BURKE HOLLAND

Microsoft VS Code GitHub Copilot Developer Advocate Speaker Author Community Leader

Principal Developer Advocate at Microsoft leading the Developer Tools Advocacy team. Grew VS Code from 6M to 40M users and built a developer video presence from zero to 800K+ YouTube subscribers. I build content platforms and scale developer programs.

github.com/burkeholland GitHub

twitter.com/burkeholland Twitter

linkedin.com/in/burkeholland LinkedIn

Key Achievements

Grew Visual Studio Code from 6M to 40M users through product leadership and ecosystem strategy.
Scaled YouTube from 26K to 800K+ subscribers via short-form content with 100K+ average views.
Built TikTok channel from 0 to 600K by adapting dev content to mobile-first formats.
Led launches for GitHub Copilot, vscode.dev, Codespaces, and Remote Development across teams.
Co-created VS Code Day, now a major Microsoft developer event.

Public Impact

Hosted and co-produced VS Code Day, drawing 20K+ global registrants and now a flagship Microsoft developer event.
Frequent keynote speaker and panelist at global conferences including Build, Ignite, GitHub Universe, QCon, and FluentConf.
Regular podcast guest on shows like JS Party, The Changelog, and Modern Web, covering AI, tooling, and developer culture.
Published author across major dev media including Smashing Magazine, CSS-Tricks, FreeCodeCamp, SitePoint, and The Next Web.
Built VS Code's developer brand presence across YouTube, TikTok, and social — reaching millions of devs with hands-on content and humor.

Experience

Microsoft

Principal Program Manager - DevTools Lead

June 2017 - Present

Leading the Developer Tools team, responsible for growth of VS Code, GitHub Copilot and GitHub connected experiences.
Early adopter of short-form video at Microsoft using TikTok and YouTube Shorts. Grew the VS Code TikTok and YouTube channels from 26K to 476K subscribers with 240% YoY growth in year 1.
Lead multi-tactic initiatives across engineering, marketing and advocacy including the launch of GitHub Copilot and Copilot Chat, vscode.dev, GitHub Codespaces and VS Code Remote Development, Jupyter Noteboks in VS Code, Azure Static Web Apps, comprehensive course for Node.js developers built on Microsoft's Learn Platform.
Co-creator of VS Code Day, now one of the largest developer events at Microsoft.
Leading content creator at Microsoft with YouTube content that regularly reaches 100K+ views.

Progress Software / Telerik

Director of Developer Relations

September 2011 - June 2017

Leading team of 11 developer advocates covering Telerik's entire portfolio of tools and frameworks, including Developer Tools and SaaS offerings.
Co-creator of the Telerik Developer Network site and community which is now the thrid largest contributor to the developer trial journey.
Responsible for planning and executing on all initiatives to build and cultivate the Telerik community.
Drove 6x growth in downloads for NativeScript project to 6x growth (downloads) over 8 months.
Oversee new product launches and align developer programs with Marketing, Sales and Demand Generation.

Prior Roles (2003–2011)

O'Charley's Inc — Sr. Programmer Analyst
Speakerheart — Sr. Software Engineer
Ardent Health Services — Manager, Collaborative Development
Sara Lee Foods — Integration Analyst

Led and contributed to enterprise software projects across healthcare, retail, and food manufacturing. Focused on platform migrations, internal tooling, and business systems integration. Mentored developers and transitioned teams to modern technologies including .NET and service-oriented architectures.

Education

University Of Tennessee at Martin class of 2002

Bachelors of Science, Business Administration

Major: Information Systems