You are
An early-stage startup or small team who needs the following skills:
- Industry expertise, especially in DevOps, CI/CD, SaaS, APIs, or security
- Sticker-based marketing (trust me on this)
- Clear, concise, and audience-aware technical writing
- Go-to-market planning and execution
- Enthusiastic advocacy online and in-person
- Keynote-level talks, both delivered by me or ghost-written for your busy team
- Coaching and mentoring for your own team to take their message to the airwaves
You need help explaining why your solution is useful and meaningful to your audience. Identifying and emphasizing business value is a significant part of my work.
I am
A respected speaker, author, and advocate who has spent years building a strong network of peers, sources, and colleagues. More about me.
I’d like a company where we work together to improve concrete and addressable technical problems people actually experience. I want to work with a team that is aware of and motivated by the complexity in sociotechnical systems. Software is more than computer instructions, it’s the entirety of the people and process the software exists in. My work style goes best with teams where there’s a lot of room to try things, even if there’s not always budget to do everything.
I have helped create a category, including audience analysis, market positioning, analyst papers, tech conference talks, blog posts, and ebooks. I have recognized industry expertise in sticker design and function. I volunteer and consult widely on technical writing, conference speaking, and appealing to devops audiences.
Accomplishments
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Co-authored a best-selling book on technical writing, Docs for Developers
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Delivered keynotes at international and domestic conferences, and hundreds of conference talks
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Founded a successful developer relations team at a fast-growing startup, including category creation
- Delivered dozens of original talks around the world and to remote attendees
- Mentored 20+ people to and through their first technical talk
- Sought after for panels, podcasts, and conference organizer positions
Skills
Marketing
- Product Positioning
- Value Proposition
- Content Strategy
- Market Research
- Brand Voice and Promotion
- Product Marketing
- Advocacy
- Storytelling
Writing
- Technical Writing
- Public Speaking
- Technical Content Creation and Supervision
- Technical Talks
- Executive Communications
- Industry-Specific Sales Enablement
Industries
- SaaS
- Startups
- Feature Management
- Security
- Networking
- Energy
- Enterprise Software
- Healthcare Software
Selected Work History
Sym
2023-2024 Go-to-market advisor
Consulting on Sym’s positioning in the intersections of DevOps and security, and advising them on where to allocate sponsorship and travel budget. Writing positioning documents, editing and consulting on pitch and product decks. Coaching and nurturing speakers, including first-time speakers.
OpenContext
2023-2024 Product and marketing advisor
Advising on OpenContext’s market positioning, business value proposition, and promotion strategies. Consulting on like/unlike products, possible partnerships, pitch decks, product marketing, and brand voice and appearance. Helping allocate conference attendance, sponsorship, and advertising. Talk co-writing and CfP writing.
LaunchDarkly
2017-2022 Principal Developer Advocate
Founded the developer advocacy program, delivered hundreds of talks worldwide. Created blog posts, training, and onboarding. Advocated for user experience as a first-class citizen in the product discussions. Ran internal programs for speaker training, booth staff, and aspiring writers. Worked across teams including product, marketing, sales, support, events, and demand generation. Helped craft the developer-differentiated marketing and ensured a consistent brand voice.
First Marketing Hire for Product/Developer Marketing.
- Drove customer and field research around product adoption and usage
- Led Pricing and Packaging field sentiment analysis
- Created and executed content strategy growing top of funnel by 400% and increased conversion from MQL to SQL by 22% in the first 12 months
- Recruitment and onboarding of both initial Product Management team and Product Marketing team
- Created and delivered Field on-boarding curriculum enabling Sales team growth from 5-100 Account Executives (1M – 50M ARR)
- Led strategy to update and expand documentation to be used as Marketing contact for Developer community
- Led creation of land and expand strategy in large enterprise accounts resulting in NRR of 156% in first year
- Authored over 500 distinct pieces of content reaching over 650,000 viewer
Further experience available on request.