Fireside with Voxgig

Hosted by Richard Rodger: Voxgig CEO, founder and author

Technology Business Entrepreneurship MarketingInterviews guests

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Episodes

244

Latest episode

Sep 2025

Language

EN-US

About the show

This DevRel focused podcast allows entrepreneur, author and coder Richard Rodger to introduce you to interesting leaders and experienced professionals in the tech community. Richard and his guests chat not just about their current work or latest trend, but also about their experiences, good and bad, throughout their career. DevRel requires so many different skills and you can come to it from so many routes, that this podcast has featured conference creators, entrepreneurs, open source maintainers, developer advocates and community managers. Join us to learn about just how varied DevRel can be and get ideas to expand your work, impact and community.

Listen to episodes

60 recent

September 4, 2025Episode 24940 min

Episode 249 Sébastien Blanc, Developer Relation Engineer at Port IO

Today, we’re speaking to someone who’s been doing DevRel since before DevRel was a term anyone knew. Sébastien Blanc is the Developer Relation Engineer at Port IO, an internal developer portal that gives developers the opportunity to do all their engineering in one place. Sébastien speaks to us about his beginnings in DevRel, and the privileges of being given the steering wheel of a budding industry. We chat about the effectiveness of bringing in Dev influencers into the DevRel space - it turns out that many factors can determine if this is the right decision for your company. We touch on the impact of co-pilot on developing, AI tooling, internal developer portals and documentation! Reach out to Sébastien here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/s%C3%A9bastien-blanc-08a73b1/ Check out Port IO: https://www.port.io/ Find out more and listen to previous podcasts here: https://www.voxgig.com/podcast Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates and information about upcoming meetups: https://voxgig.substack.com/ Join the Dublin DevRel Meetup group here: www.devrelmeetup.com

August 15, 2025Episode 24844 min

Episode 248 Richard Bray, Developer Advocate at BetterStack

Richard Bray is our guest on the show today, and we are so excited to talk all about his role as Developer Advocate at Better Stack. Better Stack is a developer-first observability and incident management platform that combines incident management with uptime monitoring. Richard started down the DevRel path by creating his own content on social media, which quickly led to him receiving interest from companies looking to draw on skill for engaging people through video. Over time, he’s continued to build up his skills, increase his clients and expand into more areas of Developer Education. We learn from Richard about what it means to be developer-first or developer-plus, and why that model can work so well for the right companies. We also touch on the process and hiring for DevRel, and the Do’s and Don’t’s you’ll want to look out for during the process. Reach out to Richard here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richbray/ Check out BetterStack: https://betterstack.com/ Find out more and listen to previous podcasts here: https://www.voxgig.com/podcast Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates and information about upcoming meetups: https://voxgig.substack.com/ Join the Dublin DevRel Meetup group here: www.devrelmeetup.com

July 31, 202540 min

Episode 247 Andy Hilliard, CEO of Accelerance

Today we’re delighted to be talking outsourcing, distributed development, and empathy with Andy Hilliard, the CEO of Accelerance. Accelerance is a software outsourcing consultancy - in other words, they help other companies to build distributor teams and make them functional. Andy has ended up drawing on many of the traditional DevRel pillars, namely empathy, and we learn about how his time in the Peace Corps inspired his passion for global business, and piqued his interest in the myriad of different perspectives from the international community. He talks to us about how he tries to understand people on a human level, and empower them. In distributed development, it’s all about trying to create stickiness and common ground. He also put our minds at ease about AI - when no one truly knows what the future holds, there’s probably not much point in losing sleep over it. Reach out to Andy here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyhilliard/ Check out Accelerance: https://www.accelerance.com/ Find out more and listen to previous podcasts here: https://www.voxgig.com/podcast Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates and information about upcoming meetups: https://voxgig.substack.com/ Join the Dublin DevRel Meetup group here: www.devrelmeetup.com

