Hello! From Your New Dev Advocate

Hi everyone! I'm Ron, and I joined CelerData about a month ago as a Developer Advocate. I'm excited to be here and finally say hello.

It's been just over a month, and while I've been quiet publicly, I've been ramping up behind the scenes. I've been diving deep into StarRocks and connecting with people across the community. If we haven't met yet, I'm really looking forward to changing that soon.

My goal is simple: to make it easier for you to build great things with StarRocks. Whether that means creating helpful content, sharing valuable resources, collaborating on projects, or just being a friendly voice in the community, I'm here to support you.

The Road That Led Me Here

I'm originally from New Jersey, but I spent several years in the SF Bay Area before heading back to Jersey for school. My love for teaching and building community around software started pretty early. As a student, I often stuck around after class to tutor classmates in Java and other STEM subjects.

While majoring in computer science, I worked as a part-time lecturer teaching CS students the fundamentals of programming and computer architecture. I loved writing code, but I truly came alive helping people understand it. Whether I was explaining tricky concepts, creating videos to support coursework, or holding office hours, I found a lot of joy in helping others grow their skills.

Early in my career, I jumped into the fast-paced world of fintech in New York City. For a few years, I helped build real-time data infrastructure for trading desks managing large volumes of fixed income assets on the sell-side. If you've been keeping an eye on the treasury markets recently, you know it's an exciting space. Always happy to talk shop if you're interested.

My work centered around designing low-latency systems that could deliver fast and reliable data to support critical decisions. Python, AWS, Airflow, Java, Kafka, time-series databases like KDB+/TimeScale, and messaging systems became my daily toolkit. Over time, I realized I could make an even bigger impact by focusing not just on writing code, but on helping others become great developers themselves.

So I made it my mission to empower other builders through content, community, and education. 

That passion is what brought me to CelerData.

Looking Ahead: A Foundation for Success

I'm truly excited to be part of this community and can't wait to continue learning from all of you. Over the past few weeks, I've had great conversations with countless StarRocks users and contributors. From those conversations, a few early priorities have come into focus.

First, I'd love to create bite-sized content that breaks down StarRocks features and concepts into quick, easy-to-understand pieces. I know from experience that complex analytical databases can feel overwhelming at first, and digestible content helps people build confidence gradually. 

Second, I'm thinking about building educational roadmaps so both new and experienced users have a clear path to follow. Having a structured learning journey prevents that "where do I even start?" feeling that can paralyze new users. 

Third, I see opportunities to complement our comprehensive documentation with more video content to help users get started quickly. Our docs cover everything you need to know in great depth, but sometimes a quick video walkthrough can bridge the gap between reading about a feature and seeing it in action. 

Finally, I'm excited about sharing best practices that could help you get the most out of your StarRocks setup, whether it's tuning performance, modeling your data, or optimizing ingestion. From my trading infrastructure days, I learned that knowing the "why" behind configurations is just as important as knowing the "how."

Of course, these are just some starting points. I'd love to hear directly from you about what would be most helpful. If you have suggestions, feedback, or just want to introduce yourself, please don't hesitate to reach out. You can find me in the StarRocks Slack, on LinkedIn.

I believe the best way to move forward is by listening and building together. So stay tuned for more to come, and let's make StarRocks the best it can be together.

Looking forward to connecting and collaborating,

Ron