API The Docs Podcast

Technical writing and developer relations are relatively new areas, and they have both grown out of a need for these specific skill sets. However, for newcomers in the IT landscape, it might take a while to understand what they actually mean and how they support the work of developers. Kruno Golubic (technical writer at Memgraph) and Katarina Šupe (DevRel at Memgraph) explain the benefits of a successful mentorship initiative, the different definitions of developer experience, and the challenges of technical writing that set it apart from other disciplines.

From rapid changes to learning on the fly, startups face unique challenges that require creative solutions. Alex Akimov (Head of API Platform at Monite) and Helen Kosova (API Technical Writer at Monite) discuss how Monite’s API council supports the adoption of an API-first approach at the company.

With Anthony Pichardo, product manager at Visa Developer Platform, on the value of user-centered design and building non-zero sum environments where everyone wins. Community is not just an afterthought, it’s an integral part of strategy. The platform team conducts regular user research to gauge pain points, and constantly strives to minimize the learning curve to better serve the community’s needs.

We explore how developer documentation hubs enable a unified information architecture, at least outwards: our guests Christoph Weber (Pronovix) and Kristof Van Tomme (Pronovix) talk about the nuanced, socio-technical nature of large scale documentation processes, the need for a central API docs team, and the future use of private LLMs.

Developers are the ones who know their APIs best, but they need an easy documentation process that wouldn’t be too different from the coding lifecycle to produce the technical documentation at scale. Senior technical writer Paula Cristina Vaz outlines the Documentation Framework at Farfetch, created to process markdown files and convert them to Confluence HTML. She talks about the page and document templates that help writers structure their documentation in a standardized way.

Anna Tsolakou (Developer Advocate) and Mathieu Pincovai (Customer Success Specialist) shared with us the journey on how Amadeus for Developers created consistent and clear documentation. We also talked about why the docs-as-code approach is so crucial for them, and how they can create the right documentation for their APIs.

Spotify Senior Developer Advocates Serah Njambi Kiburu and Alvaro Navarro talked with us about the two enemies of developer empathy, and their practices to optimise and scale for the community’s real needs. We also asked why Spotify even needs an API developer portal, and why isn’t it built on backstage? (spoiler alert) They have good reasons for that.

In Part 2 of our conversation with Miro's DevRel Lead Anthony Roux and Senior Techwriters Mira Balani and Marco Spinello, we walk deeper into how their respective teams complement each other, and we will also get a detailed narrative from Anthony about their process to aggregate all types of feedback, whether it's a feature requests, bugs, or documentation improvements into one central base.

With our three Mironeer guests, DevRel Lead Anthony Roux and Senior Techwriters Mira Balani and Marco Spinello, we talked about how they joined their teams, what they learnt since, how and by whom their developer docs came to be as they are today, and what two documentarians are to do if they disagree.

Our guest is Anthony Sansone, staff technical writer at MongoDB, who has spent 20+ years in computer hardware, software, and services, specializing in data protection and user security. His experience ranges from startups to large multinational companies. In this episode, Anthony shares his insights about the techwriters’ onboarding and the inspiration you can get from new hires.

Or, maybe you could map it: what does each of you do, why, and how? We converse about integration of practices and practice networks with Marc Burgauer, co-founder of Contextualise. Together with Chris McDermott, they assist large organizations in their transformation efforts through maturity mapping. We are teasing out our ideas on how can the understanding of social practice theory–and the acceptance of complexity–possibly help write better technical documentation. How can we better ease and inform the users of the docs into the context in which the artifact operates? What would be the minimum shared vocabulary and methods to change anything for the better in a persistent, self-stabilizing socio-technical system–our workplace–and do we need to name practice theory at all for it?

Or, maybe you could map it: what does each of you do, why, and how? We converse about integration of practices and practice networks with Marc Burgauer, co-founder of Contextualise. Together with Chris McDermott, they assist large organizations in their transformation efforts through maturity mapping. We are teasing out our ideas on how can the understanding of social practice theory–and the acceptance of complexity–possibly help write better technical documentation. How can we better ease and inform the users of the docs into the context in which the artifact operates? What would be the minimum shared vocabulary and methods to change anything for the better in a persistent, self-stabilizing socio-technical system–our workplace–and do we need to name practice theory at all for it?