June 19, 2025Episode 24630 min

Episode 246 Lori Lorusso, Open Source Advocate and Head of Community at Percona

Today, we’re back with a new episode! We chatted to Lori Lorusso who is an open source advocate and the head of community at Percona. Percona is an organisation leading the way in open source database software, support, and services. We talk to Lori about how she’s made her way as a DevRel, and how her background as a community builder for Harley-Davidson helped her prepare for her work with developers. Lori is also a speaker, and she thrives on helping developers to share their knowledge! It was wonderful to have Lori on the podcast, and we can’t wait to see what she does in the future! Reach out to Lori here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorilorusso/ Check out Percona: https://www.percona.com/ Find out more and listen to previous podcasts here: https://www.voxgig.com/podcast Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates and information about upcoming meetups: https://voxgig.substack.com/ Join the Dublin DevRel Meetup group here: www.devrelmeetup.com

May 8, 2025Episode 24537 min

Episode 245 Thorsten Schaeff, Developer Experience Engineer at ElevenLabs

In this episode, we’re drilling more into the vocational aspect of DevRel, with our guest Thorsten Schaeff. Thor has recently become the Developer Experience Engineer at ElevenLabs, an AI Audio research and deployment company, and he’s based out of Singapore, having moved there with Stripe six years ago. Thor tells us that the common thread amongst his various roles has been the learning and teaching aspects, and he’s been lucky enough to be able to follow his interests for the majority of his career. We agree with him on the point that if you are driven by wanting to help and teach people, then DevRel is the place for you. We also talk about his multi-modal approach to publishing content. Not only do you need to be targeting all platforms, with both long and short form content, these channels all need to interact with each other as well, and present as a cohesive front. He leaves us with a lovely reminder of just how rewarding it can be to see someone create something great with a technology you taught them to use. Reach out to Thorsten here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thorwebdev/ Check out ElevenLabs: https://elevenlabs.io/ Find out more and listen to previous podcasts here: https://www.voxgig.com/podcast Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates and information about upcoming meetups: https://voxgig.substack.com/ Join the Dublin DevRel Meetup group here: www.devrelmeetup.com

May 2, 2025Episode 24447 min

Episode 244 Karl Hughes Founder of Draft.dev and The Podcast Consultant

Some people spend their whole lives looking for their “superpower”, but if you’re a DevRel, you’ve probably already found yours. Today we’re speaking to Founder of Draft.dev, Karl Hughes about his path through the startup world, and the ever-changing landscape it operates in. Draft.dev is a developer focused content agency, and with Karl we learn about the epic highs and lows that he and the company have been through in this industry. Any small business owners or startup founders can relate to the realities of Karl’s journey - one day your cash is flowing, the next it’s a dead stop and only those with true skill and dedication can run a company that successfully traverses both eras. We discuss the effects that AI is having on DevRel, as well as the return to in-person events. Karl has been the very definition of hands-on with his projects, and it has allowed him to gain an extremely well rounded understanding of the technical aspects of running a company. Be sure to give it a listen! Reach out to Karl here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karllhughes/ Check out Draft.dev: https://draft.dev/ Find out more and listen to previous podcasts here: https://www.voxgig.com/podcast Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates and information about upcoming meetups: https://voxgig.substack.com/ Join the Dublin DevRel Meetup group here: www.devrelmeetup.com

April 22, 2025Episode 24331 min

Episode 243 Carolina Paradas, Vice President of Growth at Fidel API

We’re back from our break this week with an excellent chat about the world of Fintech! Carolina Paradas is the Vice President of growth at Fidel API, a classic aggregation API that lets you act on payments in real time. And with code on the homepage, we already know that they’ve got an outlook we can get on board with. Carolina’s role is focused largely, as she tells us, on enabling people to do the best work they can. She monitors sales, customer success and marketing, and ensures that anything client-facing represents the company correctly. As you can imagine, this type of work requires much in the way of collaboration and people skills, something Carolina brings to the table in droves. One thing to pay attention to in this episode is Carolina’s focus on developing synergy with others in her field. Through a mutual exchange of ideas, goals and everything down to contract details, it seems that Devrels in Fintech are doing an excellent job. Reach out to Carolina here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolina-p-693b418a/ Check out Fidel: https://fidelapi.com/ Find out more and listen to previous podcasts here: https://www.voxgig.com/podcast Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates and information about upcoming meetups: https://voxgig.substack.com/ Join the Dublin DevRel Meetup group here: www.devrelmeetup.com

