Building Bridges: From Developer to Developer Advocate • David Edoh-Bedi & James Beswick

GOTO - The Brightest Minds in Tech

This interview was recorded for GOTO Unscripted.
https://gotopia.tech

Read the full transcription of this interview here

David Edoh-Bedi - Developer Relations at Stripe
James Beswick - Head of Developer Relations at Stripe
RESOURCES
David
https://x.com/edohbedi_d
https://www.linkedin.com/in/edohbedi
https://edoh-bedi.com

James
https://bsky.app/profile/jbesw.bsky.social
https://twitter.com/jbesw
https://linkedin.com/in/jamesbeswick

Links
https://stripe.dev

DESCRIPTION
James Beswick (Head of Developer Relations at Stripe) talks with David Edoh-Bedi (Developer Advocate) about his professional journey from growing up in Togo to working at Microsoft and eventually Stripe.
The conversation explores David's transition from software engineering to developer advocacy, highlighting the importance of empathy, communication skills, and technical knowledge in the role.
They discuss the challenges of working with large legacy systems, the complexities of payment processing, and how the software development landscape has evolved from library-focused development to API-centric approaches.
The interview provides valuable insights for developers considering a career path in developer relations and those integrating complex systems like payment processing into their applications.
RECOMMENDED BOOKS
Simon Brown • Software Architecture for Developers Vol. 2
David Farley • Modern Software Engineering
Kim, Humble, Debois, Willis & Forsgren • The DevOps Handbook
Simon Wardley • Wardley Maps
Simon Wardley • Wardley Mapping, The Knowledge
David Anderson, Marck McCann & Michael O'Reilly • The Value Flywheel Effect
Mike Amundsen • Restful Web API Patterns & Practices Cookbook

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บท

1. Intro (00:00:00)

2. First programming experiences (00:01:03)

3. Transitioning from college to industry (00:04:09)

4. Dealing with legacy systems (00:10:03)

5. Transition to developer advocacy (00:13:24)

6. Challenges of transitioning roles & public speaking in tech (00:16:27)

7. [Ad] Inspiring Tech Leaders - The Technology Podcast (00:19:23)

8. (Cont.) Challenges of transitioning roles & public speaking in tech (00:19:58)

9. Beyond payments: The complexity of payment systems (00:23:38)

10. Mastering APIs (00:35:25)

11. Comparing AWS & Stripe (00:40:07)

12. Outro (00:42:27)