Hey, I'm Kurt.

I'm a formerly incarcerated tech leader, engineer, teacher, and developer-led growth specialist.

If you only read one post, you should read this one.

Distributing Challenge: On Building Highly Engaged Teams

How many developers do you know who have left their job because either 1) the work is no longer challenging / there is no career growth, or 2) the work is too challenging, and they have no support? Challenge plays an essential role in our happiness.

The Developer Advocate's Guides

The Developer Advocate's Guide to Metrics and Reporting

As developer advocates, avoid becoming extensions of other teams by closely learning metrics: the different types you'll encounter and when to use them, which are trusted and untrusted, and how to build them effectively to support your team's goals.

The Developer Advocate's Guide to Addressing Product Friction

Over the last three months, we've been developing a framework at Apollo called DX Audits to help us identify, document, report, and address product friction. It was getting difficult to scale this part of developer advocacy so we came up with a framework and this post covers our experience with it and where we landed on the framework's implementation.

The Developer Advocate's Guide to Content Creation

Have you ever felt overwhelmed by the idea of having to create that next blog post or YouTube video? Do you find yourself unable to finish things because you're not quite sure when to call it done? Are you adjusting your outlines or talking points on the fly? Learn how to create content more effectively by doing the work before the work.

The Developer Advocate's Guide to Getting Buy-In

Getting buy-in as a developer advocate is a unique challenge. We usually are not the owners or even direct contributors to what we're trying to change. Instead, we represent this bizarre ephemeral thing called a "community." In this post, I'll cover what buy-in is, how it applies to developer advocacy, what skills help the most when trying to get buy-in, and the processes I use.

The Developer Advocate's Guide to Asking for Things

Whether we're trying to get buy-in internally or working on collaborations externally, we're generally in the business of asking. Learn how to get better results from your requests by rethinking the nature of relationships and following the three Rs of asking for things: Recognition, Request, and Reward.

Appearances

Business Insider Article

I had the privilege of sharing my story of incarceration and breaking into tech with Kylie Robison, a journalist for Business Insider focused on developers and their communities, tools, startups, and more.

This former felon has a successful career in tech with stints at Amazon and hot startups — and he wants to teach other ex-cons how to do it too

You Got This Conf

I gave a talk for YouGotThis Conf podcast where I share my methodology for asking for things.

As a part of the Developer Relations industry, Kurt constantly collaborates with people and stresses on having a system to get consistent results when asking folks for things.

#AntiracistEconomist Podcast

I had the honor of being a guest on Kim Crayton's podcast where we discussed white privilege, the prison industrial complex, and the issues of mediocre white men in tech.

Tech is Not Neutral, Nor is it Apolitical Intention without Strategy is Chaos Lack of Inclusion is a Risk/Crisis Management Issue ….and lastly and most importantly Prioritize the Most Vulnerable

Learn with Jason x freeCodeCamp Interview

I spoke with long time friend Jason Lengstorf about my journey into tech. The main focus was on applying skills gained from other professions to the tech industry.