We asked DevRel Kristyn Bryan and Application Architect Dmitry Pashkevich from the Calendly API team about the new, v2 of their API and the upgraded devportal. Why and how did they redesign the legacy API? They adopted a design-first approach to building APIs. How does this new strategy manifest in their daily jobs, what are they now doing differently? What are their teams' practices with customer feedback, and with internal mentoring?

Interview with Ruby Batallones, Technical Writer at Adyen and Aleksei Akimov, Head of API at Adyen

Involve your technical writers already from the API design discussions: this can help ensure a consistent user experience across all APIs, and in finding the middle ground between the usability requirements and the architecture requirements.

At Adyen, technical writers have the ways and means to add and maintain the descriptions in the source code, they can make sure that all the bits and pieces are linked together and enough context is provided everywhere. This practice brought that techwriters habitually use the developer tools as well, and have a deeper technical understanding of the API, which in turn enables better communications earlier on.

The recently open sourced Adyen Explorer and documentation won 2 prizes at the 2019 DevPortal Awards: Best API Reference Documentation and Best Decision Maker Documentation.

Our guests are Ruby Batallones Technical Writer at Adyen, former solution architect and implementation engineer, and Aleksei Akimov, who started his career in software development, then added technical writing, was leading the Documentation & Developer Experience team and is now responsible for Adyen API design, strategy, and governance.

The hosts are Laura Vass (Editor of Developer Portals Newsletter, Co-Founder of Pronovix) and Anett Pozsár (Senior Technical Writer, Pronovix).

MongoDB is one of the most popular NoSQL database programs, providing both on-premise and cloud-based solutions. Tony works as a senior technical writer on cloud based tools. He has 20+ years experience in computer hardware, software, and services, specializing in data protection and user security, and he is a long-time supporter of API The Docs.

In this second part of the interview we continue our conversation:

- Adoption of OpenAPI specification

- How to save large amounts of documentation time?

- How to keep the specifications up-to-date?

- How to simplify API documentation?

The hosts are Laura Vass (Editor of Developer Portals Newsletter, Co-Founder of Pronovix) and Anett Pozsár (Senior Technical Writer, Pronovix).

Confidence and Critical Thinking: techwriting is life-long learning - Interview with Anthony Sansone, Senior Technical Writer at MongoDB

MongoDB is one of the most popular NoSQL database programs, providing both on-premise and cloud-based solutions. Tony works as a senior technical writer on cloud based tools. He has 20+ years experience in computer hardware, software, and services, specializing in data protection and user security, and he is a long-time supporter of API The Docs.

In this interview, Tony and the hosts are delving into the following topics:

• How has the technical writing job market changed lately?
• Speeding up complex onboarding and training of new technical writers at MongoDB
• Embrace inquisitive juniors and help build confidence, keep open office hours

In Part 2, Episode 22, we continue our conversation:

• Adoption of OpenAPI specification
• How to save large amounts of documentation time?
• How to keep the specifications up-to-date?
• How to simplify API documentation?

The hosts are Laura Vass (Editor of Developer Portals Newsletter, Co-Founder of Pronovix) and Anett Pozsár (Senior Technical Writer, Pronovix).

Building a DevRel Team - Interview with Lorna Mitchell, Head of Developer Relations at Aiven. 

Lorna is an open source software developer and project maintainer, published author, blogger and conference speaker, who is with us today to talk about the skills and roles that contribute to successfully operating a devrel team:

• Priorities and structure when developing a new devrel team
  
• Roles and responsibilities
  
• Involving a technical writer in the team
  
• Career path, growth and collaboration in a devrel team
  
• Insights of creating a new open source devportal
  
• Aiven open source data tools and products
  
• Maintenance of documentation and workflows
  

Sources:

• Read more about Lorna’s work here: https://lornajane.net/
  
• For job offerings at Aiven, please visit: https://aiven.io/careers
  

The hosts are Laura Vass (Editor of Developer Portals Newsletter, Co-Founder of Pronovix) and Anett Pozsár (Senior Technical Writer, Pronovix).

