Building a Drupal Career Roadmap: The Journey from Site Builder to Architect

Every year, many web developers travel to Drupalcon to increase their knowledge, network and advance their career as a Drupal developer. As a 10-year veteran of Drupal, I have a similar career journey going from freelance developer to Director of Development for Mediacurrent.

For the last 2 years as a director of a Drupal shop I have screened and interviewed many folks wanting to move up in their career to an agency. Their stories are often similar - experience working on a small team, effective at Drupal site building, some custom module development but eager to move on to next level. Instead of being one of a few developers for a university or non-profit, they want to work with dozens of talented folks at an agency. Instead of managing a couple Drupal sites, they want to work on the bleeding edge stuff they see at Drupalcon.

This session is going to walk you through the steps to get you where you want to go. Part motivational, part practical guide - our goal is to get you further down the path of professional growth. Time and time again I see people with aspirations for advancing their career without a clear roadmap for how to get there. Let me share my experiences with you both as a developer and now as a hiring manager. Want to build awesome stuff for great companies? We can help!

Got questions? Don’t worry, we have an all-star panel featuring development pros April Sides and Mark Shropshire who can help answer your questions as we go through each topic.

Session Outline

• Biographies from Jay, April & Mark
• What’s wrong with being a Site builder anyway?
  • Walking through the journey
  • Explaining the gap between Site Builder and Backend Developer
  • How can I become a Senior Developer? (What is a senior developer?)
  • What are the skills I need to be a Lead Architect?
• What are agencies looking for in a candidate?
• What can I do to stand out against other job applicants?
• Understanding the pace of work at an agency
• How do increase my skills as a developer?
• Drupal 8 opportunities and challenges
  • Drupal is now geared for the enterprise more than ever
  • Drupal 8 learning approaches
• Panel Q&A with Jay (Director), April (Senior Developer) & Mark (Security Lead)

About Our Presenters

Jay Callicott is a Director of Development for Mediacurrent and an enthusiastic Drupal developer for over 10 years. He is also the maintainer of the popular OpenChurch Drupal distribution.

Jay is an avid supporter and contributor to Drupal open source projects. Jay writes blogs on Drupal and has spoken at several Drupal events including a session on Marketing Automation at Drupalcon, Austin in 2014 and a Features-related session at NYC Camp in 2015.

April Sides is a Senior Drupal Developer at Mediacurrent in Asheville, NC. Her background includes work in higher education and government, including the 2014 National Climate Assessment website released by The White House. She is also an active member of the Asheville Drupal User Group and is currently leading the effort to plan Drupal Camp Asheville 2017.

Mark Shropshire is the Open Source Security Lead at Mediacurrent. Over his 20+ year career leading technical teams, Mark gained experience in IT roles at a large urban research university and nationally recognized, award winning graphic communications company. Through these experiences, Mark has learned to lead others with an eye on the big picture, while getting into the details as a software developer, systems architect and system administrator. One of his proudest accomplishments has been his role in building a stronger technical community in the Charlotte North Carolina region. He is also the co-founder of the Charlotte Drupal User Group (CharDUG).