Hiring for a New Team: Oracle Database Evangelists

I have been given the honor of building a new team at Oracle: Oracle Database Evangelists.

The Oracle Database Evangelists team is responsible for helping users fully leverage their investment in Oracle Database and to promote the use of Oracle Database technologies, including SQL, PL/SQL, Application Express, Oracle REST Data Services, and more.

So what does it mean to be an evangelist? I very much like the following quote:

A developer evangelist is first and foremost a translator. Someone who can explain technology to different audiences to get their support for a certain product or technology. It needs to be someone who is technical but also capable to find the story in a technical message… A good developer evangelist can get techies excited about a product by pointing out the benefits for developers who use the product on an eye-to-eye level." 

Christian Heilmann, Principal Technical Evangelist at Mozilla

I like the focus on "translation", because our team will be first and foremost dedicated to helping our users succeed. And to do that, you often do need to "translate" the product features and the product documentation into how-tis and examples that are accessible and quickly applied. 

Oracle Database Evangelist Job Description

Each Oracle Database Evangelist (ODE) is responsible for the creation of high quality and highly entertaining resources for training and education; channeling user requirements back to Product Management and Product Development; building a vibrant, engaged global user community.

Detailed Description

The ideal ODE candidate:

• Is an expert in at least one product area
• Can explain things in ways people understand and by which they are inspired
• Enjoys performing in front of a crowd – and a camera
• Works on a development team (you have to use it or you lose it)
• Is easy to get along with; her or his ego fits through the doorway
• Is a user evangelist, representing user needs and issues to development teams

Each ODE will:

• Hold monthly webinars in their technology focus area
• Write and publish through the PL/SQL Challenge a weekly quiz on their technology
• Publish daily tips through Twitter and other social media outlets
• Attend key Oracle and Oracle User Group conferences, to present, listen and learn
• Work closely with Product Management and Product Development to both deepen product understanding and more effectively communicate to users how to use those products.

Location and Travel

The ODE team is distributed geographically; you do not need to work out of Oracle Headquarters to do this job.

You should expect 25% travel, though the amount of travel will be largely up to you. The focus of our team is on building global communities, and this will be done mostly through the Internet, as opposed to via jet planes.

Interested? Excited? Get in touch!

I am! One of my key objectives in returning to Oracle after a 22 year absence is to help PL/SQL developers utilize that language more fully, and to make it easier for all the experts "out there" (outside of Oracle) to contribute their knowledge to the global community.

The ODE team is going to be precisely the vehicle to do that. And along the way, we will utilize the latest multimedia and education technologies to create engaging, entertaining resources that will change the way our core application development technologies for Oracle Database are perceived and used.

If you've been around the Oracle technology community for a while and are looking for a way to contribute more, to do more, to have a greater impact, then please consider the ODE position. If you want to help ensure that languages like SQL and PL/SQL flourish, are fully appreciated and used to their max, if you like to help others do what you have learned to do, then go to Taleo, find requisition number 14000L34 and apply!