Today our guests are Liam Gallagher (UX Designer/API Platforms) and Jake Eastham (Front-end Developer and Accessibility Champion) from Barclays:

“It's very easy to get caught up in aesthetics, you want to design something that is really cool and you think it is amazing.. You actually want to show it to everyone, but you completely messed up the accessibility part. As I matured, I realised that good design is not about something that looks good, but how something works. A good design is naturally inclusive. “

“An accessibility champion is someone who fosters within their environment, within their own team, while being aware of the different accessibility challenges you have and why we are designing and developing our products, what is the importance of it. “

Join us for an inspiring conversation with the two times winner of DevPortal Awards in the Best Accessible Portal category.

The hosts are Laura Vass (Editor of Developer Portals Newsletter, Co-Founder of Pronovix) and Anett Pozsár (Senior Technical Writer, Pronovix).

Meet the Developer Relations & API product management team on Amadeus for Developers - Open API Product for the travel industry. Our guests are Alvaro Navarro and Anthony Roux.

“Building trusted relationships is actually what matters in our job.. and empathy is what makes the big difference. Put yourself into the shoes of the other person, that's how you're going to learn how they use your product. And that's how you're going to be successful.“

How has Amadeus innovated a framework and a new set of self-service APIs, where developers can connect in a matter of only three minutes?

How have they scaled up and automated all the processes to make the onboarding as smooth as possible?

Why is testing and user centric feedback, API Governance and product management support important when creating solutions that provide the best developer experience for your API consumers? Tune in to hear more.

The hosts are Laura Vass (Editor of Developer Portals Newsletter, Co-Founder of Pronovix) and Anett Pozsár (Senior Technical Writer, Pronovix).

We are talking with Liz Couto, Product Marketing Manager at Shopify, about the role of marketing and an amplifier, where the CTA is often pointing to the developer documentation. How did Shopify empathize and empower in 2020 with the exponentially growing community? Can there be too many communication channels, should you let go of some if ever? How do the many teams involved work in concert on Shopify's products and what feedback loops have they built into their docs?

The hosts are Laura Vass (Editor of Developer Portals Newsletter, Co-Founder of Pronovix) and Anett Pozsár (Senior Technical Writer, Pronovix).

Music: Virgill - Its over now (CC)

“It’s a misconception to think that documentation is a solitary endeavor” says Uwana Ikaiddi (Documentation Manager, BigCommerce). Getting involved in cross-team discussions as early as possible while preparing for a project is a key element of a documentation workflow. But how do you avoid death by collaboration?

The interview also explores how you can empower your audience to communicate with you in the most efficient way possible, and in what ways you can triage and address internal and external feedback.

The hosts are Laura Vass (Editor of Developer Portal Newsletter, Co-Founder, Pronovix) and Anett Pozsár (Senior Technical Writer, Pronovix).

Music: Virgill - Its over now (CC)

The Good Docs Project aims to create open source documentation templates, and most recently an information architecture template too. Erin McKean, one of the central orchestrators behind the Good Docs Project, is our guest for this episode. We talk with Erin about why it is so important to intentionally include jargon in your technical documentation and where to do that. She shares her practice on curating a project documentation wishlist to keep the future focus going, and why and how to get documentation treated as a key core feature of a product.

The hosts are Laura Vass (Editor of Developer Portal Newsletter, Co-Founder, Pronovix) and Anett Pozsár (Senior Technical Writer, Pronovix).

Music: Virgill - Its over now (CC)

What are the main principles a documentation team operates on in a fast-moving industry? How to adopt DocOps? How does a documentation team decide on what should be automated? What is hard to automate? What is the point when you should not neglect the human eye? These are key questions that we try to find answers to in this interview with Paula Henk (Technical Writer) and Patrick Hammond (DocOps Manager) from Adyen.

The hosts are Laura Vass (Editor of Developer Portal Newsletter, Co-Founder, Pronovix) and Anett Pozsár (Senior Technical Writer, Pronovix).

Music: Virgill - Its over now (CC)

How can you onboard new technical writers when your office just turned into remote-first? This podcast episode focuses on the mistakes Karen Sawrey (Contract Technical Writer) made and the issues she’s encountered and solved when joining a team of tech writing colleagues. The interview also touches upon documentation security and testing, the importance of guidelines, and how the technical writer role is transforming today, in the time of remote working.

The hosts are Laura Vass (Editor of Developer Portal Newsletter, Co-Founder, Pronovix) and Anett Pozsár (Senior Technical Writer, Pronovix).

