Dev Spotlight EP8 - Claude Barde - Trilitech & Tezos

In our latest Dev Spotlight interview, we sat down with Claude from Trilitech to discuss his extensive journey supporting developers in the Tezos ecosystem. With over four years of experience in this role, Claude has seen firsthand the evolution of Tezos and how it attracts talent.

Finding Tezos

Claude's initial foray into blockchain development began on Ethereum. While intrigued by smart contract capabilities, he found navigating issues quite challenging due to limited community support. This prompted him to research alternative blockchains leveraging functional programming languages, which led him to Tezos.

Impressed by Tezos' emphasis on decentralization and upgradability without compromise, Claude delved deeply into understanding its technical approach. Eager to help others avoid a similar onboarding experience, he began documenting his learnings around developing for Tezos through a series of approachable blogs and tutorials.

Sharing his knowledge

Claude's skill at clearly conveying complex concepts stood out, eventually leading the Taquito team to bring him on board as a developer advocate. Over the following years, he became a well-known figure in the Tezos community through extensive contributions assisting both newcomers and experienced developers alike.

Now at Trilitech focused specifically on developer success, Claude aims to continuously refine support mechanisms for the Tezos ecosystem. This involves proactively gathering feedback to resolve pain points, centralizing fragmented documentation, and ramping up hands-on content like video tutorials.

When asked what attracts developers to Tezos long-term, Claude emphasized its unique protocol-level upgrades paired with a highly collaborative community culture. According to him, Tezos innovates in a relentlessly decentralized manner prized by many builders.

Advice: Learn through doing

Throughout the conversation, Claude stressed the importance of learning through doing. There are no shortcuts to truly comprehending complex systems - lessons are best learned by getting one's hands dirty through practice, experimentation and inevitable mistakes along the way.

For aspiring developers, Claude advised focusing first on thoroughly grasping fundamentals before overambitious projects. By contributing to existing Tezos tooling through documentation, bug fixes or new features, significant positive impact can be made starting from a place of humility.

Claude's years of championing the Tezos developer journey provide valuable guidance for the ecosystem's future growth. His efforts at Trilitech aim to welcome many more problem-solvers to the table through an exemplary onboarding experience.

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Make sure to follow Claude on Twitter: https://twitter.com/claudebarde

‍And check out Trilitech too: https://www.trili.tech/

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Check out the other Dev Spotlight episodes here