Arrested DevOps · Matt Stratton, Trevor Hess, Jessica Kerr, and Bridget Kromhout

Purposeful Personal Brand With Cassandra Faris

August 24, 2023·52 min·4 clips

Cassandra Faris argues you need a personal brand even if you're just an SRE writing code.

Personal brand is treated as practical work, not a performance. The cold open frames reputation as something built by helping others, becoming more successful, and becoming a kinder human being. The advice stays usable. The host brings up the awkward part: talking about your own work can feel weird, even when the work matters. Cassandra keeps the pressure low. Slick content is not required. Story matters more than polish, and she gives people a simple way to explain accomplishments without sounding like they are pitching themselves. Start with professional identity. Name the technical specialties, professional strengths, and contributions you bring to a team or field. Then add the personal layer. Interests, values, beliefs, family, and community are all fair ways to connect with people. That connection needs some intention too. Cassandra asks people to think about shared interests, the advice or information they want, and what they want to learn about others. The host keeps the whole thing human by admitting that editing tools can feel foreign, especially when an 11 year old has to show him how to make a cool TikTok. The anxiety gets smaller from there. The useful skill is not making a slick TikTok. It is learning to tell a clear story about work. Internal storytelling counts too. Nobody may post about a billing system on Instagram, but explaining why it mattered still helps inside an organization. Cassandra closes by pointing listeners to Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Blue Sky, and Cube Campus.

As heard by us

A grounded take on personal brand for technologists who would rather tell clearer stories than chase polish.

Personal branding, in this Arrested DevOps conversation, comes across less as self-promotion than as a way for technical people to explain what they do and build a reputation through generosity.

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Why you'd press play

Need a sane way to talk about your work without sounding slick?

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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