Introducing Twilio Developer Evangelist Sam Agnew

“Hey Sam, I think we might actually break 1000 attendees this time.”

One of the new organizers told me as I gazed in awe at the last HackRU of my student career. This event and community have come so far in just a few short years. The first HackRU had more boxes of pizza than human beings in attendance so the thought of 1000 people showing up blew my mind. I was proud to be part of the team that could grow this community into what it is today.

My thoughts were interrupted when I encountered Rob Spectre walking around. During the previous week, I had accepted an offer to join Twilio’s devangelism team. Rob, the leader of this team, asked for my help assembling the Twilio banner. I looked around and realized that it was because of this community that I was led to developer evangelism. This community made me who I am now. From every community I’ve contributed to, I’ve gotten back even more than what I put into helping that community grow.

How did this happen?

Three Years Earlier

I was exhausted and had a pile of scho

“Are you going to that RU hackathon thing?”

It was a text from my buddy Reggie. The idea of HackRU seemed exciting to us and we really wanted to check it out so after seeing Reggie’s message, I left practice and scrambled to catch a bus back to New Brunswick. Upon arriving, I was amazed by the vibrant community of developers thriving right under my nose. I had no idea that this collection of builders and hackers existed at my school. It made me realize that I didn’t need to limit myself to only learning from my Computer Science courses and inspired me to start building things on my own. This hackathon changed my life.

Growing the Rutgers Hacker Community

Rutgers had a reputation for having top notch hackers and a thriving developer community. Rumors were spreading that this was ending as the next school year rolled around because the best hackers were graduating. Now the up-and-comers had to take things into their own hands, myself included. After going to 10 hackathons in one semester and taking a job tutoring CS students at our de facto hacker hangout (“The CAVE”), I understood the community better.

My involvement with our hacker community led me to helping with the next HackRU and ultimately to volunteering as the new director of the event. We were the final of five events for the first Major League Hacking season, which measured schools based on their attendance and performance at hackathons. We were overwhelmed with excitement upon hearing that Rutgers took second place out of 110 schools. My first semester leading HackRU was a success and our community grew immensely. But my community building skills grew even more through the experience I’ve gained working non-stop on the event.

New Home, New Passion, New York

During the next Winter break, I vividly remember walking along a beach in Cape May frantically trying to check my email despite not having service. When I finally got through, I began jumping for joy after seeing a message titled “Your hackNY Application – YES!”

Through hackNY, I worked at Ordr.in, a small startup with a food delivery API. I worked on some internal tools and open source projects related to the API, but my favorite aspect of being with Ordr.in was my ability to work on a product that serves developers. Seeing “the spark” in the eyes of fresh developers getting their first app working and inspiring them to continue hacking was the most rewarding feeling I’ve ever had.

The feeling of seeing that spark was what made me so excited when Ordr.in asked me to be their devangelist while finishing up my last year of school. Throughout my time at hackathons I have always admired the developer evangelists attending these events. They were superheroes to me. Errors that would take me hours to solve were fixable within minutes of having an extra set of eyes. The best ones inspired developers in the same way that the leaders in the Rutgers hacker community set out to do.

Back to the Future

I was running around helping to coordinate the massive amounts of Chinese food that had just arrived, when I was notified that our attendance count finally hit 1000. I was astounded to have helped HackRU reach an inflection point where it grew organically to its current state. I am lucky to be part of this community and to have grown so much because of it. The leadership experience I’ve gained from running HackRU and the mentorship I received from hackNY and Ordr.in put me in my current position. All of this is what compelled me to inspire and equip developers in my career.

It is amazing to see what happens when a developer harnesses the ability to code. As if possessing magical powers, crazy ideas can become reality in mere hours. I’m looking forward to supercharging the developer community in the greatest city in the world and beyond. Feel free to reach out if you ever need help with anything Twilio or code related. Or if you just want to jam and share your story.

• Email: sagnew@twilio.com
• Twitter: @Sagnewshreds
• Github: Sagnew