Who’s your best friend? It just might be Joe Karlsson, SingleStore’s new Developer Advocate. Read Domenic Ravita’s rapid-fire Q&A with Joe to find out how he’s creating inclusive, useful and fun resources to build our global community.
If there’s one thing that the pandemic has helped me appreciate in my work life, it’s the connectedness of the SingleStore community. Whether I’m working with my colleagues around the world, or hearing about the latest wins from our prolific developer base, it’s always gratifying to share in the enthusiasm that SingleStore technology generates. One of the reasons why there’s so much heat around our data platform is Joe Karlsson (he/they), SingleStore’s new Developer Advocate.
I recently sat down with Joe on a Zoom call to learn more about his work and ambitious plans for the SingleStore developer community. Here are the highlights of our conversation, and a list of all the places you can connect with Joe.
Q: If you had to summarize your mission in 240 characters, what would you say?
A: For developers, online communities are more important than ever. My goal is to create fun, inclusive, engaging content that developers love, and that helps them to be wildly successful with SingleStore.
Q: Well done, with a few characters to spare! Tell me about your background.
A: I’m a database engineer turned developer advocate, and forever a massive data nerd. I am all about empowering developers to think creatively when building data-intensive applications, through demos, blogs, videos, and whatever else they need.
My career has taken me from building database best practices and demos for MongoDB, to architecting and building the third biggest eCommerce website in North America—that’s Best Buy—to teaching at one of the most highly rated software development boot camps on Earth. I’m also an ex-surfer, TEDx speaker, film buff, and an avid TikTok-er and Tweeter.
Q: Why SingleStore?
A: SingleStore is a product for developers. They are the people working with data platforms every day, and increasingly the ones making buying decisions. I am all about facilitating conversations with this important audience. Developers don’t follow enterprise companies on Twitter to get technical content; they follow engineers they trust, like and respect. It’s an honor for me to be leading those conversations for SingleStore.
Q: How is the SingleStore developer community different, and how is that reflected in the way you serve them?
A: Developers are really passionate about SingleStore technology. They literally fall in love with our ability to handle data-intensive applications. That’s where SingleStore is winning and we need to talk about that. With so many people working remotely, creating an online gathering and building a sense of community there is really important, and the most important place to be.
Building data-intensive apps is not something you do fresh out of bootcamp. I’m working on becoming an expert in this field and educating developers about how SingleStore makes it monumentally easier to build massively scalable data-intensive apps. My job is to help make that educational content more approachable, simplifying it an easily digestible format.
Q: How are some of the ways you are making complex technical content more digestible?
This is such a cool part of my job—I do lots of different things, often. For example, I blog. I make YouTube videos about how to get started with SingleStore. I speak at tech conferences and TEDx, do livestreams and know how to rock TikTok. And much more. And yes, that’s my cat in those TikTok videos!
Q: How are you getting the word out about SingleStore?
I work closely with Wesley Faulkner, Head of Community at SingleStore. We both joined the company at the same time, and are working hard to establish a strong SingleStore community that is inclusive, friendly and incredibly useful. Connect with me on LinkedIn and on my social media, and let’s create an environment that we both want to be part of.
Developer resources
Get social with Joe
