name	developer-visibility
description	Build professional visibility through LinkedIn, GitHub, conference speaking, and internal branding. Provides frameworks for personal brand development, content creation, and career growth.
allowed-tools	Read, Glob, Grep, WebFetch, WebSearch

Developer Visibility Skill

Build and maintain professional visibility as a software developer through strategic personal branding, content creation, and community engagement.

Keywords

linkedin, github, portfolio, personal brand, branding, conference, speaking, cfp, call for papers, meetup, visibility, networking, thought leadership, content, blog, newsletter, internal visibility, career growth

When to Use This Skill

This skill provides guidance when developers want to:

Build their professional brand and online presence
Create LinkedIn content that drives engagement
Write conference proposals (CFPs) that get accepted
Develop their personal brand statement
Increase visibility within their organization
Build credibility on GitHub and Stack Overflow
Navigate self-promotion without feeling "salesy"

Core Framework: Skills x Interests x Market Needs

Your personal brand niche lives at the intersection of three circles:

        ┌─────────────┐
        │   SKILLS    │
        │ What am I   │
        │  good at?   │
        └──────┬──────┘
               │
    ┌──────────┼──────────┐
    │          │          │
    ▼          ▼          ▼
┌───────┐  ┌───────┐  ┌───────┐
│       │  │ YOUR  │  │       │
│       │◄─┤ NICHE ├─►│       │
│       │  │       │  │       │
└───┬───┘  └───────┘  └───┬───┘
    │                     │
    ▼                     ▼
┌─────────────┐   ┌─────────────┐
│  INTERESTS  │   │   MARKET    │
│ What do I   │   │   NEEDS     │
│   enjoy?    │   │ What's in   │
└─────────────┘   │   demand?   │
                  └─────────────┘

Niche Discovery Exercise

Create three columns and list at least 5 items in each:

Skills (What I'm good at)	Interests (What I enjoy)	Market Needs (What's in demand)
Cloud architecture	Teaching/mentoring	AI/ML implementation
Performance optimization	Writing	Platform engineering
API design	Public speaking	Security/DevSecOps
Debugging complex systems	Open source	Developer experience
System design	Community building	Observability

Your niche: Look for overlap across all three columns.

Personal Brand Statement

Use this formula to craft your positioning:

"I help [target audience] achieve [specific outcome] by [your unique approach]"

Examples

"I help backend developers build scalable APIs by sharing battle-tested patterns from enterprise systems"
"I help teams adopt DevOps practices by breaking down complex concepts into actionable steps"
"I help early-career developers navigate their first architecture decisions through practical examples"

LinkedIn Strategy

Profile Optimization

Headline Formula: [Role] | [Specialization] | [Value Proposition]

Examples:

"Senior Backend Engineer | Distributed Systems | Helping teams scale from 0 to 10M users"
"Staff Developer | .NET & Clean Architecture | Writing about pragmatic software design"

Post Structure: Hook-Story-Insight-CTA

Hook (Lines 1-2): Bold statement, question, or surprising fact that makes people click "see more"
Story (Body): Your personal experience, what happened, what you learned
Insight (Key takeaway): The lesson that's transferable to others
CTA (End): Question, invitation, or next step

Five Storytelling Frames

Use these templates to generate content ideas:

Frame	Template	Example
Learning the Hard Way	"I [made mistake]. Here's what I learned..."	"I deployed to prod on Friday. Here's what I learned..."
Behind the Build	"Here's how we built [X] and why we chose [Y]..."	"Here's how we built our monitoring stack..."
Before/After	"We went from [problem] to [solution]. Here's how..."	"We went from 30s deploys to 3min. Here's how..."
Contrarian Take	"Everyone says [common belief]. But I think..."	"Everyone says microservices. But I think..."
Question Flip	"The question isn't [X], it's [Y]..."	"The question isn't 'which framework?' It's 'what problem?'"

Posting Best Practices

Frequency: 2-3 times per week minimum for growth
Timing: Weekday mornings (7-9 AM local time of your audience)
Format: Short paragraphs, line breaks, no walls of text
Visuals: Original photos (no text overlays) outperform stock images
Engagement: Respond to every comment in first 2 hours

Conference Speaking (CFP Writing)

CFP Title Formula

Structure: [What we did] + [Problem/Solution] + [Why it matters]

Examples:

"We Fine-Tuned ChatGPT, Then It Started Correcting Our CTO"
"How Our AI Onboarding Bot Confused Three New Devs (And What We Changed)"
"We Migrated to Microservices and Regretted It (For a While)"

What makes titles work:

Implies a journey or story
Promises truth, not perfection
Sparks curiosity
Has a human element

Abstract Structure

Hook (1 sentence): Why should anyone care?
Problem (2-3 sentences): What challenge did you face?
Approach (2-3 sentences): What did you try?
Outcome (1-2 sentences): What happened? What did you learn?
Takeaways (3 bullets): What will attendees walk away with?

Starting Small

Don't aim for KubeCon first. Build experience through:

Internal talks: Brown bags, tech shares, Friday demos
Local meetups: Language/framework-specific groups
Lightning talks: 5-10 minute low-stakes presentations
Online communities: Dev.to, Hashnode, virtual meetups
Regional conferences: Local tech events before major conferences

Internal Visibility

Building your brand within your organization:

Strategies

Become the "go-to" person for a specific topic
Document and share learnings from projects
Lead internal tech talks or lunch-and-learns
Write internal blog posts or wiki contributions
Mentor newer team members
Volunteer for cross-team initiatives
Share wins in team channels (without bragging)

The BRAG Document

Keep a running list of accomplishments:

Projects delivered and their impact
Problems solved
Mentorship provided
Process improvements
Skills developed
Recognition received

Update weekly. Use for performance reviews, promotion cases, and resume updates.

Promoting Without Feeling Salesy

Mindset Shifts

From (Salesy)	To (Value-Driven)
"Look what I did!"	"Here's what I learned that might help you"
"Hire me!"	"I've been thinking about this problem..."
"I'm an expert"	"I've made these mistakes so you don't have to"
Self-promotion	Knowledge sharing

The 80/20 Rule

80% value: Educational content, insights, helping others
20% promotional: Your achievements, announcements, opportunities

References

For detailed guidance, see:

references/personal-brand-framework.md - Complete niche discovery and positioning
references/linkedin-strategies.md - Post templates, engagement tactics, profile optimization
references/cfp-writing.md - Conference proposal examples and abstract templates
references/internal-visibility.md - Organizational visibility tactics
references/storytelling-frames.md - Content templates and story structures

Related Commands

/soft-skills:craft-linkedin-post - Generate LinkedIn posts with storytelling frames
/soft-skills:write-cfp - Draft conference proposals
/soft-skills:brand-statement - Develop personal brand positioning

Anti-Patterns to Avoid

Being everywhere badly vs. being excellent in one place
Copying others vs. finding your authentic voice
Chasing vanity metrics (likes) vs. meaningful connections
Inconsistency - Starting strong, then disappearing
Corporate speak - Writing like a press release instead of a human
Only promoting - No value-add content
Waiting until "ready" - You already have stories worth sharing

Version History

v1.0.0 (2025-12-26): Initial release

Last Updated

Date: 2025-12-26 Model: claude-opus-4-5-20251101

developer-visibility

Install Skill

SKILL.md