API The Docs Podcast

Building a DevRel Team - Interview with Lorna Mitchell, Head of Developer Relations at Aiven.  Lorna is an open source software developer and project maintainer, published author, blogger and conference speaker, who is with us today to talk about the skills and roles that contribute to successfully operating a devrel team: Priorities and structure when developing a new devrel team Roles and responsibilities Involving a technical writer in the team Career path, growth and collaboration in a devrel team Insights of creating a new open source devportal Aiven open source data tools and products Maintenance of documentation and workflows Sources: Read more about Lorna’s work here: https://lornajane.net/ For job offerings at Aiven, please visit: https://aiven.io/careers The hosts are Laura Vass (Editor of Developer Portals Newsletter, Co-Founder of Pronovix) and Anett Pozsár (Senior Technical Writer, Pronovix).

Alex Hoffer is a DevRel engineer at Plaid. Previously, she was managing the QA team at Dropbox for 6 years. At Plaid, she's been working on documentation and an overhaul of the Plaid developer docs. Developer experience is extremely important at Plaid and the docs are a big part of that. Tune in to hear more about how to create an excellent developer experience: How does a cross-functional team work together with other departments in order to improve the developer functionality? How developer experience is about product, documentation and engineering collaborating together? What is her role in the API Review Committee, which helps ensure APIs are standardized and maintain their API style guide? Docs revamp - how have they approached it, why have they done it, where is it going next? How does the entire doc editing and authorship process work at Plaid? And last but not least, how have they incorporated user feedback into the docs process! The host is Laura Vass (Editor of Developer Portals Newsletter, Co-Founder of Pronovix). Sources: https://plaid.com/blog/new-plaid-docs/ plaid.com/careers

Former technical writer, previously a journalist and now fronted engineer, conference speaker and workshop organizer. Tune in to learn about Carolyn's career journey. How did she transition from journalism to technical writing and how did her previously acquired journalism skills support that journey? Why and how did she become a software engineer? What was her role in the Google Season of Docs program that connects experienced technical writers with the open source community? What does humanizing your documentation mean in practice? How to write a good FAQ page to best support the onboarding process? In this episode we are exploring a new topic that hasn't been touched on yet over the API The Docs podcast series. The host is Anett Pozsár (Senior Technical Writer, Pronovix). Sources: https://workwithcarolyn.com/ Google - Season of Docs

Today our guests are Liam Gallagher (UX Designer/API Platforms) and Jake Eastham (Front-end Developer and Accessibility Champion) from Barclays: “It's very easy to get caught up in aesthetics, you want to design something that is really cool and you think it is amazing.. You actually want to show it to everyone, but you completely messed up the accessibility part. As I matured, I realised that good design is not about something that looks good, but how something works. A good design is naturally inclusive. “ “An accessibility champion is someone who fosters within their environment, within their own team, while being aware of the different accessibility challenges you have and why we are designing and developing our products, what is the importance of it. “ Join us for an inspiring conversation with the two times winner of DevPortal Awards in the Best Accessible Portal category. The hosts are Laura Vass (Editor of Developer Portals Newsletter, Co-Founder of Pronovix) and Anett Pozsár (Senior Technical Writer, Pronovix).

Meet the Developer Relations & API product management team on Amadeus for Developers - Open API Product for the travel industry. Our guests are Alvaro Navarro and Anthony Roux. “Building trusted relationships is actually what matters in our job.. and empathy is what makes the big difference. Put yourself into the shoes of the other person, that's how you're going to learn how they use your product. And that's how you're going to be successful.“ How has Amadeus innovated a framework and a new set of self-service APIs, where developers can connect in a matter of only three minutes? How have they scaled up and automated all the processes to make the onboarding as smooth as possible? Why is testing and user centric feedback, API Governance and product management support important when creating solutions that provide the best developer experience for your API consumers? Tune in to hear more. The hosts are Laura Vass (Editor of Developer Portals Newsletter, Co-Founder of Pronovix) and Anett Pozsár (Senior Technical Writer, Pronovix).

Our guest is Barry Rosenberg, technical writer at Google and co-author of courses Technical Writing One and Technical Writing Two. At the beginning of his professional journey, Barry was starting out as a teacher for a smaller group of undergraduate students at MIT. How did he become a teacher of a highly scalable class for thousands of engineers at Google? How has writing fiction helped him to write better technical courses? Join us to learn more about his inspiring career and the courses he created: How and why have these courses been developed? Why is it valuable to teach tech writing to engineers? What are the prerequisites and skills required to become an efficient technical writer? What new tech writing courses are currently being created at Google? The hosts are Laura Vass (Editor of Developer Portals Newsletter, Co-Founder of Pronovix) and Anett Pozsár (Senior Technical Writer, Pronovix). Sources: Barry Rosenbeeg - Spring Into Technical Writing for Engineers and Scientists Overview of technical writing courses at Google 

We ask Ilona Koren-Deutsch about the Women in APIs initiative, and her advice on how to diversify a team. We talk about considerations to ensure accessibility for your content, and what can propel the company-wide use of a conscious inclusive style guide. Where should you be channel agnostic as a techwriter? Does feedback need feedback? Tune in to find out, where to get mentoring and support, how to take an active role in empowering other women in the industry, and how to create equal opportunities, regardless of gender, language barriers or other impairment issues. The hosts are Laura Vass (Editor of the Developer Portals Newsletter, Co-Founder of Pronovix) and Ádám Balogh (Technical Writer at Pronovix). Sources: Women in APIs 

We are talking with Liz Couto, Product Marketing Manager at Shopify, about the role of marketing and an amplifier, where the CTA is often pointing to the developer documentation. How did Shopify empathize and empower in 2020 with the exponentially growing community? Can there be too many communication channels, should you let go of some if ever? How do the many teams involved work in concert on Shopify's products and what feedback loops have they built into their docs? The hosts are Laura Vass (Editor of Developer Portals Newsletter, Co-Founder of Pronovix) and Anett Pozsár (Senior Technical Writer, Pronovix). Music: Virgill - Its over now (CC)

“It’s a misconception to think that documentation is a solitary endeavor” says Uwana Ikaiddi (Documentation Manager, BigCommerce). Getting involved in cross-team discussions as early as possible while preparing for a project is a key element of a documentation workflow. But how do you avoid death by collaboration? The interview also explores how you can empower your audience to communicate with you in the most efficient way possible, and in what ways you can triage and address internal and external feedback. The hosts are Laura Vass (Editor of Developer Portal Newsletter, Co-Founder, Pronovix) and Anett Pozsár (Senior Technical Writer, Pronovix). Music: Virgill - Its over now (CC)

The Good Docs Project aims to create open source documentation templates, and most recently an information architecture template too. Erin McKean, one of the central orchestrators behind the Good Docs Project, is our guest for this episode. We talk with Erin about why it is so important to intentionally include jargon in your technical documentation and where to do that. She shares her practice on curating a project documentation wishlist to keep the future focus going, and why and how to get documentation treated as a key core feature of a product. The hosts are Laura Vass (Editor of Developer Portal Newsletter, Co-Founder, Pronovix) and Anett Pozsár (Senior Technical Writer, Pronovix). Music: Virgill - Its over now (CC)