper advocate.
(50:27):
She was also in Halifax and westarted talking that why don't
we set something up here?
So we had a few options whetherto start something from scratch
or whether to bring somethingwhich is already well-recognized
, well-reputed.
So DevOps Days was an easychoice.
Like they have the whole setupdone, from websites to branding
and everything.
(50:49):
So we reached out and they arefantastic people Like, if you're
thinking about like starting aDevOps Days, like I haven't seen
a more friendly bunch of peoplethan the maintainers and the
core team of DevOps Days.
So I reached out and last yearwas the first year and whoever
has hosted conferences or events, you can imagine how the first
year is.
But thankfully we're able topull it off and we're planning
(51:13):
DevOps Days Halifax 2025.
So if you're looking to promoteyour brand to more than a few
thousand tech professionals inAtlantic Canada, halifaxdevorg.
We'll also publish about ourCFP beautiful Atlantic Canada
during summer.
So more information on thewebsite.
William (51:37):
Awesome, yeah, you heard it here first folks, and
I'll definitely plug that in theshow notes as well with any
other links here.
So, yeah, thank you.
I just want to thank you somuch for being so just free with
your time.
You know, we've kind ofrecorded pretty long here.
Really appreciate the time.
And for folks that don't knowyou, where can they find you
(52:02):
online?
You said LinkedIn.
Dewan (52:03):
You're not on the other social platforms at this point I
have a profile on x slashTwitter, but I'm just a mere
observer there.
So, devanahamedcom, that's myblog.
All the links are there.
Linkedin is where I live.
Basically, I spend most of mywaking hours there.
So, yeah, that's probably thebest place to find me.
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