This week we welcome Mason Egger (@masonegger) as our PyDev of the Week! Mason is an organizer of PyTexas and a developer advocate at Gretel. Mason also maintains a Python website where you can see what Mason has been up to.
Let’s take a few minutes to get to know Mason better!
Can you tell us a little about yourself (hobbies, education, etc):
My name is Mason Egger and I’m currently a Developer Advocate at Gretel based out of Austin, TX. I have dual undergraduate degrees in Music and Computer Science. I initially wanted to be a music teacher but wound up in software engineering. Prior to my roles as a Developer Advocate at Gretel and DigitalOcean I was a Site Reliability Engineer for Vrbo. I love to explore new places. leading me to camp and kayak all over.
Why did you start using Python?
I started using Python while in college. I was working as a student worker doing software development for the Computer Science department and we were rewriting our website. That lead to me picking up Django (probably in the 1.4 – 1.6 range). After I graduated my first job was in Python and I’ve been hooked ever since.
What other programming languages do you know and which is your favorite?
Other than Python I know Java, Go, C/C++, and Perl. Python is by far my favorite and my go to for a majority of my projects.
What projects are you working on now?
I am currently teaching myself about Data Science and Machine learning. After years working in systems I felt it was time to expand my understanding of Python use cases. I’m also working on rewriting the PyTexas website and tools.
What do you do as a developer advocate?
As a Developer Advocate I am responsible for ensuring that developers have an easy, enjoyable time using Gretel’s products. I focus on the 3Cs: Code, Content, and Community. Under Code I create sample applications, contribute to open source projects, test the product and give feedback. Under Content I write tutorials, blogs, quick start guides, documentation, etc. along with other content mediums (videos). Under Community I travel to conferences, give talks, offer help, engage with developers, and foster a Community that is interested in Synthetic Data.
My primary focus is and always will be helping the developer community achieve their goals and build their ideas.
How did you become an organizer for PyTexas and what are the top three things you learned?
I became a PyTexas organizer by connecting with the current organizers and saying I wanted to help, then showed up to help. The Community always needs more volunteers.
Things I’ve learned:
- If you want to be involved, reach out to someone already involved. We always need more help
- Everyone should submit to the CFP
- It is 100% ok to turn down getting accepted to a CFP. We understand that things change between when you submitted and when we send out acceptances.
Which Python libraries are your favorite (core or 3rd party)?
My favorite python library has to be argparse. I love creating command line tools and argparse is robust and easy to use.
Is there anything else you’d like to say?
Get involved in your Community! It changed the entire course of my career and I’m way happier for it.
Thanks for doing the interview, Mason!