[website] Evolve the Developer Advocate role

[oliviertassinari]

I don't think it would work to have a person with no product design sensibility in this new role we open. The most successful content creators I see in this space match this criterion: https://www.notion.so/mui-org/Developer-Advocate-DevEx-Engineer-634b2a699266480abf8663c045768902?pvs=4#a6fc0d1aec064fddb2f167e5e7b194aa.

Based on the discussion in https://groups.google.com/a/mui.com/g/devex/c/FOyh_tMixgQ, being clearer about it would help. I structured it so that there is a clear graduation between "required" and "nice to have". The bar is set lower than for our "Designer Engineer" roles (because otherwise we will search a unicorn forever).

[mui-bot]

Netlify deploy preview

https://deploy-preview-40337--material-ui.netlify.app/

Bundle size report

No bundle size changes (Toolpad)
No bundle size changes

Generated by 🚫 dangerJS against bb4212c

[oliviertassinari]

To consider, though Content Engineer might be more on point.

Suggested change

	title: 'Developer Advocate / Content Engineer',
	title: 'Developer Advocate / DevEx Engineer',

[samuelsycamore]

If "content" is the focus, then it seems to me that we should de-emphasize either engineering or design skills. I don't think we're going to find someone who's strong in all 4 categories—writing, teaching, engineering, design. (Content Engineer signals to me that the first 2 are the most important, while DevEx Engineer makes the think the latter 2 may be more important. But my first draft of the post was originally written with a "Content Engineer" in mind.)

[oliviertassinari]

At the end of the day, I think that we should optimize for the union of Content & Product skills.

If we look at Lee from Vercel: he started as a Support Engineer, moved to DevEx, and is now in Product. Product feels always the common denominator between these roles, so it needs to be a strong foundation. I get a similar conclusion from the other folks that seems to be effective in the community.

In terms of skills for Product, I think this means we need at the base level:

a. Engineering. Here I think we are looking for someone who can push problem-solving far. There needs to be depth.
b. Design. Here it's about being able to see when and why design A is better than B. There needs to be a strong filter to know what to promote, what to silence, and when to ask for creative help.
c. Product sense. Care for the user, the why. Seeing engineering IC, product design IC work as a means, not an end.

We could take a fork further into Engineering, Design, and Product, but then it feels like it would overlap too much with the other open roles. so Content Engineer would better represent the gap we want to cover. To take this fork into Content, I think we need:

d. Writing. Filtering for someone who is a native speaker should get us a long way.
e. Teaching. Here I think it's about being driven by it / energized by educating other folks.

IMHO, this is the same role as a Product Marketing Manager but applied to the context of an open-source project, e.g. where you can't do direct paid marketing.

If we consider a, b, c, d, e. as the minimum requirement, it doesn't feel that it excludes too many people. The main challenge I see is to convert people who have them to join the team.

[samuelsycamore]

If "content" is the focus, then it seems to me that we should de-emphasize either engineering or design skills. I don't think we're going to find someone who's strong in all 4 categories—writing, teaching, engineering, design. (Content Engineer signals to me that the first 2 are the most important, while DevEx Engineer makes the think the latter 2 may be more important. But my first draft of the post was originally written with a "Content Engineer" in mind.)

[oliviertassinari]

Moving this forward, I think we are aligned on the Content Engineer aspect and the design engineering dependency to create great content (what the content is about).