9min chapter

The State of Developer Education cover image

The Importance of Understanding Databases in Developer Education with Denis Magda of Yugabyte

The State of Developer Education

CHAPTER

From Sun Campus Ambassador to Oracle

This chapter explores the speaker's journey from being a Sun Campus Ambassador to joining Oracle, highlighting their experiences building a local community and navigating a year and a half of hiring freezes.

00:00
Speaker 2
Having the physical component helps a lot too. Yeah. So I saw that one of the first roles that you had was as a Sun Campus Ambassador, which I have so many questions about. But I'm curious like what that was like, right? Like this was before Oracle acquired Sun. It was pretty early days for a lot of what we now think of as DevRel. I'm curious like what that experience was like and what you learned from
Speaker 1
it. Yes, Sun as a company, it was so unique. It was a trailblazer in so many directions. Let's create it that first Java was one of the first true major successful languages that run on a GVM and you have garbage collector. They have some other wonderful projects in house such as Solaris, a production system. They have their own CPU, etc. But also the way how the company was executing the way how the employees were treated, how they worked with the community. It also was unique. So I was the Sun Campus Ambassador. Remember that story when I eventually decided to continue with the computer science and programming? I just passed that was probably six months in a row when I was studying Java and the same professor, our teacher, he was well known within the local Sun community. He kind of once came into his lap and he says, Sun Microsystems is searching for some student who wants to become a Sun Campus Ambassador and I know like who that is going to be. And all you need to know is just to have in July's Java and other Sun technologies who wants to do that and say like, hell I want to do it. And there are about I'm the guy who barely knows Java, still barely knows Java, no any real experience in creating applications. But I saw that as an opportunity to expedite my learning journey because if I need to communicate this, if I need to explain students at my university and build the local community around Java and other Sun technologies, then that would be a huge motivation for myself to become much more experienced in Java within a shorter period in time. So I took this role, I had a nice conversation with a cutting manager and one of the, he knew that I'm not that experienced in Java, but what he loved is that I was a tourist guide. I lived in the border with China and what I was doing from time to time, be able to form a group and I would go with that group to China for several days. And for that cutting manager, that was a huge skill set, meaning that I can work with people. And he said, like hell yeah, go ahead. That's your role. And I spent almost two years at my university before I graduated. I was building, I built a local Sun Microsystems community. I was representing the company. We had one of the most successful university groups of Sun because Sun had around 100 groups at universities worldwide. And my group, my community was one of the top in the list. That was a wonderful journey. Then later, yeah, after my graduation, I got an offer to join the development team of Sun Microsystems. But after I got this offer, the next week Oracle announced that it acquires Sun and all their hiring, there was a hiring freeze. And on the year and a half later, I joined the same development team, but a tourica, not its Sun.
Speaker 2
What did you do for that year and a half? Like I feel like in our community, I mean, a lot of that's happening right now, right? Like the macroeconomic trend is that there's a lot of hiring freezes. Things are moving more slowly than a lot of
Speaker 1
students
Speaker 2
expected.
Speaker 1
Like what did you do at that time? I joined another company. I worked as a backend Java developer. Those were the days when Facebook became the thing and the many companies were building a Facebook killer. So I was building another social network, but for a specific niche use case and it was successful. It no longer exists. During those days, it was a huge bump for me as a Java developer. But I'm just so I was building, I was becoming more experienced in multi-threaded programming, in spring ecosystem, et cetera. And then later once the hiring freeze was lifted, I went ahead and joined Oracle.
Speaker 2
Yeah, that's really cool. I think that there's always a light at the end of the tunnel, right? Like there's always something to look forward to, even if it's not exactly what you pictured, right? It seems like a lot of people had a certain vision of where their career was going and now they have to rethink it. But there are other options.
Speaker 1
