BlackBerry Developer Blog » developer relations

We’re looking for a few great devs!

Shaun A. — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 15:00:12 +0000

As Alec said in his post last week, we’re committed to working with you to build the best mobile platform ecosystem. Part of that effort is making sure we have the team in place to help our developers build amazing apps for BlackBerry. Recently we posted about positions we’re hiring for on the BlackBerry® WebWorks™ R&D team. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg – there are a ton of great opportunities on the BlackBerry® Developer Relations team! (And for some roles, you don’t even have to be able to cleverly code comic book character related statements.)

In Developer Relations, we don’t have “customers” — we have the BlackBerry developer community. Smart, passionate, creative folks who build everything from utilities to games that make the BlackBerry experience great. We’re making developing for BlackBerry the most seamless, rewarding, and lucrative experience there is.

From code to communities, Waterloo to Beijing, we’re looking for people to help us provide the BlackBerry developer community with the best possible experience, beginning well before they even start on the “Hello World” sample. We’re looking for people all over the world, so check out the list below and see which role piques your interest. Or if you know someone else who’d be a perfect fit, share like the wind!

Evangelism

Are you at your best when you’re out and about, meeting people, spreading the word and sharing the love? Sounds like you’re already an evangelist. Testify!

BlackBerry Developer Evangelist (Toronto)

BlackBerry Developer Evangelist (France)

BlackBerry Developer Evangelist (Poland)

BlackBerry Developer Evangelist (China)

BlackBerry Developer Evangelist (Dubai)

BlackBerry Developer Evangelist (India)

BlackBerry Developer Evangelist (South Korea)

Technical Platform Experts

Is your brain chock full of handy technical tidbits about SDKs, HTML5, Java® and other platform goodness? Can you teach geeky topics in your sleep? Sounds like you’d be a great platform expert.

Application Development Consultant (Waterloo/Mississauga)

Application Development Consultant – Web (Waterloo/Mississauga)

Application Development Consultant (LATAM)

Web Properties Development

Putting your code skills to work building the kind of websites you as a dev would love to use. Sound more like play than work? Web devs, this way:

Web Developer (Waterloo)

Web Project Manager (Waterloo)

Project Management

Are you the organizer, the fixer, the person who gets things done? We’d love to have your project management skills on board.

Project Manager (Singapore)

Web Project Manager (Waterloo)

Project Manager, Developer Relations (Waterloo)

Senior Product Marketing Manager, Developer Relations (Waterloo)

Marketing

Are you a great host, love to connect people, and have a knack for adding polish and just the right touches to any project? Dive in on our Marketing team.

Marketing Coordinator (Jakarta)

Marketing Coordinator (Beijing/Shanghai)

Community Manager, Developer Relations (Waterloo)

Marketing Manager (Waterloo/Mountain View)

Marketing Coordinator – Developer Relations & Eco Systems (Indonesia)

We’re committed.

Alec Saunders — Sat, 30 Jun 2012 00:39:01 +0000

Over the last twelve months, I hope you’ve all seen the changes in how we interact with you, our BlackBerry® developers.

You’ve seen us commit to you in a way that many have remarked upon, starting last year with initiatives including BlackBerry® DevCon Americas, the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet and BlackBerry® 10 Dev Alpha seeding programs, hackathons, BlackBerry® 10 Jam in Orlando, and the BlackBerry 10 Jam World Tour that we’ve been running across 23 cities. Some of you have even said that this “new” Research In Motion® (RIM®) is the best platform company for developers to work with today.

Earlier this year when Thorsten Heins took the reins as our new CEO, he was very open about the approach the company would be taking to this new platform launch. Yesterday, he delivered some tough news: a shift in timeline for the launch of the BlackBerry 10 platform until the first quarter of 2013.

When we in the Developer Relations group were informed of the news, our first thoughts were with you – our development community – who are continuing to work with us to build great new applications for BlackBerry 10. You’ve got businesses to run, rent to pay, and investors to answer to. You are the folks who have skin in the game now, and aren’t just waiting for a new phone personally. We know this delay affects you, and we’re sorry.

Despite yesterday’s announcement, I want you to know that we remain strongly committed to you. While RIM continues to work towards the launch of BlackBerry 10, our engagement levels and plans for our joint success have not changed.