March 10, 2025Episode 24238 min

Episode 242 Juan Cruz Viotti, Founder of Source Meta

Today, we’re sitting down for an in-depth technical discussion with Juan Cruz Viotti, the Founder of Sourcemeta, a top provider of JSON Schema tooling and services. Juan has been working in the space for a long time, so we’re delighted to be getting his insight into this field. A lot of people have a love/hate relationship with JSON Schema, and much of that originates from the fact that, despite what people may think, it is a constraint language, not a modelling one. Juan explains to us that one of the reasons people can find it so painful is that the language is extremely powerful and expressive. Through his work, he is determined to help people learn and get to grips with it, so it doesn’t seem so intimidating. Finally, he tells us about what Sourcemeta is currently working on, and how they are continuing to evangelise and promote JSON Schema. They are diving head first into the conference space, and will soon have a desktop app to further aid people in their understanding of the language and how it works. Reach out to Juan here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jviotti/ Check out Sourcemeta: https://www.sourcemeta.com/ Find out more and listen to previous podcasts here: https://www.voxgig.com/podcast Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates and information about upcoming meetups: https://voxgig.substack.com/ Join the Dublin DevRel Meetup group here: www.devrelmeetup.com

February 27, 2025Episode 24142 min

Episode 241 Alex Rattray, Founder of Stainless

Today we’re sitting down for a chat with Alex Rattray, founder of Stainless, to talk about what they do, and how AI could be shaking up the SDK space in a big way. Stainless is an SDK generator that helps create high quality SDKs for rest APIs. Alex’s reason for starting the company is simple. He wanted to serve developers in a million different ways. That could be why the Stainless website homepage features a wall of code - they know who their audience is. With every programming language carrying its own nuances, SDK generation can be a mammoth task, especially developing them to the standard that Stainless holds itself to. It was a pleasure speaking to Alex, not least because it’s so clear that, for him, the value of developer experience comes first and foremost. Reach out to Alex here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexrattray/ Check out Stainless: https://www.stainless.com/ Find out more and listen to previous podcasts here: https://www.voxgig.com/podcast Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates and information about upcoming meetups: https://voxgig.substack.com/ Join the Dublin DevRel Meetup group here: www.devrelmeetup.com

February 25, 2025Episode 24030 min

Episode 240 Courtney Yatteau and Raúl Jiménez Ortega, Developer Experience Team at Esri

Today, we have a very wonderful unreleased episode from last year. It’s a dynamic duo on the pod today, as we’re joined by Raúl Jiménez Ortega and Courtney Yatteau from the Developer Experience Team at Esri. We talk about the experience of DevRel in a large organisation, and how internal DevRel compares to external. When you grow to a certain size, the question broadens from ‘how do I engage new people?’ to ‘how do I engage my own people?’ Esri is a leading geospatial tech company helping big and small organisations to make the most out of their data. Courtney compares for us the practice of teaching in a classroom vs teaching developers. Raúl takes us through his DevRel journey and the current role he plays on Esri’s Developer Experience Team. It was such a delight to have Courtney and Raúl on the podcast, and we hope you enjoy listening! ‍ Check out Courtney’s Medium: https://medium.com/@c_yatteau Reach out to Courtney here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/courtneyyatteau/ Reach out to Raúl here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimenezortegaraul/ Find out more and listen to previous podcasts here: https://www.voxgig.com/podcast Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly updates and information about upcoming meetups: https://voxgig.substack.com/ Join the Dublin DevRel Meetup group here: www.devrelmeetup.com

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