Taylor Barnett-Torabi

Available for hire

Hey y'all! đź‘‹ For the past ten years, I have worked in various technical roles at startups. Currently, I am looking for my next opportunity at a developer-focused company. I am looking for a role where I can use my decade of developer-facing experience to help build technical products (and relationships) that developers will love.

Continue reading to learn more about what I am looking for! But first, why create a page like this?

I've been thinking a lot about how to make the job search process more transparent and thought-out. This page is as much for you as it is for me. It's far from complete but more of a conversation starter. It will give you a good idea of what I am looking for and what I have to offer.

Table of contents:

👉 If you just want to see my past experience, check out my LinkedIn.

Types of roles I am considering

Product

Let me help you build products (and relationships) that developers want using my decade of developer community experience talking to developers. I love to ship, but I also love talking to users (from startups to large enterprises) and figuring out what they really need so we are shipping the right products and features. (Ask about everything I helped ship in February!) I've spent the last 8 years trying to fit Developer Relations ⬛️ into a Product-shaped ⚫️ hole, but I think it is now time for me to fit Product ⚫️ into a Product-shaped ⚫️ hole. (This seems obvious, but it's not when you first join Developer Relations. Ask me more about it!)

You might be thinking, "But Taylor, you have never been a Product Manager!" You are right, but I have been doing the work of a Product Manager for years. I have been the voice of the developer community at every company I have worked at. I have been the one who has been talking to users, gathering feedback, and contributing to making decisions. I've worked closely with Engineering teams on everything from APIs to infrastructure-heavy features, and I am often the one sweating the details as we work toward launch. You can read more below about the type of activities that I have enjoyed in the past, many of which are the same as a Product Manager.

Empathy and feedback loops have been a core value in how I approach Developer Advocacy for as long as I can remember. I want to continue doing this in a Product role.

If you need to hear more about why I would be a good fit for a Product role, let's chat!

Developer Advocacy with a strong focus on Product

If you believe that Developer Relations is not all about content creation and external evangelism, we might be a good fit.

While I have experience in a wide range of Developer Relations-type activities from my time at startups, I'm looking for a role where I can be a key stakeholder in product decisions and strategy while representing the community.

I've often found a disconnect between Product Engineering, Marketing, Sales teams, and the users. (You also have the decision makers, buyers, and other personas to consider, but let's stay focused here.)

I strive to close that gap by working with all of them while improving the developer experience and contributing to successful products. (I recently wrote about some examples of these gaps in APIs.) I'm a strong generalist who shines when doing the necessary senior+ glue work across the company that helps individual teams achieve their goals and contributes directly to the company's success. There's something I can offer that can help every single team.

Not all Developer Advocacy roles are a fit for me right now. Since I want to focus on continuing to do cross-functional work and interacting more with users, I will have less time available to write blog posts and documentation every week. However, I would still love to strategically do some content creation when it makes sense. For example, I might ship a blog post a month, not a week. So, if you have a Developer Advocacy role where content is a significant focus, we are probably not a good fit.

If this sounds like we align around a Developer Advocacy role you have in mind, let's chat!

Other roles

If there is a role that doesn't fit into one of these previous two categories but focuses on many of the same activities (see below), I am interested in hearing about it! I've worked in startups historically and understand the need to be flexible.

Previous activities that I have enjoyed

Product:

Open source:

Marketing and Brand:

Documentation:

I know this is a long list, and it is only part of the activities I have experience with and enjoy. I'm happy to dive deep into specific activities and discuss the others if you are interested!

Examples of my recent work

I'm happy to share more about my work on these projects and their impact.

Qualities of teams and companies I am interested in

I'm interested in a wide range of developer products and platforms, including but not limited to infrastructure, APIs, developer tools, and data. I like areas that allow me to interact with a wide range of developers and have a large total addressable market. I'm looking to impact millions of developers and an even greater number of their users.

I'm looking for teams and companies that are highly collaborative, low-ego, offer opportunities for growth and mentorship, value empathy, written communication, and developer experience.

Also, I live and work remotely in Austin, Texas, so I am looking for a strong remote culture too. I don't mind going into an office a few times a month, but I work best in my home office or outside at a coffee shop.

Testimonials from folks who have worked with me

To give a bit more of an idea of what it's like to work with me, here are some testimonials from folks who have first-hand experience working with me:

"I had the pleasure of working with Taylor on a number of products and product launches at PlanetScale, one of which was our Public API launch. Taylor is always a delight to work with because she is incredibly thoughtful and user-focused in everything she does. For our Public API launch, this meant taking initiative in figuring out what APIs would be most useful to our users, how to design them in a user-friendly way, and having an attention to detail that could catch the smallest of errors in our documentation. Designing an API is no easy task, but Taylor made the process delightful!" - Frances Thai, Software Engineer at PlanetScale

"Taylor is a passionate, intelligent, and hardworking engineer. I've worked with Taylor for several years and would hire her again in a heartbeat. Taylor has helped hundreds if not thousands of companies adopt and use our platform, both in person and in her work improving our SDKs, docs, guides, and developer community.

Taylor serves on the front line of our sales process. Every new developer signup gets an email from her asking if they have any technical questions or would like to pair code. There are very few people I would put in that position, but Taylor has the right mix of technical expertise, fearlessness, communication skills, and innate desire to help others.

Taylor learns quickly and carries with her a sense of responsibility that is so valuable in a teammate. In the smallest of examples, it means that when she sees a typo in the docs, she just goes and fixes it. In addition to being incredibly dependable, Taylor just really cares . About our team, our customers, and the tech community. She's a gem." - Michelle Wetzler, former Chief Data Scientist at Keen IO

"Taylor is a product strategist with a strong go-to-market acumen. She is always the voice of the developer/technical buyers. I have seen her successfully lead products from inception to launch, nurture OS communities, and seamlessly collaborate with sales, marketing, and support teams. She is the type of person I would feel lucky to work with again and would be an asset to any product team." - Vanessa Fox, Head of Marketing at Readyset, former Senior Growth Marketing Manager at PlanetScale

"If you care about your users, your Product, your marketing, your sales process — anything really... you need Taylor on your team.

She has a unique ability to truly work cross-org, making a huge impact in Marketing, Sales, Product, Customer Success, and more. She has the technical chops, but also understands the GTM side of things, which is incredibly rare.

...created and improved onboarding sequences for the Product, wrote a ton of product copy, coordinated several product launches and partner integrations (coordinated as in…did everything…blog, docs, social, etc), and most importantly, made a real difference with real users/customers, and ultimately, the Product.

Not only did she do these things, but she did them extremely well. She is one of the most organized people I've ever met, and never lets anything slip through the cracks. I managed her directly for a year and she also has an incredible work ethic and excellent communication skills. I can personally vouch for her. You absolutely do not want to miss this opportunity to work with Taylor." - Holly Guevara, VP of Marketing at PlanetScale (link to the rest of the Twitter thread)

"I talk a lot about how to be effective with devrel and marketing — Taylor is exactly who I would recommend as the ideal hire to lead developer relations and dev marketing. She understands not just how to do this stuff, but how to coordinate lots of people to do it at scale." - Jason Lengstorf, former VP of Developer Experience at Netlify (link to Tweet)

Contact me

If you have a role that you think I might be a good fit for, or if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to me. If you fill out my contact form with your info, I will respond within 48 hours.