This year will be bringing with it new things. Sometimes we can prepare for what is coming up, for others, we may only get to react to what life flings at us. I am thankful to be looking forward to 2 different changes in this upcoming year.

The first is I will be getting married. I am excited about the changes it will bring with it and the ways I will continue to grow with my future spouse.

#####It will be a new chapter in life.

The second change is that I have moved into a new position at work. I was handling technical support for BuildFire.com. They provide a platform app builder so anyone can build an app for their business or community. Throughout the time I was working, I have continued learning to code and to stay involved in many of the local tech communities.

After a year of coding, I still love it. It is challenging at moments, but anything worth doing, will be hard work. I continue to stick with it and keep growing and learning. I had been at my current job just over a year and I began to get the itch that there was something more for me. I felt that I had learned most there was to know about our platform and the technologies we were using and integrating with and I wasn’t learning as much as when I started.

That said, I will be transferring into a new position of “Developer Advocate.” This is a position you may have heard of before. The goal of the developer advocate is 3 fold, in my mind.

1) It is a technical role. I am a developer. I am continuing to grow in knowledge and keep learning. BuildFire.js and the SDK allow me to keep learning about javascript, several front-end frameworks, and coding in general. BuildFire uses Angular and has it built in, but there is nothing to stop someone from building a custom plugin with React, Ember or what ever next hot framework comes along. I get to explore and show others how you can do different things with our platform and integrating with other technologies.

2) It is a type of marketing role. We are always selling something to someone, even if it is our own skills to our bosses and the company we work for. This is no different. That said, I am not looking to sell people on something that isn’t a benefit to them, I think what BuildFire offers in the way of customization is incredible. It is set up to have 90% of everything you will need in most apps and if you need custom functionality, it should be no problem bringing on a developer to build that one custom feature for your need. It would be a great option for many of the custom app building houses also, as it should speed up their work tremendously by piggy-backing on the 90% we can do on our platform, but adding the custom features where needed. Also, BuildFire doesn’t charge to use its SDK or build a custom plugin, so trying it can only benefit you!

3) It is a community role. While showing others how to use our platform and how it can benefit them, I will be reaching out to many different communities. I have blogged before about how important community is to me and how being involved will grow, motivate, and shape learning. I am excited to be meeting other developers and seeing how BuildFire can meet their needs better. I am in a cool place to advocate on behalf of the developers I meet and speak with also.

This is a big change and I am looking forward to what I will be learning and the people I will be meeting. I will continue blogging, but rather than focusing on Rust, I will have some technical posts, probably focusing on Javascript, and some more posts on how to reach out to the community.