Ashley Willis

CEO

Seattle, Washington, United States11 yrs experience

Most Likely To SwitchAI ML Practitioner

Key Highlights

Led global developer advocacy teams at GitHub and Google.
Pioneered open source community strategies at Microsoft.
Recognized as Greatest Individual Contributor to Developer Relations.

Stackforce AI infers this person is a SaaS and Cloud Computing expert with strong community advocacy skills.

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Skills

Core Skills

Developer AdvocacyCommunity ManagementOpen-source SoftwareTechnology Management

Other Skills

Cross-functional Team LeadershipAI ProductivityProgram ManagementContent StrategyPeople ManagementProduct Lifecycle ManagementDeveloper RelationsTechnical LeadershipOpen SourceCommunity OutreachLeadershipBloggingGolangGoLinux

About

Developer Relations leader with 10+ years building global communities, leading advocacy organizations, and helping companies earn genuine trust with developers. I currently lead Developer Advocacy at GitHub, where my team focuses on AI-powered tools including GitHub Copilot, developer education, and community programs. Before GitHub, I led open source and developer community strategy at Google. Before that, I spent five years at Microsoft building the Open Source Advocacy team from scratch, starting with Go, Python, and Node communities and eventually leading 40 advocates across languages and cloud-native infrastructure. I'm a self-taught developer and longtime open source contributor. I co-created Gopherize.me with Mat Ryer, a Go-powered web app we built and shipped to production in under five hours. I created Bit the Raccoon, the mascot for the Developer Advocate community. I've contributed a large body of Go Gopher artwork built on Renée French's original design, with 3.1K+ GitHub stars. I speak about burnout, trust, sustainable leadership, and what it means to genuinely advocate, not just amplify. Keynote speaker at Google Cloud Next, GopherCon, and Adobe ColdFusion Summit. I write about DevRel and the human side of developer communities at ashley.dev. Google Developer Expert. Award for Greatest Individual Contributor to Developer Relations0

Experience

11 yrs

Total Experience

2 yrs 3 mos

Average Tenure

2 yrs 8 mos

Current Experience

Github

Senior Director of Developer Relations

Aug 2023 – Present · 2 yrs 8 mos · Remote

I lead Developer Advocacy at GitHub, a ~22-person global team across GitHub Enterprise, JavaScript/Web, and Python advocacy.
My work centers on driving developer adoption of AI-powered tools including GitHub Copilot, coordinating advocacy across tier-one product launches, and translating community signals into product strategy for engineering and PM leadership.
Led developer education and community programs aligned to Copilot adoption goals, including agentic feature adoption initiatives. I built intake and topic alignment systems that increased planned content output while reducing reactive work, and present community strategy and program performance directly to C-suite, connecting developer engagement to product feedback loops.
I also write about DevRel, sustainable leadership, and the human side of developer communities at ashley.dev.

Developer advocacyCross-functional Team LeadershipCommunity ManagementAI Productivity

Google

Head of Open Source & Developer Communities

May 2022 – Aug 2023 · 1 yr 3 mos · Seattle, Washington, United States

Led open source developer community strategy and ecosystem growth at Google Cloud, including ownership of the Champion Innovators program, a global community of ~600 expert developers across 70 countries.
I oversaw cross-functional OKRs that drove 4M community content impressions in 2023, 175% above target, across 567 events, 864 pieces of content, and 136 workshops. I directed the adoption of Advocu as the program's first community management platform, successfully migrating 94% of the community.
I also led Google Cloud's developer presence at Google Cloud Next, overseeing developer keynote content, executive AMAs, and Champion speaker curation, and designed the Cloud Creators short-form content program in partnership with YouTube Shorts.

Community ManagementDeveloper advocacyProgram ManagementContent StrategyCross-functional Team Leadership

Microsoft

2 roles

PrIncipal Developer Advocate

Jul 2017 – May 2021 · 3 yrs 10 mos · Remote

See Director of DevRel entry above, this role represents the IC period before being promoted to Director in 2019.

Developer RelationsDeveloper advocacyTechnology ManagementTechnical Leadership

Director of DevRel

Mar 2017 – May 2022 · 5 yrs 2 mos · Remote

I was asked to build Microsoft's Open Source Advocacy team from scratch, starting with language communities in Go, Python, and Node, then scaling to lead 40 advocates across Go, Python, Rust, Java, JavaScript, Linux, and Cloud Native.
I created a technical community prioritization framework that directly changed org-wide investment decisions, including increased Python investment and the restructuring of DevOps as a horizontal function. Python team feedback drove Azure build optimizations that made workloads 10–20% faster and delivered 2–4x performance improvements for Python web apps on Azure App Service.
My team shipped the Open API extension for Azure Functions .NET, reaching GA with 250K downloads and adoption in 200+ Function Apps. I served on the Azure Credits for Open Source Steering Committee, distributing $200K+ in credits to high-impact OSS projects.
I also led an unplanned org reorg as interim leader during extended senior leadership absence, founded the DevRel D&I burnout initiative that became a weekly work/life balance v-team, and was recognized as Greatest Individual Contributor to Developer Relations.

Developer advocacyCommunity ManagementOpen-Source SoftwarePeople ManagementProduct Lifecycle Management

Pivotal

Principal Technologist

Mar 2017 – Jul 2017 · 4 mos · Austin, Texas · Remote

Joined Pivotal to build Go community visibility and developer advocacy around Cloud Foundry, one of the most significant open source cloud platforms of that era. Focused on making the Go community aware of Pivotal's substantial Go investment across projects like Diego, Ginkgo, Gomega, and Concourse, and helping enterprise customers adopt cloud-native best practices through workshops, talks, and technical content.
Left after five months when Microsoft recruited me to build their Open Source Advocacy team.

Rackspace, the #1 managed cloud company

4 roles

Director of Technical Communities

Promoted

Aug 2015 – Mar 2016 · 7 mos · Austin, Texas Metropolitan Area

Built ObjectRocket's developer advocacy function from the ground up, ObjectRocket being Rackspace's managed database product. Earned four promotions in under 18 months, from Community Manager to Director of Technical Communities, by combining technical credibility with community leadership at scale.
I organized 35 international developer events in 18 months across hackathons, meetups, and conferences, acted as the bridge between third-party developers and Rackspace product teams, and was an active documentation contributor to OpenStack.

Open SourceCommunity OutreachCommunity ManagementDeveloper advocacyDeveloper RelationsLeadership

Senior Developer Advocate

Promoted

Aug 2014 – Aug 2015 · 1 yr · Austin, Texas Metropolitan Area

See Director of Technical Communities entry, these roles represent the four-promotion progression that led to that position.

Developer Advocate

Promoted

May 2014 – Aug 2014 · 3 mos · Austin, Texas Metropolitan Area

Community Manager

Mar 2014 – May 2014 · 2 mos · Austin, Texas Metropolitan Area

Ashley mcnamara consulting

Founder

Feb 2005 – Mar 2014 · 9 yrs 1 mo · San Francisco Bay Area

Built community programs, digital strategy, and developer engagement for tech clients including Cisco and Pure Storage.

Ashley mcnamara photography

Founder

Jan 2000 – Feb 2014 · 14 yrs 1 mo · San Francisco Bay Area · On-site

Experienced commercial photographer with a strong reputation for capturing the beauty and emotion of newborn, maternity, and family moments.
Built a successful photography business from the ground up, including developing and launching a range of high-quality tools and resources for fellow photographers, like Photoshop Actions, Lightroom Presets, business workshops, and custom plugins. Each product was thoughtfully designed to support others in growing their own creative practice.