The BlackBerry 10 platform is designed to offer developers the tools they need to drive a successful business, including simplified rich development; the ability to create, deliver and share powerful visually stunning content, quickly; and multiple paths toward monetization. We are committed to this launch, and to continuing to work with you to make this launch a success. We will work to ensure that the launch is executed brilliantly, with a complete platform that delivers the best experience for our customers.

Over the last few months, the level of excitement, dedication and pride from our developer partners and from our employees has been both gratifying and humbling for me.

My pledge to you is that we will continue to work with you, to invest with you, to create opportunities with you, to be successful with you, and to be worthy of the trust and support you have given us.

Alec Saunders, VP Developer Relations
Research In Motion

Startups are innovators, and that’s why we love them so much

Alec Saunders — Tue, 29 May 2012 14:15:21 +0000

For the past several months, the Developer Relations team has been participating in numerous events and activities targeted at the tech start-up community. For example:

Since last fall, we’ve held at least 19 Hackathons focused on innovating on BlackBerry® platforms with BBM™, and more recently gaming.
We sponsored AppCircus pitching contests at BlackBerry DevCon EMEA, and at BlackBerry® 10 Jam in Orlando. In addition, we were sponsors and I was a judge at the Mobile Innovation Awards at Mobile World Congress, put on by AppCircus.
We’re limited partners in Relay Ventures’ (formally BlackBerry Partners Fund) latest fund, and spoke at their annual general meeting to some of the entrepreneurs present.
We sponsored the Golden Triangle Network’s LaunchPad 50K event in Waterloo, and I spoke briefly there on the subject of entrepreneurship.
We sponsored the Canadian Venture Capital Association’s annual event in Montreal last week, and my colleague Martyn Mallick spoke there.
Last week we also sponsored CHINICT, China’s annual entrepreneurship forum and I spoke there. In addition, we sponsored the CHINICT Hackathon, and saw many great new ideas being built on the BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet.
This week in Jakarta, I’ll be speaking at Mobile Monday. On Wednesday, in Bangalore, I’ll be meeting local start-ups, and Thursday I’ll be representing RIM for the opening of the BlackBerry Innovation Centre (also known as Rubus Labs) at Startup Village in Kochi, India.
In July, we’ll be sponsoring the International Startup Festival in Montreal. In its second year, the Startup Festival brings together entrepreneurs and ecosystems, for a three day event focused on (you guessed it) start-ups.

So why all this attention to startups when the press and customers are relentlessly focused on whether or not the next version of the latest hot game is available on the BlackBerry platform? One word — innovation.

Now, don’t get me wrong – we want the latest hot titles on BlackBerry as much as you do, and we have a dedicated team that does nothing but work to make that happen. But startups are where the excitement is. Startups are the companies that are going make a bet on BlackBerry 10. Startups are the companies that will take apart all of the amazing innovations we’ve built in BlackBerry 10 and conceive of something new that can’t be done on competitors’ platforms. They’ll be the ones who focus on the three key themes of flow, connect, and extend, and will build BlackBerry 10 experiences that the world has never seen before on any platform.

And that’s why we love startups so much.

Got a startup? Come to a BlackBerry 10 Jam session. We’d love to help.

Let Us Give Your App a Facelift

Victoria B — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 13:32:25 +0000

Last week I told you about the Unconference we’re hosting on May 3, 2012 as part of BlackBerry® 10 Jam in Orlando May 1 to 3. The responses here on the Insider BlackBerry Developer’s Blog as well as on CrackBerry, BerryReview and N4BB (not to mention on Twitter® and Facebook®) have been amazing and I look forward to the polls later this week that will let you choose which sessions you like best. Keep an eye here and on our Facebook and Twitter pages for more information on the voting!

Our Developer Relations team is enlisting the help of some amazing designers for a great session: “Give Your App a Facelift,” which will take an existing app and use the Cascades UI framework to demonstrate how the app could look on the BlackBerry 10 platform. We want developers attending to leave with some great ideas for new UI or design elements.

To submit your app for consideration, please visit the BlackBerry Developer Forums. The Developer Relations team will look at all the apps and choose which ones will receive a facelift and reach out to developers in the coming weeks.