Requirements for being a developer advocate
Geertjan Wielenga: What are some minimum requirements for this role? Are there any personality traits needed?
Tim Berglund: As my boss has put it, my team is a rare zoo of unusual, unique animals: we're all different.
For the developer advocate role, I think you need to have an engineering background. This is a role where you are communicating with, relating to, making friendships with, and helping computer programmers. Let's not lose sight of that.
These are people who write code for a living; it's hard and scary. They never know how things work and everything's new all the time, and it's your job to help those people. I don't think it's realistic to say that you're going to be good in this role if you're not also one of them.
Geertjan Wielenga: You said that you need an engineering background, but imagine you're somebody interested in switching from a different career. Would that even be possible...