Laravel DevRel, Learning in Public, and Building a Career Through Community | Leah Thompson | Master.dev Podcast Episode #33

In this episode of the Master.dev podcast, Dustin Tower, VP of Learning, sits down with Leah Thompson, DevRel and community engineer at Laravel and Twitch streamer (LeahTCodes), to talk about developer relations, learning in public, and how community can launch a tech career.

Leah shares her non-traditional path into software: from a pure mathematics degree and a stint teaching high school math, to the free 100Devs bootcamp, to her first job as an HTML email developer. She explains how a free Laracon US ticket and a message to Taylor Otwell led to a job at Laravel just months later. Along the way, she talks about why teaching is the fastest way to learn, how streaming prepares you for conference speaking, and why being authentic is the key to building an audience.

Leah also digs into the Laravel stack (React, Inertia, Laravel, and Tailwind), why Laravel's opinionated structure works so well with AI coding agents, how Laravel Boost helps close the context gap for models, and her advice for beginners learning to code in the age of AI.If you're interested in Laravel, developer relations, conference speaking, learning in public, AI-assisted development, or breaking into tech without a traditional CS degree, this conversation is full of practical insight and encouragement.

#Laravel, #DevRel, #Inertia, #AI, #WebDevelopment, #LearnInPublic, #Podcast

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