Don’t Just Build Great Software—Build a Reputation

You already build great software—now it’s time to let the world know. Sharing your expertise is a strategic move, not a side project.

In today’s competitive and connected tech world, building great products is only part of the equation. To truly thrive, companies must also focus on building visibility, credibility, and community presence. This is where promoting your company’s extroversion becomes essential. 🌍

Extroversion in this context means stepping beyond internal work—sharing knowledge, connecting with the wider ecosystem, and actively participating in the engineering and academic communities. Here’s why this matters and how to go about it. 🚀

Why Promote Your Company’s Extroversion?

1. Attract Top Talent
   Visibility helps you stand out in a crowded job market. When engineers see your team speaking at conferences or writing thought-provoking blogs, they’re more likely to view you as an inspiring place to work. 👩‍💻👨‍💻

2. Build Industry Credibility
   Contributing to the community positions your company as a leader and innovator, which can help with partnerships, customer trust, and market perception. 🌟

3. Empower and Retain Employees
   Giving your team opportunities to share their work externally boosts morale, personal growth, and pride in the organization. 🙌

4. Drive Innovation Through Collaboration
   Being outward-facing opens doors to academic partnerships, industry feedback, and fresh ideas that can enhance your technology and culture. 💡

How to Promote It: Practical Steps

1. Speak at Conferences

Encourage your engineers and leaders to apply as speakers at relevant conferences. This not only showcases your company’s technical strength but also benefits the individuals immensely. 🎤

Presenting helps team members grow their confidence, improve communication skills, and build personal reputations in the wider tech community. It gets them out of their comfort zone, introduces them to new peers, and often leads to mentorship and collaboration opportunities.

For the company, this positions you as a knowledge-sharing organization and gives your brand visibility in front of a qualified and engaged audience. 🌐

2. Write Technical Blogs

Maintain a strong presence through your internal engineering blog, and encourage team members to contribute articles. Topics could include architectural decisions, engineering challenges, postmortems, or technical innovations. 📝

You can also publish on external platforms like Medium, Dev.to, or LeadDev. These outlets expand your reach and credibility in the broader tech community. 📢

3. Host and Sponsor Events

Organize on-premise meetups or collaborate with well-known brands to co-host community events. This strengthens local ties and showcases your company as an open and engaged player in the ecosystem. 🤝

Additionally, sponsoring tech conferences, hackathons, or meetups increases your visibility and demonstrates your investment in the growth of the community. 🌱

4. Engage in Career Days & Bootcamps

Participate in university career fairs and conduct hands-on bootcamps. These help students gain practical experience and let you spot emerging talent early on. It’s also a great way to build long-term trust with academic institutions. 🎓

5. Support Academic Collaboration

Foster relationships with universities by offering internships, supporting master’s theses, or even backing industrial PhDs. Invite your experts to deliver guest lectures or presentations on campus. These activities reinforce your company’s role in bridging academia and industry, while also creating a strong early-career talent pipeline. 🎓🔗

Building a Culture of Outward Engagement

Promoting extroversion isn’t a one-off initiative—it’s a cultural shift.

That culture starts with leadership. When engineering managers, tech leads, and founders model outward-facing behavior—writing, speaking, mentoring—it signals to the entire team that sharing is not just allowed, it’s encouraged. 🏆

This shift takes time, especially in companies that have traditionally been introverted or product-focused. It requires psychological safety, time allocation, and support. For example, consider:

• Offering dedicated time each quarter for engineers to develop talks or blog posts. ⏳

• Creating a knowledge-sharing guild or interest group internally to support and peer-review content. 💬

• Recognizing and rewarding external contributions in performance reviews or promotion discussions. 🎯

Over time, these habits normalize visibility and help build a strong, authentic public presence. 🔑

Start Small, But Start Now

You don’t need a large marketing budget or a team of developer advocates to begin. Start small:

• Have one engineer write a short blog post. ✍️

• Submit a CFP (Call for Proposals) to a small community event. 📝

• Invite a university class to tour your office or host a student Q&A session. 🏢

• Join an open-source project and document your contribution. 🔧

Each small step contributes to a larger cultural transformation. 🌱

Final Thoughts

Promoting your company’s extroversion isn’t about vanity metrics or chasing headlines—it’s about making your work visible, accessible, and valuable to the broader world. 🌍 It’s about creating a two-way street of influence, insight, and innovation. 🔄

When companies open their doors—metaphorically and sometimes literally—they become more than places where code is written. They become platforms for growth, learning, and impact. And in doing so, they shape not only their future but the future of the industry.