For Hire

I'm still surfing the web for my next adventure. Unfortunately, life happened, and I had a personal-life emergency that required my attention. Now that I've got life settled — I'm back on the quest for work. 😎

Oh! And I know with even more clarity what I'm looking for in my next role. 😉

I'm currently contracting on a per-project basis with a few individuals and organizations. These include Brian Douglas at Open Sauced,  ReactBricks, YouGotThis!, and Switchboard / No Code Ops.

I've also hosted a workshop sponsored by Common Room with CFE.dev on Building a Discord Strategy for Developers.

Additionally, I'm keeping my skills sharp — currently exploring the world of database tooling, contributing to open-source projects, and streaming on Twitch every Wednesday.

Check out my reel on YouTube.

Most recently, I spoke at How To Web, teaching attendees about the importance of proactive moderation.

Here's what conference attendee Irina Badescu had to say about the talk:
"Today I had the great opportunity of meeting Erin Mikail Staples, one of the keynote speakers at How To Web, who had a presentation about building online communities and keeping them healthy and safe for everyone. This also implies identifying the different types of "internet trolls" and getting to know the intentions and motivations behind their online behavior.

I absolutely loved her approach and her bubbly personality! We sat down and ended up talking about anything from mental health to research topics and how to stay organized when you have way too much on your plate. She is absolutely amazing! Thank you for meeting with me and making this day one of the highlights of the year ❤️" 

Scroll through this site to explore them all, or subscribe for updates in your inbox.

Or, enjoy this sample of posts below:

• What do community builders need to know about security.
• What you can learn by rickrolling your audience.
• How to create your own "for hire" page.
• Building a community design system.
• The rise of solopreneurship in media.
• The importance of language in gathering.

I'm passionate about learning and learning from one another. Whether it's in the classroom at NYU, through community, via content, or at a workshop — I'm an expert instructor in a multitude of mediums.

Don't just take my word for it — check out what others have to say:

• "Thank you - this topic is so so important. You had great suggestions and actions we can take. Also, love that Carl Sagan quote!" (CodeLand 2022)
• "Sitting down for my 1st episode of #DevRel book club, hosted by @matthewrevell & @hola_soy_milk w/ guest @erinmikail ... I am only 10 minutes in, have already ordered discussed book, and have had my mind blown at least four times!" (Leslie Hawthorn from DevRel BookClub)
• "An excellent session on community moderation @erinmikail and @brob... thank you so much for hosting it" (Simon Tomes)
• "@erinmikail was fantastic @how_to_web she is a role model for community builders worldwide. Go, Erin!" (Savian Boroanca)
• "If you want to learn more about the power of building a community, and how to do it right, you should be following @erinmikail She's often sharing her knowledge on this subject but also, she's such a beautiful person, really." (Karla Fernandez)

Kelly Liu, Product Manager @ Orbit
"Erin is such a talented individual and an absolute joy to collaborate with. She draws from her background in media, product, community, and being an internet being and uses all of these skills to effectively connect various teams together at work. She taught me that a community advocate doesn’t hurt communicate with the community, she also voiced community needs, provided product feedback, made sales intros, aided the support team, and taught non-community team members how to be good community participants.

Erin truly brings her all to her work and her energy and work ethic are infectious. I highly recommend Erin for whatever work she does in the future because I know she is adaptable, a fast learner, and will seek out ways to provide more value than you had thought possible."

Patrick Woods, Founder + CEO @ Orbit
"Erin is a deep thinker and strong people connector who’s as great at hosting a live stream or MCing an event as she is writing long-form content. Internally, she’s great at bringing community voice and insight back to the rest of the company. She's awesome at jumpstarting conversations in Discord with incredible energy, and in addition to all that, she always has a pulse of what’s going on with key folks across the community."

Tony Blank, Community @ Orbit
"Holy shit, I had the privilege of working with Erin for a scant 7 weeks as her leader at Orbit and I wish it was 7 years.

