Michael
Tharrington
Community Manager
Experienced in Fostering Inclusive and Empathetic
Online Spaces for Software Devs
Professional Summary
With nearly 10 years of experience as a Community Manager for multiple software developer communities, I have a solid record of successfully growing and engaging large online communities.
For most of my professional life, I’ve worked remotely at fast-paced tech startups. As such, I'm comfortable juggling different responsibilities, handling my day-to-day autonomously, and collaborating with teammates asynchronously. During my time, I’ve honed skills such as: managing small teams, crafting and executing social media strategies, writing email newsletters for different audiences, analyzing metrics and making data-driven decisions, running forums and chatrooms, managing moderation programs, overseeing strategic content creation, and advocating for community members and customers' needs.
I’m passionate about creating diverse, inclusive communities where folks treat each other respectfully, and I hope to foster a future with online spaces that are kind, helpful, and fun for all!
Forem
For five and a half years, I worked at Forem as the Community Manager for DEV Community (aka dev.to) and assisted with related Forem communities: CodeNewbie Community, Forem.dev, and others.
DEV
Community
Highlights
- Drove community member growth from 540,887 members in January 2021 to 1,439,521 as of May 2024
- Led and grew the DEV Community Moderation program, improving moderator engagement by 900% in one year, increasing the monthly reaction count from 500 to a sustained 5,000 reactions/month
- Implemented a successful content plan, engaging members with 433 posts and 4427 comments via my personal DEV account, while ghostwriting content for Sloan (the mascot for DEV Mods), dev.to staff (the dedicated DEV staff account), and others
- Organized community events and campaigns (Pride Month, we_coded, etc.) to engage and encourage positive interactions between members
- Offered continuous product feedback based on community requests (see my GitHub Discussions and Issues)
DEV Testimonials
A selection of testimonials from Forem teammates and dev.to community members
Manager & Team Lead
“Michael was the heart and soul of the DEV community. He tirelessly advocated for the community's needs, always putting people first, and fostering strong, genuine relationships.”
AI Specialist & DEV Community Member
“I can tell you that the global development community is measurably better because of Michael's influence on it over the years through his leadership, community management, and communications skills.”
Social Media Manager & Colleague
“Michael is tactful and organized, growth-oriented, and helped guide our community into one that was extremely engaging, spam-free, and excited to participate in campaigns.”
Web Developer & DEV Community Moderator
“Michael is a pillar of the dev.to community! He was able to guide us moderators to create a safer, more inclusive place where spam and problematic content are resolved quickly and members are brought together with engaging activities and positivity.”
DEV Campaigns
I’m proud of the many campaigns I contributed to, nurturing a kinder, more inclusive community on DEV. I collaborated on the conceptualization, planning, content creation, and moderation of these campaigns and more.
DEV Community
Moderation
- Sent monthly Mod Newsletters from mid-2020 onward, with an average open rate of 40% and a total of 7,021 recipients
- Interviewed DEV Mods for Featured Mod of the Month, showcasing our diverse community moderator team
- Managed a vibrant Discord for all DEV moderators, with multiple async chat channels and live events like onboarding and feedback sessions as well as game time
- Created documentation for DEV moderators to learn our moderation tools, processes, and culture and continuously evolved the Code of Conduct
- Gamified moderation via badges that reward kind, helpful, and inclusive behavior
- Conceptualized mod tooling, delivered product feedback from mods to engineers, and advocated for the most desired, impactful feature requests or bug fixes
DZone
Experience
My earliest experience as a Community Manager was with DZone (dzone.com) where I managed their online developer community from 2016-2018. While my projects from this time are not as well documented, I oversaw the following responsibilities:
- Managed DZone’s Zone Leader program, a contracted team of ~16 dev writers, to regularly create top-notch content for the community
- Helped ideate, strategize, and recruit authors for DZone Trend Reports and Refcardz
- Assisted as an editorial consultant to the marketing teams of various DZone sponsors (Cisco, New Relic, and others)
- Interacted with community members and shared content via my personal DZone account