Exactly. And here is this story might sound like, oh, it's a so bright story like you. You just the right time and in the right place. That's true to some extent. But at the same time, I mean, that was a bigger, let's say, I was so upset when I knew that when I found out that I could not join my dream team and I could do nothing about that. But anyway, like a couple of days later, I just updated my CV and I started looking for other companies. It took me, let's say, I failed probably 10 interviews as a job developer, as a guy who was, and this is probably why this is exactly why what you do, Jonathan, is really important because what you study at a college or university might not be needed to real corporations, companies and startups. And I failed 10 interviews before I joined that company. I even had to work as a PHP developer while I was looking for another company who develops in Java. But that was like, with every interview, I was closing my gaps, I becoming more experienced, experienced, experienced. And then I found my dream job after I joined that company, because when I joined Oracle, I had to pass an interview anyway. And before interviewing a Oracle, I passed and studied for Java certification exam so that I can understand at least Java as well as those who develop it. So that was a huge lesson. And that's a good point, Amy, and folks, try to look beyond. So because right now, those days, hackathons, they were not that widespread. There were not that many opportunities to contribute to open source projects. Usually you would be assigned to work on your master or something like that. And that's it. But then once you are graduated, ah, that's the Wild West and you face it and you will fail, but it's okay to fail. You know, just stand up and learn the gaps, find out what went for one, read, study and the curriculum and curriculum.
Speaker 2
Yeah, that's great advice. Certainly stuff I wish I do back then too. So I'm curious, like you started out doing that campus ambassador role and sort of went back to engineering for a time, but then came full circle to DevRel. What was it that kind of got you back into DevRel, you know, 10 years
Speaker 1
later? Yes, I truly loved. I loved Sun as a company. I loved what I was doing because a San Campus ambassador, think about this role as a technology evangelist. Oh, you would these days we call those professionals as developer advocates and your role is not just to evangelize, but also to assist, facilitate, right, to share feedback and to support. But during the days of Sun, we didn't have developer advocates. We had technology evangelists and I truly loved the role because that was an opportunity for me to go to program, to create and then share experience, like teach, share my experience and also learn from others. But after that, when I was, but not so many companies who had DevRel, like Sankhead and probably someone else had. They did Microsoft. Maybe Microsoft, maybe Microsoft, big companies, big sharks, but not like it was not widespread. So that's why when you graduate those days, it was like 15 years ago, probably 10 years ago, I don't remember. No, you just, you can become just a Java developer or just some other developer. So I joined and then what happened to five years ago, I joined the company called Griggin, the company that donated the Pyche Ignite, one of the ISF project, the Pyche Software Foundation projects. During those years, like five years ago, developer relations became something noticeable. Many more and more companies started launching and forming and hiring for developer relations, like for developer relations groups. And I said, I was at Griggin, those days, I wore many hats, I was at the engineering, then I eventually switched to customer support solutions, consultants, then I was running product management for a while. And then I went there and just giving a call and I was presented at one of the meetups in New York City and I'm equal to our city owner and co-founder of Griggin saying, hey, I can get a minute to do something, Ms. Devrel. Let me just, you know, handle all this product marketing stuff to someone else, but I want to focus on Devrel. We need to do Devrel. And he kind of live here on the same page. He said, yeah, let's do that. And that was my return, like come back to the developer relations or technology of engineers of the Sun days. So after that, so right now, I don't want to say to wear any other hats. I don't want to run product management. I don't want to just to be focused on the marketing, but I want to be in Devrel. And for me, it doesn't matter whether this Devrel or sits on the marketing engineering or product, it doesn't matter. You just need to have the right people in your organization and move forward.

Get the Snipd
podcast app

Unlock the knowledge in podcasts with the podcast player of the future.
App store bannerPlay store banner

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode

Save any
moment

Hear something you like? Tap your headphones to save it with AI-generated key takeaways

Save any
moment

Hear something you like? Tap your headphones to save it with AI-generated key takeaways

Share
& Export

Send highlights to Twitter, WhatsApp or export them to Notion, Readwise & more

Share
& Export

Send highlights to Twitter, WhatsApp or export them to Notion, Readwise & more

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

AI-powered
podcast player

Listen to all your favourite podcasts with AI-powered features

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode

Discover
highlights

Listen to the best highlights from the podcasts you love and dive into the full episode