The twenty-second Developer Avocado 🥑 we interviewed for this year’s advent was Adewale Abati. He’s recorded the answers to our questions in a video, and transcribed them as well! We’ve hosted the video on youtube and the transcript here, for posterity. Enjoy, and we’ll see y’all tomorrow!

[Transcript]

Tell us a bit about yourself.

Hi, I’m Adewale Abati, also known as Ace and I’m a Frontend Engineer and Developer Advocate at Flutterwave, a payments infrastructure company out of Lagos, Nigeria. I work with the rest of the team to constantly improve our developer experiences, and providing resources that continuously make it easier for developers to use our product.

How did you get into Developer Relations?

I started out as a developer that was also interested in helping out other developers around me. Making it easier for them to use various tools and services that I am already familiar with. As a developer, I understood the plight and occasional struggles when it comes to using a 3rd party platform. And Before I knew it, this hobby became a job and I am currently serving at my second company as a developer advocate.

What advice would you give people looking to join you?

I think one of the most important things to note as the name implies, is that the job is about improving the relations and experiences of developers when using your product. It’s important to note that the developers using your product are your utmost priority and that you serve as the bridge between these developers and the rest of your company. I’d recommend that anyone looking to get into this role is very much aware of the fact that they have to understand the developers that use their product and also serve as a bridge between these developers using your products and the people that are building it.

How has your role changed in the past year?

2020 has been an insane year, no thanks to the pandemic especially, and developer advocates all around the world have had to come up with innovative and remote ways to reach people without coming into contact with them in physical events. We have had to produce more content and be even more available online to be able to attend to and make developer experiences better regardless of physical locations. These have resulted in events, online conferences and everything that has influenced 2020.

How do you see the future of DevRel?

I think more companies, especially in this side of the world will begin to see the need for Developer Relations to be an integral part of their organisation structure as it helps not to only connect with developers that use their products but to provide actionable and quality feedback in order to improve the said product. I see more events continue to be held online even after these times as a way to be able to make an impact on even more people regardless of their location.

Thank you for having me.