How to Unlock the Hacker Mentality with Pranav Shikarpur, Developer Advocate at Pangea
Jan 18, 2024
auto_awesome
Jon is joined by Pranav Shikarpur, a Developer Advocate at Pangea. They discuss simplifying security for developers, Pranav's passion for civic problem solving, and the business benefits of adopting a hacker mentality. They also explore Pranav's journey from Scratch to an international competition, bridging the gap from hackathons to security, and the value of hackathons and personal experiences.
Developing a hacker mentality as a developer advocate can lead to successful educational experiences and better developer products.
Pangaea provides APIs that simplify security for developers, addressing common concerns and improving developer and user experiences.
Deep dives
Introduction to the podcast and guest
In this episode of the State of Developer Education podcast, the host introduces Pronov, a developer advocate at Pangaea, and discusses their background and experience in both security and traditional developer platforms.
Pronov's introduction to programming
Pronov shares their origin story of getting into programming, which started from a problem-solving perspective. They describe how they noticed a lack of data on the lakes in their city and decided to build a device called Flowbot to collect and disseminate the data. This project, along with their involvement in civic problem-solving, sparked their interest in programming and led them to participate in initiatives like building a COVID self-checker app.
The importance of developer advocacy and the founder mentality
Pronov discusses the different types of people who get into developer advocacy, including those who have been building side projects and those who have gained influence in the developer community through channels like YouTube. They highlight the value of having a founder mentality in developer advocacy, especially in startups, where the willingness to take risks, try new things, and iterate quickly can lead to successful educational experiences and better developer products.
The role of security in app development and the value of Pangaea
The importance of integrating security into app development is discussed, highlighting the challenges developers may face when it comes to security due to competing priorities and lack of resources. Pronov explains how Pangaea provides APIs that allow developers to easily add security to their code, addressing common security concerns such as secure secret storage and file scanning. This approach aims to reduce the barriers to implementing security in app development and improve the overall developer and user experiences.
In this week’s episode, Jon is joined by Pranav Shikarpur, a Developer Advocate at Pangea. As a young entrepreneur and civic problem solver, Pranav is a true innovator who has already won the MIT Minor Planet Honor and Grand Award at the Intel ISEF 2018.
In this episode, John and Pranav discuss how to simplify security for developers, unpack his passion for civic problem solving, and explore the business benefits of adopting a hacker mentality as a developer advocate.