Valériane Venance - What it's like to be a Developper Evangelist
💖 The purpose of The Allyance is to help both companies and candidates: companies wanting to reach excellence in hiring and candidates wanting to find the perfect companies.
While looking for a DevRel, The Allyance realized the DevRel world was predominantly male. Indeed, women are underrepresented in the world of Developer Relations. Hence, we wanted to interview an inspiring Developer Evengelist and we are happy Valériane answered positively to our request!
__ __ __In the Spotlight N°5 - Valériane Venance
__ __ __Who are you ? Tell us everything!
My name is Valériane Venance, I’m 28 years old. I grew up between the North of France and Martinique. Since October 2020, I’ve been working as a Developer Evangelist at Twilio, a company providing programmable communication tools.
👩🏽💻 After graduating, I worked in the catering and restaurant sector. Inspired by a roommate, I passed my Piscine at École 42 in 2015. I mainly learn basics and how to learn, which was the beginning of my current professional journey.
After that, a teacher at Le Wagon taught me about the Developer Relations jobs, which I didn't even know existed! Quite excited by this family of jobs, I decided to go freelance and took part in meetups in order to develop my public presence as well as my Developer Relations competences. And it worked! I was spotted by Clever Cloud’s Head of DevRel.
🥐 So yes, I jumped from bakery to lead conferences for experienced people, and I could not be happier!
As a Developer Evangelist, what’s your day-to-day at work?
First, it is important to note that the DevRel (Developer Relations) sector has a common core as well as different specializations.
A Developer Relations specialist is the interface between the developers and a tech company, which means that your day-to-day job is to simplify concepts. Each specialization’s tasks will mainly vary depending on the company’s size.
In theory, a Developer Advocate’s job is to take feedback, make sure that there are no technical issues and guarantee the best developer experience. But at CleverCloud, I was doing a little bit of everything: Developer Evangelist, Developer Education, Developer Advocate…
Today, my mission as a Developer Evangelist is way more outreach-oriented: I promote Twilio’s product. To do that, I write technical articles, sponsor events, give conferences, meetups, bootcamps, build technical demos, create code for a quick start, analyze numbers… As the only French-speaker in my team, I also make resources available to the French audience.
So yes, my daily routine is to draft presentations without coding on the prodcut. But, I still code! You could say I’m doing tech with soft skills!
Most French companies don’t know about Developer Relations jobs or don’t see how they could benefit from it. I really think the DevlRel soft skills should be taught in schools to those who, like me, are attracted to “soft tech”.
What kind of a Developer Evangelist are you?
🦚 There are two types of people in the world: introverts and extroverts.
One would think that in order to master your Developer Evangelist job, you need to be an extrovert. Well, I think the opposite works just as fine. I’m an introvert DevEv and I love it: I always challenge myself to go further and out of my comfort zone.
How do you keep yourself up to date with dev topics and methodologies?
📩 First, I read the DevRel newsletter, in which every author can submit their article about DevRel. I also read articles from Hoopy, a consulting company in DevRel and Experience.
I mostly update myself on my company’s products’ improvements and depreciations. I also spend a lot of time on GitHub, Reddit and Twitter, following accounts such as DevRelAvocados and anyone who shares the same interests as I do. To continue on the social and community part, I am also a member of the DevRel Collective Slack.
Why do you like being a Developer Evangelist ?
🚝 I’m on the road for conferences twice a year, each time for 3 months. It’s way different from my remote routine but I love going to conferences and meeting people, developers, connecting and feeling useful. Do you have a problem? Well, I’ve got the solution! That’s so satisfying. Also, because I was diagnosed with ADHD, I feel comfortable leading conferences, jumping from one topic to another.
So yes, the social and human part is my favorite. It’s so rare in tech jobs to get to meet so many people and bring them answers about products you truly believe in. Indeed, Twilio is moving towards more accessibility and I truly think it’s today’s priority.
When did you first get interested in D&I topics?
🎆 Being a black woman, feminism and anti-racism come naturally. Everyone and everything around you is forcing you to get involved, or at least interested in D&I topics.
When I started studying tech, I witnessed problematic behaviors and conversations. For example, I heard people saying I was accepted to Ecole 42 because I was a woman… Which makes no sense.
I just have to fight back and make my voice heard. Through my job as a Developer Evangelist, I’m doing my best to implement changes in my sector, by making sure everyone is included in my articles, showing a lot of respect during my conferences, and preparing inclusive slides, notably for disabled people.
Can you tell us more about Duchess France?
Duchess France is an association created in 2010 by Agnès Crepet, Head of Software Longevity & IT at Fairphone. Duchess is a technical community promoting female developers or with technical profiles. Our goal is to make these jobs visible and create vocations for women.
Our actions mostly consist in promoting female role models, sponsoring Juniors and helping them get technical and soft skills, promoting women inclusivity in the media, organizing meetups and events. We also have a Slack, which has now been made private because it was becoming unsafe.
After being a member since 2018, I joined Duchess’ Board 1 year ago. My role is mainly to represent the community at events, conferences and to write articles. The rule is that every member can coach another about what they know, in order to encourage women to take action and to develop their skills.
When you’re not working as a Developer Evangelist, what do you do?
🎥 I love cinema and very, very independent movies (the last I watched was a surrealist version of Alice in Wonderland from 1987)! Don’t worry, I also like blockbusters, but it took me time to appreciate them. I’m trying my best to stop being such an elitist and embrace popular culture.
Though I travel a lot for work, I love traveling for leisure purposes. In November 2021, I went to Vienna and enjoyed it so much!
Crédit : Welcome to the Jungle - « Il existe d’autres modèles d’inspiration que celui de la Silicon Valley ! » entretien avec Agnès Crépet
Name a person you admire. Tell us why you admire that person!
Without hesitation, Agnès Crépet from Fairphone! I don’t know her that well but creating Duchess was crucial. Professionally, she’s involved in Tech for good, which in my opinion is the future.
She’s an amazing public speaker who worked a lot on the representation of women in responsibility positions. Let me tell you, she’s in her rightful place. As much as any cis man!
Why would you recommend other companies to work with The Allyance?
🌈 What The Allyance does is vital. We all grew up in a sea of prejudice, biases and beliefs so it’s important to promote D&I, break the circle and prevent gaps.
Recruitment in Developer Relations is so difficult: it takes around 9 months to fill a position! We need good matchings. To all people who need to recruit in Developer Relations: do not hesitate to call The Allyance!
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✔️ Want more?
If you want to talk about a topic connected to diversity, equity, belonging and inclusion, feel free to check the jobs The Allyance is currently hiring for!