Yakov's job title

Yakov Fain: At one point, somebody described me. They used this word that I wouldn't have come up with myself, but they said, "He's a technologist from New York City." I just share what I know. If you need to hire me for a project, I will call myself a "team lead." That's the closest definition of what I do.

Geertjan Wielenga: For people who don't see themselves being programmers their whole lives, would you say that developer advocacy presents another option?

Yakov Fain: I actually went through several stages of thinking about different roles in tech. I remember many years ago, I thought of programming as the most important part of the IT process of any project because if I don't write a program, there will be no product.

Eventually, I started to think that if a salesman wasn't ready to sell this idea, I wouldn't even be writing this program. Then there is quality assurance to consider...