The Architect (Bare Metalsson)

The DevRel team was called upon to promote Confluent Cloud, a commercial product. DevRel always contributes to the success of a company's commercial offerings, but can compromise the trust it has with a community if it is reduced to shilling for a commercial offering. We wrote and produced a "mockumentary" video about a fictional character, Bare Metalsson, a hidebound software architect who wouldn't let his team use the Cloud. He preferred hand-crafted, small-batch, artisanal servers, network cables, databases—and everything else. Bare would later return in 2025 in an actual ad for Confluent Cloud.