How Tim got started
Geertjan Wielenga: How did you become a developer advocate in the first place?
Tim Berglund: I started my career as a firmware developer and I loved that. Then I moved into Java and the web, right as the first dot-com bubble was collapsing. That was my impeccable timing: getting involved in the web while the web was crashing!
A while later, I found that I like being in front of people and I like teaching. I'm good at teaching and it's a really energizing and rewarding thing for me to do. This was a time in my career when I was an independent consultant. I had some freedom to explore teaching, as long as I could get somebody to pay me for it.
During that time, my practice shifted from custom software development to training and conference speaking. That's how I got into speaking. I'll always remember the first meetup I spoke at. It just felt like I was on fire, in a good way, and I knew I needed to do more of...
