How I became the first GDE from Sweden in Flutter & Dart

It all started 2 years ago when I wrote on the video "How to become a GDE" from Fireship. More specifically I wrote "Great video once again, would love to be a GDE sometime in the future. Soon maybe... haha". Personally I never really set out to be a GDE so I will talk about my story as well as some words of advice if you want to become a GDE in the future.

My story

So there is a bunch of different ways you can make content. You can write blogs (much as this one), join conferences and talks as well as making videos.

I was a very poor speaker and I didn't really find it fun to write blogs so for me it was something special about video creation as you could always just record it again if you feel like it wasn't up to your standard.

July 23, 2018

This was when I made my first video which was the beginning of so far a 3 year journey! My main goal here was always just to cover topics that I found hard to understand in the beginning and other people hadn't already covered. Back then not many people made YouTube videos regarding Flutter so a lot of these topics weren't covered at all (unless small parts in the docs).

May 23, 2019

This is a year after just making videos of things I found would be the most helpful. This is the time when I made my comment on the Fireship video, and this was a big motivator!

At the time of writing that comment, in my mind it was just a joke. I never thought that I would have a chance to become a GDE and not even close to the first one in Sweden. I am just a normal person, sitting at home reading up on the topic and making a video on it, which I feel like most people are able to do!

6 Months Ago

This is the time when I really started to push with creating YouTube videos. Over the years prior to this my upload schedule had been very sporadic and I wanted to really push myself to actually help more people!

If you asked me back then I never would have known how fast it would spiral back then. I have gotten so many opportunities like companies reaching out, people wanting to support my work and just all the amazing comment of the people I have helped.

And I started to think "Now how do I actually become a GDE?". I reached out to some people at Google, which in term got me able to send the first application to become a GDE!

First application sent

I sent my first application which was mostly about how many people I have helped, what I am doing and things in that nature. After that was done, for me it took just a couple of days and I got back an answer that it passed and I need to schedule the first interview with another GDE.

The First Interview

This was with a current GDE and I was super nervous. It was around this time I started to think "Do I really know enough", "Should I have learned a topic better, to learn more topics" etc. To my surprise it was mostly questions that I already teach out and the interviewer was super cool to talk to. In the end it just became a really chill talk and I enjoyed it a lot!

When that was done, I succeeded and got to the second interview.

The Second Interview

This one felt a lot more community orientet compared the the first one which was more technical. The first interview I could feel that the interview went quite well but this one was more "Did I really do good in this one". After this interview the waiting time began.

So this is the fun part (jk, it's not fun). Now I started to wait on an answer which I waited for a week on. I started to think that I didn't pass but just to make sure I checked my mail again just to realize that I passed and the mail was sent out to me the same day after the second interview. Why didn't I see it? Well it was in my spam section of my mail.. :)

Doing The Remaining Parts

Now all that was left, was just signing some documents and get the email to officially become a GDE in Flutter and Dart. This is still weird thinking about but at the same time super cool!

To end this I want to leave you with a message...

If you want to share content or teach people, you should just do it! You never really know what it may lead you and for me it's just the beginning of my story!