API The Docs Podcast

Technical writing and developer relations are relatively new areas, and they have both grown out of a need for these specific skill sets. However, for newcomers in the IT landscape, it might take a while to understand what they actually mean and how they support the work of developers. Kruno Golubic (technical writer at Memgraph) and Katarina Šupe (DevRel at Memgraph) explain the benefits of a successful mentorship initiative, the different definitions of developer experience, and the challenges of technical writing that set it apart from other disciplines.

From rapid changes to learning on the fly, startups face unique challenges that require creative solutions. Alex Akimov (Head of API Platform at Monite) and Helen Kosova (API Technical Writer at Monite) discuss how Monite’s API council supports the adoption of an API-first approach at the company.

Anthony Pichardo, product manager at Visa Developer Platform, discusses the value of user-centered design and building non-zero sum environments. Topics include regular user research, minimizing learning curves, managing a community forum, improving discoverability, simplifying API implementation, and the importance of thought leadership and community support.

We explore how developer documentation hubs enable a unified information architecture, at least outwards: our guests Christoph Weber (Pronovix) and Kristof Van Tomme (Pronovix) talk about the nuanced, socio-technical nature of large scale documentation processes, the need for a central API docs team, and the future use of private LLMs.

Developers are the ones who know their APIs best, but they need an easy documentation process that wouldn’t be too different from the coding lifecycle to produce the technical documentation at scale. Senior technical writer Paula Cristina Vaz outlines the Documentation Framework at Farfetch, created to process markdown files and convert them to Confluence HTML. She talks about the page and document templates that help writers structure their documentation in a standardized way.

Daniel Izquierdo (Bitergia) and Kristof Van Tomme (Pronovix) explained their journey with innersource and open-source communities. They also discussed what a company can do with documentation islands (or silos), and what are the role of technical writers in this process. What is the connection between innersource and documentation? How can we define true collaboration? Resources: Innersourcecommons.org API The Docs Virtual 2023: Feedback, Metrics, Analytics series – Recaps Complexity podcast with Jabe Bloom (Part1, Part2) Developer Portals Newsletter

Business and technical personas may have different skills, and in many cases, they use different terminology. Luca Vettor (Information Architect at Deltatre) explained how Domain Driven Design and event storming create transparent communication between the two personas. What is induced and intrinsic complexity? How could we define the problem space when the customer is in a complex environment and their problems are intertwined? Luca Vettor helped us to answer these questions.References: Luca Vettor’s blog

Why did Fabrizio Ferri-Benedetti (Senior Staff Technical Writer at Splunk) write a love letter to technical writing? How could technical writers create a bridge between the different parts of a company? With an MSc in cognitive psychology, Fabrizio shares a nuanced perspective in his ‘Docs' hierarchy of priorities’ and associated metrics.References: A love letter to technical writing https://isten-ct.com/formacion-comunicacion-tecnica/ https://itcqf.org/ https://passo.uno/docs-hierarchy-of-needs/

Anna Tsolakou (Developer Advocate) and Mathieu Pincovai (Customer Success Specialist) shared with us the journey on how Amadeus for Developers created consistent and clear documentation. We also talked about why the docs-as-code approach is so crucial for them, and how they can create the right documentation for their APIs.

Spotify Senior Developer Advocates Serah Njambi Kiburu and Alvaro Navarro talked with us about the two enemies of developer empathy, and their practices to optimise and scale for the community’s real needs. We also asked why Spotify even needs an API developer portal, and why isn’t it built on backstage? (spoiler alert) They have good reasons for that.