Introducing Twilio Developer Evangelist Kaelyn Chresfield

According to my parents, I was a loud baby. Even the tiniest inconveniences set me off like a car alarm. When I was happy, I also yelled at the top of my lungs, exposing a single “snaggletooth”, as my dad liked to call it, and a devilish smile. I wasn’t the easiest infant and as I transitioned into a toddler it only got worse. My high pitched cries turned into embarrassingly rude questions. I'd ask if a person washed their hands after using the bathroom then proceeded to clean said bathroom no matter what their answer was - even as a child I was steadfast in my beliefs.

By college my voice lowered but my actions were still loud and “a lot”. My mother and I always bonded over interior design so it naturally became a passion of mine. When it came to designing my college dorm I was keen on discussing ideas with my future roommate. Being the ambitious person I am, I carefully curated two PowerPoint presentations, one covering design themes and one covering color options, and sent them to my roommate over email. I later found out she shared the email with all of her friends fearing that I was deranged, but the room looked nice!

Post graduation I couldn’t find a job in my studied field so I joined a coding bootcamp where I then became a teacher. A quote that stuck with me and helped me prepare for my role was, “Expertise is knowing the right path to the solution. Mastery is knowing all the wrong paths and why they might look right”. Being a teacher meant perfecting a craft while staying two steps ahead so I could tend to the needs of others, which instinctively felt right but a little scary. My voice had more power than ever before and took on multiple forms. Aside from passing on accurate information, the interactions with my students needed to be purposeful

After working as a developer at a manufacturing company, I landed a job as a Developer Evangelist at Twilio. The whirlwinds of onboarding had my imposter syndrome at an all time high while I took time to learn and embody my role. As an evangelist how would or should I interact with my community? How could I utilize my past experiences and contribute to my awesome team? After two drafts of this blog, one in my voice and one in my idea of the “Twilio voice”, Devin, the Director of World Wide Dev Relations, told me that my voice is the Twilio voice. My quirks and admittedly my over attention to detail and planning has helped me embrace my voice to fulfill this role.

Kaelyn Chresfield is a Developer Evangelist serving the Central Region of the United States. Her primary language is JavaScript and generally works with backend development. In her free time, Kaelyn enjoys digging for treasures at antique stores and interior design. She can be reached at kchresfield@twilio.com