Developer advocate Michelle Sandford joins Isabel Ruiz on Don't Forget the Pizza. She talks about why she calls her blog "Scaling Guacamole," how a career that began in pubs and restaurants led to IBM and then Microsoft, and how a customer success background carries over into developer relations.In this episode:

• Why you don't need the title to do the job: figure out what you love and do it.
• How Michelle manages around 50 events a year, and why she takes holiday to attend conferences in places like Vietnam.
• Why AI is making many people feel anxious and isolated, and why a human-to-human check-in matters.
• Why early-career developers should use GitHub Copilot in ask mode to learn before moving to agentic coding.
• Why cutting developers to work "cheaper and faster" is a losing story, and why investing in your existing talent is the better one.
• A lightning round covering Slack vs. Discord, live vs. pre-recorded demos, stickers vs. T-shirts, pineapple on pizza, and one word for the Perth developer scene.

Michelle's advice: use AI as the best coach you've ever had, and look out for each other.

What do chickens have to do with performance testing? More than you'd think. 🍕

Heather Thacker — developer advocate, performance testing champion, and former professional baker — joins Don't Forget the Pizza to share why DevRel is less about nailing the KPIs and more about nurturing the culture. Like sourdough.

In this episode, we talk about turning kitchen disasters into DevRel wins (if the chocolate cake doesn't rise, make brownies), why you can't rush community growth, how to make performance testing approachable with play and curiosity, and where human creativity still beats AI.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• The "brownie philosophy" — adapting when talks & demos don't go to plan
• Why DevRel is like maintaining a sourdough starter
• Chickens & performance testing: Heather's most creative talk idea
• Community nurturing vs. obsessing over metrics
• Making complex topics relatable through technical public speaking
• The human edge in DevRel as AI scales — creativity, play & lived experience
• Lightning round: yoga, Slack vs Discord, stickers vs T-shirts, and pineapple on pizza

ABOUT HEATHER THACKER: Heather Thacker is a Developer Advocate at Gatling. Before tech, Heather worked as a professional baker — on the Bread Team at Dozen Bakery and building the pastry program at Farmer's Daughter, where she won two biscuit awards. She's an international speaker known for connecting seemingly unrelated worlds — like chickens and load testing — to make technical education engaging and fun.

ABOUT DON'T FORGET THE PIZZA: Community, Served by the Slice. 🍕

You were hired to build an ecosystem; you ended up managing lanyards and venue Wi-Fi. Hosted by Isabel Ruiz, Community Engagement Manager with 10+ years in community & events, this is the podcast for Developer Advocates, DevRel Managers, Technical Evangelists & Community professionals who run events as the unwritten part of their job.

🎧 Enjoying the show? Subscribe to the channel so you don't miss the next slice: Subscribe to Don't Forget the Pizza on YouTube here:

Watch the video version of this episode here:
https://youtu.be/lLsHQ3Jc0Ws?si=q50LYibLVJd0nwOA

And follow every future episode as soon as it drops here:
https://www.youtube.com/@dontforgetthepizza

#DevRel #PerformanceTesting #CommunityBuilding

Why Your KubeCon Talk Got Rejected (It's a Numbers Game) feat. Imma Valls Bernaus

Your KubeCon talk wasn't rejected because it was bad, it was a numbers game.

Imma Valls Bernaus has reviewed hundreds of KubeCon submissions, run cloud-native communities across Europe for over a decade, and served as Observability Track Chair for KubeCon (picking 50 talks from 250 submissions). In this episode, she pulls back the curtain on what Developer Relations really is — and it's not just traveling and speaking at conferences.

Hosted by Isabel Ruiz, Don't Forget the Pizza is the podcast for Developer Advocates, DevRel Managers, Technical Evangelists and Community professionals who run events as the unwritten part of their job. Community, Served by the Slice. 🍕

IN THIS EPISODE YOU'LL LEARN:

• Why community building is a long-run game — Imma's Stardew Valley analogy for reviving communities after COVID

• What a KubeCon Track Chair actually does and why great talks get rejected

• How to handle conference talk rejection without taking it personally

• Step-by-step advice for first-time speakers: where to start and how to play the CFP numbers game

• How Imma manages DevRel chaos with a simple Todoist system to reduce cognitive load

• Behind the scenes of co-hosting the Grafana OpenTelemetry Community Call

• Cultural lessons from organizing developer events in Barcelona, Amsterdam and Japan

• How to adapt event formats when logistics force you to scale down

ABOUT THE GUEST:

Imma Valls Bernaus is a Developer Advocate and community organizer based in Barcelona with 10+ years in enterprise architecture and cloud-native communities. She has organized 20+ Cloud Native, DevOps and Grafana events across Europe, served as a KubeCon reviewer and Observability Track Chair, and is passionate about building intentional spaces for women+ in open source.

CHAPTERS:

00:00 — Intro — Welcome Imma Valls Bernaus

00:45 — The Stardew Valley analogy for reviving communities

02:56 — What people underestimate about Developer Advocacy

06:32 — From enterprise architect to DevRel: project management superpowers

08:16 — Inside KubeCon as Observability Track Chair: 50 talks from 250 submissions

12:22 — Advice for first-time speakers: start small & play the numbers game

15:50 — How to survive DevRel chaos with Todoist + co-hosting the Grafana Community Call

23:39 — What works in Barcelona won't work in Japan: cultural lessons from events

29:34 — Lightning Round: languages, stickers & pineapple on pizza?

RESOURCES MENTIONED:

• Todoist — https://todoist.com

• Grafana OpenTelemetry Community Call

ABOUT THE PODCAST:

Don't Forget the Pizza helps Developer Relations and community professionals run better developer events — from venue Wi-Fi and catering to CFPs, community building and ecosystem strategy. New episodes weekly.

Hosted by Isabel Ruiz — Community Engagement Manager at Autodesk, 10 years in developer community & events.

🎧 Watch the video version on YouTube: https://youtu.be/99bD70Fl8gI

Subscribe to the podcast page: https://dontforgetthepizza.riverside.com/

#DevRel #DeveloperRelations #DeveloperAdvocacy #CommunityBuilding #KubeCon #CNCF #CFP #ConferenceSpeaking #TechCommunity #Grafana #OpenTelemetry #DevRelPodcast