Intro music: Virgill - Its over now (CC)

“When you’re working on APIs that developers use, they need to know exactly how to use them. Great documentation is the way to do this & it gives development a chance to make things more user-friendly.” In this podcast, Milecia McGregor (Developer Advocate, Conducto) reviews why API docs are important and she also shares some tips about how to manage their development cycle.

Vonage’s developer platform journey started in 2017. Little did they know the impact that some of their design decisions were going to have now. In this interview, Fabian shares how the platform evolved over the years, what challenges the team needed to overcome and what new features are in the pipeline. Tune in to get some tips about separating the prose from the code, and find out what developer advocacy is necessary for the success of this new tool chain!

At the 7th API The Docs Virtual event Michelle Fredette, technical writer at New Relic and Chris Cowell, Oregon-based technical trainer and writer presented on the issues of onboarding writers with different knowledge gaps and how to solve them with 8 hours of training. Uwana Ikaiddi, Developer Documentation Manager at BigCommerce explained the significance of external and internal audience feedback, and gave guidance on how to improve API documentation by them. In the Q&A panel of the event, they reflect on their talks and provide further insights on:

• Do you also train your developers on how they can document for themselves?
• What would you recommend for people who want to change career-path from development to techwriting?
• Is there a need for anti-personas, i.e. people who aren't specifically the core audience of the API documentation but might need to consider when writing the docs?
• How to build trust with your internal audience?
• Can you speak to techniques who are getting collected external feedback to the appropriate writers on a large writing team?
• Does teaching developer students technical writing support a faster and more efficient on-boarding process in the long run?

At the 6th API The Docs Virtual event Egan Anderson, head of developer experience at Galileo, explained ways companies can prioritize developers’ needs. Larry Kluger, lead developer advocate for DocuSign, presented how to create easy to use graphical drag & drop tools for creating and trying complex API requests. Michael Haberman, co-founder & CTO at Aspecto, explored maintaining API production while using microservices to collect data and by that, help development and testing phases. In the Q&A panel of the event, they reflect on their talks and provide further insights on:

• What are the milestones in API documentation processes?
• How to make sure all advocates are being heard during the development?
• How to boost morale & excitement in an internal audience when it comes to API initiatives?
• Which is a better approach: design-first vs. code-first?
• Why use Blockly library for API exploring?
• Is there a need to develop own libraries for open source APIs?
• How to make your APIs self-documenting?
• Which are the instances when reducing the number of your services is recommended to maintain your system?
  

On 27th Tom Johnson, senior technical writer at Amazon, presented his comprehensive research on how API documentation trends differ from other tech comm trends. In the Q&A panel, he reflects on his talk and provide further insights on:

• What methods does your team use to estimate time for creating a documentation?
• How to improve the dynamics inside and outside of your documentation team?

On 13th May in the API The Docs virtual event Sarah Day, technical writer at LaunchDarkly, shared how you can incorporate API documentation in the big picture for overall efficiency in your organization. Riley Siebel, director of Developer Experience at C3.ai, and Mark Winberry, director of US Operations at Pronovix, presented a case study on providing a good DX with docs-as-code regardless of your system’s complexity. In the Q&A panel, they reflect on their talks and provide further insights about the following topics:

• Do you have any advice for tech writers in a larger organization who must get buy-in at multiple levels of leadership? How do you get understanding and support from other departments to help drive advocacy when getting buy-in?
  
• Have you done any research about where to host an API's docs compared to the API itself?
  
• What kind of documentation tool did you use before you moved to docs-as-code?

On 6th May Steph Mills from Splunk shared how you can create the best possible golden paths through the API woods, and how to reduce the need for users to stray from the path into the wilds. Bob Watson from AWS explained how you're able to meet the practical aspects of customer goals with your API documentation, and how to measure how well you meet them as your API and customers evolve. In the Question-and-Answer session after their presentations, they reflect on their talks and provide further insights regarding customer oriented API documentation and API use case documentation. Enjoy!

On 22th April Mike Jang from GitLab explored what an Minimum Viable Documentation is for RESTful APIs. Jenny Wanger explained that the way you name, design, and structure your APIs has a huge impact on usability. In the Question-and-Answer session after their presentations, Jenny and Mike reflect on their talks and provide further insights. Enjoy!