Don't get me started on macroeconomic climate and startup fundraising cycles...
My loss is your gain. Erin worked at Orbit for over a year before I joined, and the amazing work she did here will resonate throughout our community for a long time. Let me explain why:

• Erin (correctly) understands how community touches all aspects of a business. She'll boost the voice of your customers to the right internal stakeholders, ensuring that you're focused on what is important.
• Biased to action: Fastest "hey, I wonder if we should blog about BLAH" to "post under review" I've seen. Not just blogs - Erin's amazing at translating high-level directions to tactics. Every community team's fast-paced, and the ability to execute with many moving parts is a rare skill.
• Empathy: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that Erin wouldn't be applying to an org that doesn't GET what makes a community tick, so you know that empathy is important. What you don't know is that I've seen Erin's deep relationships forged in Orbit's community... She's been able to connect with our diverse community and bring everyone together.
• Technical empathy: Erin knows developers - not just from building dev communities, but she can talk the talk and walk the walk. Erin owned all the community ops plumbing during her time here at Orbit and not just helped get data into our own Orbit instance but helped our community with integrations too. Erin's technical experience directly translates into her ability to connect with a technical audience.

Let's chat: Happy to answer any specific questions you have (and, gonna be transparent, I'm gonna make sure you're "erin-worthy" too). Catch me at tony.blank@orbit.love!!"

Leia Dudek, Senior Account Executive @ Orbit
"I had the pleasure of working with Erin during our time together at Orbit. She was one of the first teammates to reach out to me directly to offer help as a new hire. She is incredibly kind, patient, thoughtful, and cares deeply about fostering relationships within community. Erin is always willing to offer assistance with any part of the business, whether it's creating developer content for marketing or making a warm introduction for the sales team, she's a true team player.

I'm so thankful our paths crossed professionally as she provided me with the community lens to my sales process. She will be an incredible addition to any company looking to build a meaningful community."

Amanda Quintero, Senior Manager, Business Ops @ Orbit
"Erin is a powerful human connector, strong communicator, and curious explorer. She's not afraid to test the product in all possible ways and listens with empathy to users' needs. She's also gifted with a contagious energy that ignites teamwork and makes her fun to work with."

Malki Davis, Senior Full Stack Engineer @ Orbit
"Erin was a gem at Orbit. She always filled the company with her cheer, optimism, and catchy smile. She has a good word for everyone, no matter what team or department. Erin always comes up with new and creative ideas and is never scared to ask questions on everyone's minds. She works with her heart and soul and genuinely cares for all her teammates."

Ramón Huidobro, Developer Relations @ Suborbital
"I’ve collaborated with Erin in various open source community-oriented events, and her ability to be thoughtful, strategic, as well as highly technical, all with an overall empathic care, is nothing short of inspiring.

She leverages her existing educational and core skill mastery to not only create effective, but inclusive content around communities in a technology-agnostic fashion.

Any team with a focus on education and pedagogy would be lucky to have her."

Matthew Revell, founder of Hoopy / DevRelCon
"I worked with Erin when Orbit sponsored some of Hoopy's events and content.

Erin offers a great combination of skills and insight that would make her an asset to any developer relations/community team. Her background in journalism, combined with her empathy and experience building technical communities, give Erin a rare ability to be able to communicate across experience levels, functions, and backgrounds. In my own experience working with Erin, I saw how she was able to:

* Build education efforts at Orbit that consistently targeted both developers and product owners
* Understand and empathise with the needs of both developers and other personas in the technology decision process
* Balance the needs of community with the commercial need drive product feature adoption.

I'd love to work with Erin again."

Christina Monti, Developer Relations Lead @ PayPal
"Getting to work with Erin was nothing short of amazing. Her ability to demonstrate her technical knowledge through cross-functional communication was always top-notch. She brought a strong knowledge of product development and was always willing to advocate on my behalf. The key educational programs that Erin created were filled with informative content that showed her true understanding of her audience consuming the information and the environment she creates is always grounded in a safe learning space."

Cory A. Shrengost, Content Producer @ Dropbox
"As I was developing my skills in the world of strategic communications, I was struggling with complacency for social media and couldn't find my passion for it. I reached out to Erin to get some feedback and mentoring on what I could do to try to shed my "legacy" social media perspective and pivot to find something I could get excited about.

Erin was immediately responsive and helpful. She helped by giving guidance on the world of SM and changing my perspective on how I view SM and how I interact with it professionally. She also gave me some great reading material and resources to be able to access more information. With these tools, I am in the beginning of my fledgling stage of SM love and it's been great! Not only does Erin offer great suggestions, but she is consistently providing feedback, mentorship, and insight every day. I couldn't recommend Erin more!"