overview
After seven months as a frontend engineer on the main website, I transferred laterally to the Developer Relations team. The move was driven by a desire to combine my engineering background with teaching — creating content that made Ably's real-time platform accessible to developers at all levels.
The role covered the full content pipeline: designing demos, writing tutorials, shooting and editing video, and managing the public YouTube channel. I also upskilled colleagues in video production and codified the process in an internal policy document.
what i did
Code as content
Engineered prototype JavaScript apps as the primary artefact for each piece of content. Each demo was a working application demonstrating a specific Ably feature — WebSockets, presence, history, channels, pub/sub — written cleanly enough to serve as the tutorial code itself.
Blog post tutorials
Wrote developer-facing how-to articles anchored to each prototype. Covered integrations with Netlify Functions, Netlify Identity, Netlify Edge Functions, and various JAMstack static site generators.
Video learning and screencasts
Shot, directed and edited "how-to" screencasts and product learning videos. Managed the full production workflow — scripting, recording with Riverside Studio, editing in DaVinci Resolve and Premiere Pro, and publishing via the YouTube Creator tools.
YouTube channel rebrand and management
Rebranded the Ably YouTube channel. Reviewed and cleaned up the existing catalogue (low quality audio and video), established publishing standards, and took over ongoing channel management.
Video production upskilling
Trained colleagues in basic video editing skills. Wrote the internal video production policy — covering recording standards, file naming, quality thresholds and the review process — to ensure the team could produce content independently and consistently.
Figma + JSON automation
Explored automation of design assets using Figma's plugin API with JSON-driven content pipelines, producing parameterised templates for documentation illustrations and social assets.
published articles
video tutorials
Three tutorial videos produced and published on the Ably YouTube channel:
Publish & Subscribe with JavaScript and Ably — An explainer of the pub/sub concept followed by a narrated code demonstration building a simple app with the Ably SDK.
The WebSocket Handbook by Ably — A walkthrough of the Ably WebSocket handbook, covering the protocol, use cases, and how Ably builds on top of it.
Building a realtime quiz app with AWS & Ably — A full tutorial walking through building a realtime quiz application using AWS services and the Ably platform.