Advice for young people
Geertjan Wielenga: How can you become a developer advocate as a young person? You came from a different background and fell into developer relations, which can happen, but there are also real job advertisements for developer relations roles. How do you get the skills you need to successfully apply?
Mary Thengvall: For college students who are interested in getting into this field, I think this generation has a huge advantage: there are developer relations internships popping up, at least all over the U.S. I noticed a handful of internships last year and there are even more this year, so students have an opportunity to get into a team early on.
As far as classes and things to get involved in, I always tell people to take some writing courses, even if they're just basic. Get involved in the technical writing courses or get a technical writing minor. That relates far more to the documentation side of things, but it'll teach you to write in a technical manner...