Jennifer's introduction to advocacy

Jennifer Reif: Actually, it was when my dad, Mark Heckler, became a developer advocate at Pivotal. That was how I became familiar with what developer advocacy is. He talked about and demonstrated what he did on a daily basis.

I enjoy putting together demos and working on code, but then I also like the organizational aspect, speaking, and sharing information with other developers. So, I thought that type of role would fit really well with the things I like to do, as well as some of my strengths.

I found out that my dad was connected via Twitter with Ryan Boyd, and Neo4j had an opening for what I wanted to do. Ryan and I pinged back and forth on Twitter, then we went to Skype and Google Hangouts as part of an informal interview process. I met Ryan and talked to several members of the team I would be working on. After that, I had an official interview with some of the high-level staff. Then I got hired and I started in late February...