Welcome to rilhia.com. This is my canonical home for the projects I build and the things I learn while breaking them.
I am a Developer Advocate, but I think I look at the role differently to most. To me, advocacy is a bidirectional technical feedback loop. One half is communicating a system’s utility to a user. The other half is identifying systemic friction and advocating for the developer back to the product team. This is the part often missed by a lot of developer advocates. I prefer to act as the "Internal First Customer" who finds the root cause of friction and provides the data needed to fix it.
I am a builder by default. I have a habit of going down deep rabbit holes, often becoming totally immersed in something I had not heard of a few days prior. I tend to build a lot before I write anything. This is a bit of a problem I am working on, but I am addicted to trying stuff out.
Whether I am learning a new orchestration engine like Temporal or building a geo-mathematical coordinate system for EarthTunnelling.com, my process is the same: push the logic until it fails. I do not write about code until I have physically validated the edge cases. It means my guides are for humans who have actually been in the trenches, not just those reading the brochure.
This mindset extends to how I manage my own life. I have had Type 1 Diabetes since I was seven years old, which has recently led me down a path of experimenting with health tech. When your biological stability depends on data loops and software interoperability, you do not have much patience for marketing fluff. You look for technical truth. I have been busy bridging the "Diabetes Data Gap" by tapping into Glooko APIs to run clinical audits through LLMs, simply because the data was there and the existing viewing experience was insufficient.
Lately, I have been tempted by the idea of working with startups that need a fractional developer advocate. What better advocate can you have than one who is known to be independent? I am interested in working with, not for, companies that build products I am truly engaged by. My goal is to work in the best interests of the developers using those products, ensuring the technical reality matches the promise.
I am currently migrating relevant projects and insights into this location. You will find: