Becoming a GDE - What, Why, and How

I was a Google Developer Expert (GDE) on Angular and Web technologies from 2016 to 2020. Here is my sharing on the GDE program - what is it about, how to become one, and my 4 years experience in it.

Oh, I am no longer a GDE anymore. Why is that? Read on! 👀

Here's the slides:

Official GDE program information

• GDE program details here
• GDE directory here

GDE community resources

• Aaron Frosty, Angular GDE: Preparing to be a GDE
• Stephen Fluin, Developer relations, Googler: How to Become an Angular GDE
• Wajat Karim, Android GDE: Becoming a GDE in Android

How's my experience with the program?

It's been a fruitful experience. Throughout these four years, I visited various countries, spoke in different conferences, and met and collaborated with my fellow GDEs.

The program has widened my horizons and challenged me to keep on learning & growing. Here's a review of my past 4 years of community involvement, partly enabled by the GDE program.

Year 2016

First year in the program. Visited both the US & attended Chrome Dev Summit (CDS) for the very first time! How excited I was to meet the Chrome team members and developers in real life. 🤩 Checking out what's available in the booths is equally exciting. For me, this experience set the standard of what a good tech conference experience should be.

Also did a video shooting for the first time as well, so nervous! It was the web developer portrait series by Google. Walking on the street, talking to myself and NGs for... quite a few times.

Continued to host local meetups and workshops as I always do. Slowly received more invitations to speak in cross state local events. Also continued to publish online tutorials on scotch.io and Medium.

Year 2017

Attended Google I/O, the annual developer conference for the first time. Sitting at the front row during the keynote! Met my fellow Women Who Code from around the world during the conference. (Can you spot me? 🕵🏼‍♀️)

Also attended ng-conf, the original Angular conference @ Salt Lake City, US. Thanks to the organizer @Frosty (Angular GDE) for sponsoring my ticket, which I could not afford. The conference was very well-organized, entertaining and insightful. This amazing experience inspired me to start planning a conference to bring this wonderful experience closer to home.

The same year, I got accepted to my first two overseas conferences @ Codecamp, Romania & DevFest, Cebu, Phillipines! Big crowd, both with over 800+ attendees. Oh, I also did a sharing in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Year 2018

As part of my plan towards organizing an international conference, I took up the role to organize Google I/O Extended in Kuala Lumpur. A lot of first times for me personally. From drafting sponsorship proposal and budgeting to event scheduling and printing merchandise. I'm grateful to have gotten valuable advice from other GDEs and help from the volunteers.

We had 400 attendees. The turn up rate was 96%, which was very good for Malaysian standards. Our efforts on promoting a responsible culture paid off.

At the same time, I've unlocked more overseas speaking too @ Germany, Taiwan & US. Good content matters, but the GDE title did (probably) put me in a better position, I guess.

Year 2019

2019 is indeed a busy year for me. Full of conference travels, and finally realizing a long dream of mine - NG-MY, the first Angular conference in the region!

Challenging indeed. Although I gained some experiences last year, this time it is fully self-funded. The stress of 💵 is real, since the event scale is bigger because we planned to invite international speakers. With the support from my fellow Angular GDEs (speaking, sponsoring, sharing contacts and advice) and my awesome team, we made it!

It's a successful one. Good mix of international and regional speakers, 400+ attendees from 30+ countries, fun and loads of useful content. We also sponsored about 40 scholarships to help the local & regional attendees come together.

Oh, did I mention that I travelled to 12 countries, 25+ cities in the same year, and spoke in 25+ events? It was a crazy year!

Year 2020

After an eventful 2019, I decided to take a break in early 2020. Oh, COVID-19! 🦠 It's a challenging year ahead for many of us. 😔 I hope we, the human race, win this battle together.

Another big decision for me was... I joined Google as a Developer Advocate for Google Chrome. I will be relocating to Munich, Germany, but it was delayed. Memorable start indeed during this pandemic.

Thanks to technology, I still got to meet my teammates virtually. Looking forward to working together with the talented team, continuing to bring you better developer experiences and productivity on the DevTools.

Summary

Looking back, it was an amazing 4 years! I am glad to be part of this big GDE family. Gaining new friendship, unlocking new skills, learning, growing and contributing back to the community at the same time. The program opened up tremendous new opportunities for me. I might probably not have achieved all the above without the support from the program and the community.

From 2016, when I first attended CDS, to 2020, when I joined the Chrome team. Who’d have thought? Alright, last photo 👇🏼, some of us having fun during the GDE Summit after party last year.