We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Erza Zylfijaj. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Erza below.

Erza, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

One of the most defining decisions I made was building a career in an unfamiliar industry, and doing so in a country far from home, without a technical degree, local network, or safety net.
I wasn’t a software engineer, and I didn’t grow up around tech. But I was deeply curious about developer tools and how they shape the digital world. I saw a gap in how these tools were communicated and marketed, and believed I could help bridge it. I joined a fast-growing startup in the reliability space, immersed myself in the product, the audience, and the culture, and quickly took the lead on major initiatives.
That decision led me to develop the content and brand strategy behind the first SLO-focused conference, support visibility for technical founders, and build trust-based marketing programs in one of the most credibility-driven niches in tech. What felt risky at the time turned into one of the most meaningful and defining choices of my career.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I’m a marketing leader who grew up in Sweden and built my career in the U.S. tech industry, specializing in developer tools, platform reliability, and community-led storytelling.

Over the past five years, I’ve helped grow a U.S.-based company focused on Service Level Objectives (SLOs), an emerging discipline at the core of modern software reliability. I lead marketing programs that turn complex backend systems into meaningful, trustworthy narratives, helping technical leaders earn visibility and influence within their markets.

I’ve led programs that build trust in highly technical spaces – from developer education initiatives to executive visibility campaigns. I’ve published content on platform reliability and helped shape the visibility of key voices in the SRE space, with a focus on elevating engineers who don’t typically seek the spotlight. What I’m most proud of is championing the engineers and platform teams who keep our digital world running.

I believe great marketing doesn’t simplify complexity, it respects it, and helps the right people see its value.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I built my reputation by launching and leading marketing campaigns that bridge the gap between engineering and business, turning complex technical concepts into stories that resonate with both audiences.

In the developer tools and site reliability engineering space, trust is everything. What helped me stand out wasn’t just creative execution, but the ability to listen to engineers, understand the product deeply, and build marketing that felt native to the community.

One of the most defining projects I led was building and scaling a series of monthly reliability-focused meetups. These sessions were designed purely for education, not promotion, and consistently attracted engineers from leading companies across industries to share practical insights on site reliability engineering. The initiative opened doors to deeper industry relationships and helped establish my presence as a strategic voice in a highly technical, trust-driven ecosystem.

I’ve also built a reputation by shaping narratives around reliability and creating visibility for voices that often go unnoticed, like SRE teams and backend engineers. Whether I’m leading high-impact campaigns or producing content that people actually want to engage with, I focus on creating work that earns long-term trust.

At the end of the day, I believe your reputation is built not just on what you create, but on how consistently you deliver and who you elevate along the way.

Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?

A standout example is the brand and content strategy I led for SLOconf. Instead of approaching it like a conventional B2B campaign, I focused on building credibility within a niche engineering audience. That meant working directly with SREs and platform engineers to develop messaging, creating resources that didn’t feel sales-driven, and designing the event to be community-first and async. We intentionally broke with industry norms to reflect how engineers actually want to learn and engage.

This strategy not only helped make a complex concept like Service Level Objectives more approachable, but it contributed to SLOconf’s growth into a trusted event in the reliability space, drawing thousands of attendees and support from major tech leaders, including Google and AWS.

It’s the same philosophy I’ve brought to all of my campaigns: respect the audience, speak their language, and deliver real value. When you do that, trust follows and with it, long-term impact.

Contact Info:

• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erza-zyl/
• Twitter: https://x.com/Erzazylfijaj_

Image Credits

www.sloconf.com
www.vmblog.com