Rizel Scarlett is a Staff Developer Advocate at TBD, Block's newest business unit. With a diverse background spanning GitHub, startups, and non-profit organizations, Rizel has cultivated a passion for utilizing emerging technologies to champion equity within the tech industry. She moonlights as an Advisor at G{Code} House, an organization aimed at teaching women of color and non-binary people of color to code. Rizel believes in leveraging vulnerability, honesty, and kindness as means to educate early-career developers.
Welcome to my human user guide. This includes a whole bunch of things that I would never tell y'all out loud, but would probably help you work best with me.
- Pronouns: she/her.
- I've been about my money ever since I immigrated to America when I was a kid. I worked a lot of random jobs like I used to be a phebotomist (drawing blood) at one point. I got into software development after I quit my help desk job to attend a coding bootcamp with my boyfriend (now husband). I got a dev job, and wanted to learn more, so I earned my degree in Computer Science at Boston University. I was obsessed with coding, but I had a bad experience at one of my software engineering jobs where they made me feel like crap, so I developed a passion for making devs feel empowered. I helped create a non profit coding bootcamp for women of color and non binary people of color and became a dev advocate, so I can help foster a positive work environment for devs.
- If you want to bounce ideas off me or you're looking for someone to collaborate with, I'm skilled at topics around open source, educating developers, and blogging.
- I like to get a lot of work done, and I prefer little to no red tape/blockers for me to deliver that work.
- I genuinely like learning to the point where I'm an expert or have ownership in a certain area because I want to be in a position where I could say, "I know how to help!"
- I'm a recovering workaholic. It doesn't help that I struggle with ADHD hyperfocus, so I can work nonstop, which is super unhealthy. I'm working on learning how to unplug.
- If you make plans to hang out with me, I might flake. Working on that.
- Saying "I need to talk to you" or putting a random meeting with no context on my calendar. Just tell me what we are going to talk about. No need to create random anxiety for me.
- When people are unwilling to help coworkers. It's a team effort. If you win, we all win.
- Too much bragging
- Giving me short, artificial deadlines
- Micromanaging
- I speak loudly and I'm friendly, but I'm introverted and shy. I know how to feign extroversion. When I'm at a conference, there's only so much socializing I can do before I hide in my room to recharge my social battery.
- I use social media a lot.
- I'm not super..formal. From blog posts to Twitch streams, I take a casual approach.
- I get my best thoughts through writing and taking time to think by myself, so if we are on a call to brainstorm, I may not think of anything until the call ends. Then, I will message you with my ideas.
- I do my best work when you give me creative freedom and autonomy to experiment. My approach to DevRel can be unorthodox, but it's worth it.
- I'm probably going to ask lots of ignorant questions every single day, but it's so I can get to a point where I'm the one answering questions. Thanks for your patience in advance!
- Many assume and take my kindess for weakness, but I consider my kindness to be one of my greatest strengths. Don't take advantage of my kindness though, please and thank you!
- I have general anxiety disorder, which gets worse once a month because of PMDD so I might ask for clarification or reassurance to avoid jumping to the wrong conclusion.
- I promote my content and my peers content A LOT. I believe that's how you get people to view the content and learn about things like web5 and tbdex.
- Empathy.
- Vulnerability.
- Balanced work ethic.
- Be know it alls like we get it..you're smart. That's why we are all here. We're smart.
- Share knowledge with coworkers. That's how we all win
- Vulnerability
- I like to let them have creative freedom, and if they make mistakes, help them fix it rather than berate them.
- Slack me or Discord.
- Butter me up with kind words and then go for the ask. I probably won't say no 😆
- Negative: In a nice way mixed with compliments..in a private setting
- Positive: I try to recognize positive little things that people have done in a public setting
- I like positive reinforcement. The more you tell me I'm doing well, the harder I will work to be even better!
- I'm still working on receiving negative feedback properly, but please deliver it as kindly as possible in a private setting. You can send me a slack giving me a heads up that I will receive negative feedback, then we can hop on a video call to discuss more. Maybe sandwich it between a few compliments because sometimes I take negative feedback to heart and I overwork until I burnout to redeem myself.