Introduction
The GoLand staff has opened two positions: Developer Advocate and Technical Content material Creator. Please check with the place descriptions for the necessities and expectations, and make sure you take a look at this weblog put up to seek out out what it’s wish to be a developer advocate at JetBrains. Though it was written within the pre-COVID period, lots of the factors are nonetheless true. On this put up, I’d wish to give attention to why we’d like these roles on our staff and the important thing variations between them. The put up is perhaps attention-grabbing to those that need to apply for these positions or are simply interested by how issues work inside JetBrains.
Developer Advocate
Builders who work on IDEs have the benefit of utilizing the very merchandise they develop. This permits them to attract on private expertise to create a product that most closely fits the shoppers’ wants. Many options can be utilized universally throughout totally different languages, together with typing within the editor, navigating the code base, and integrating with model management techniques. On the similar time, many issues are related solely to a selected language, as an example, pair braces insertion, accessor era, and code inspections, to call a couple of.
It’s a little-known incontrovertible fact that a couple of half of GoLand is open-source, because it’s constructed on high of the IntelliJ Platform. Java and Kotlin are the dominant languages of the platform, that means that you must be a Java/Kotlin developer to work on the IDE. Though the staff is aware of the Go language fairly nicely, their information of the ecosystem isn’t any substitute for that {of professional} Go builders. The developer advocate function fills this blind spot.
In GoLand, the primary requirement for a developer advocate is to be a bridge between the staff and the Go group. We count on this particular person to each be an skilled Go developer and have an consciousness of the ecosystem. Being an lively group member typically helps with the latter. We’d wish to have an individual on the staff who can inform us how folks write code in Go, what its greatest practices are, and what the do’s and don’ts are. Their most necessary process shall be advocating for customers.
At JetBrains, we strongly imagine in dogfooding. We’re assured that utilizing our personal merchandise is one of the simplest ways for us to ship one of the best consumer expertise. That’s why writing Go in GoLand shall be a major a part of the brand new developer advocate’s routine. It might be excellent if the brand new staff member might even contribute to one of many standard OSS tasks. In doing so, they’d create their very own added worth whereas gaining perception into how builders work. Alternatively, the brand new staff member might additionally work on an inner device or a demo mission written in Go and accompanied by applied sciences corresponding to HTML, JavaScript, and SQL.
The final massive a part of the advocate’s job is making customers superior. An advocate does this by creating content material that educates builders. This is perhaps a convention discuss that takes a deep dive into a specific know-how or a sequence of weblog posts that information customers by means of the method of making an utility. YouTube movies have gotten increasingly more standard amongst builders these days. An important issue is that the content material is constructed round know-how. The IDE is meant to behave virtually as an extension of the developer themselves and simplify their routine.
To summarize, a developer advocate:
- Supplies the GoLand staff with perception into the Go ecosystem.
- Writes Go commonly, ideally by engaged on an OSS.
- Creates content material that helps builders study or use Go.
Every of those duties requires a singular set of abilities. A candidate doesn’t must have all of them to use, however they need to be passionate concerning the job and be able to study on the go. There are a pair dozen developer advocates at JetBrains who could be glad to assist and educate.
Technical Content material Creator
Creating content material is a time-consuming process. Even writing an average-length weblog put up takes a major period of time, not to mention producing a sequence of movies. That’s why we imagine this process deserves a separate function on the staff: technical content material creator. Their job is to provide content material in written, audio, and video codecs. Though it’s similar to what a developer advocate does, there are a couple of key variations.
Each a developer advocate and a technical content material creator have the identical target market: Go builders, since they’re the first GoLand customers. However whereas the advocate’s principal purpose is to assist them study the language, a content material creator focuses on how one can make them extra productive with the IDE. GoLand is a posh piece of software program, and a few customers want slightly teaching to unlock the complete potential of sure options. The creator’s process is to assist folks study concerning the device in order that they will combine it into their workflows.
The talent set can be totally different from the one an advocate ought to have. As an example, the particular person employed for this place just isn’t required to be a Go developer or know GoLand, though it could be a plus. We’ll assist you study the language and the IDE. On the similar time, expertise in technical writing is essential for the job. Having a private weblog or vlog could be a bonus, however not like a developer advocate, you don’t must be a public determine or have a private model. The job additionally doesn’t require you to attend conferences.
To summarize, a content material creator:
- Writes technical weblog posts and produces video supplies.
- Focuses on telling folks about how cool GoLand is.
At the moment, we use the next platforms to publish content material: the JetBrains weblog, Twitter, Fb, and YouTube. As quickly as we’ve a stream of high quality content material, we’ll be able to develop in order that we will attain a broader viewers.
The GoLand Workforce
Though organizationally the developer advocate and technical content material creator belong to totally different departments, each roles collaborate carefully with the product staff. Everybody on the staff, irrespective of the function, has entry to GoLand-related Slack channels and attends a weekly stand-up. Workforce members are inspired to offer and gather suggestions that helps us obtain higher high quality and, consequently, a greater consumer expertise. We’re keen about what we do and try to make writing Go an much more pleasurable expertise.
Now we have teammates working each on web site in our European workplaces and remotely. As a result of the staff has all the time been unfold throughout the continent, we have been remote-friendly even earlier than the pandemic. Over time, not a lot has modified on this regard, so we nonetheless talk over Slack and Google Meet pretty typically. We used to have occasional in-person gatherings and are trying ahead to having them once more.
Conclusion
If after studying the put up you are feeling that one of many positions (Developer Advocate, Technical Content material Creator) may very well be a very good match for you, please don’t hesitate to use. We’d like to have a chat with you to learn how we will make GoLand one of the best Go IDE on the market collectively.
