Angel Banks

Angel Banks

Senior Program Manager · Developer Programs · AI Adoption · Community & Education

Atlanta, GA · angel@angelbanks.com · linkedin.com/in/angelmbanks · angelbanks.com

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Summary

Senior program manager with 10+ years leading cross-functional programs across developer platforms, AI adoption, and community and education. At Microsoft, an individual contributor inside the Engineering organization, I led Cloud Advocacy’s end-to-end launch program for the Azure Static Web Apps GA, led GTM and program management for Awesome Copilot from launch to 23K+ GitHub stars, owned the DevRel reach OKR through 3x year-over-year growth, and program-managed one technical track of the global AI Tour across 70+ international stops. At REFACTR.TECH, which I co-founded, I own sponsorship operations across a conference series generating $368K in revenue, and set and delivered conference P&L.

Skills & Tools

Skills: Cross-Functional Program Management · Product & Launch Operations · GTM & Launch Programs · AI Adoption & Enablement · Developer Community & Education · OKR Design, Measurement & Reporting · Conference Programming & Speaker Curation · Sponsorship Funnel & Revenue · Budget & P&L Ownership · Vendor & Stakeholder Orchestration · B2B SaaS Developer Audiences

Tools: Asana · Jira · Azure DevOps · Notion · Airtable · Loop · Figma · GitHub · Power BI · Splash · Eventbrite · Luma · Meetup · ChatGPT · Claude · Claude Design · Microsoft 365 Copilot · Lovable

Experience

Senior Program Manager (promoted from Program Manager) · Microsoft, Developer Relations · Sept 2020 – Mar 2026

  • Supporting Microsoft’s JavaScript, Python, and .NET advocacy teams across five and a half years.
  • Served as the single interface between product management, product marketing, docs and Learn, and developer advocacy, owning the decision rights, handoffs, and operating cadence across all four functions, and representing Microsoft and its Cloud Advocates to the external developer community.
  • Led Cloud Advocacy’s end-to-end launch program for the Azure Static Web Apps GA, a production engineering launch on a fixed date I did not control. Ran the weekly cross-functional standup of 15+ people across engineering, docs, product, program management, and advocacy, surfacing dependencies and owning the developer-facing motion. Personally owned the Code to Scale launch broadcast, a 100-developer Cloud Skills Challenge, and the master content calendar: 9K+ live and 32K+ on-demand views, 14K+ blog visits, and a 50% lift in docs traffic. The product surpassed 1 billion requests post-GA.
  • Led GTM strategy and program management for Awesome Copilot, GitHub’s AI customization hub, from launch through departure: grew it to 23K+ GitHub stars and 384 contributors in under nine months, with millions of page views and over a million unique visitors, still accelerating at handoff. Authored the GTM strategy and information architecture for the Learning Hub and public website; the .NET advocacy lead confirmed the team shipped to that plan after my departure.
  • Owned DevRel OKR 2.1 (AI Samples Reach) end to end across documentation, vendor coordination, governance, and quarterly targets: grew quarterly unique visitors 3x year-over-year to 1.49M against a target of roughly 2x, exceeding Q1 and Q2 targets by 101% and 49%. Authored the case for the OKR 2.1 to 2.2 reprioritization, moving DevRel from reach-only metrics toward a connected samples-to-OSS-to-Azure AI adoption funnel.
  • Program-managed a single technical track of Microsoft’s AI Tour across 70+ international stops: held SMEs to fixed tour deadlines for session content and train-the-trainer videos, confirmed localization vendors delivered correct translations on schedule, and made sure every deliverable used the tour template and carried the required CTAs. Tour-wide results beat plan at every stage: 126K+ registrations (8% above target), 86K+ attendees (39% above), 68% registration-to-attendance conversion, 16M+ social impressions across the flagship stops, and 229 featured partners at 117% YoY revenue growth.
  • Sole program manager for Microsoft’s global virtual .NET Day on Agentic Modernization, partnering with marketing and the .NET advocacy lead across planning, speaker readiness, live production, and GTM: 1,902 registrations (190% of goal), 3,807 live views (333%), and 7,604 30-day on-demand views (101%).
  • Lead PM for AI Hack & Tell, DevRel’s org-wide internal AI showcase: designed the program structure, prize tiers, and submission workflow, and mined submissions to feed downstream PM workstreams. Drew 62 submissions from 10 of 15 DevRel teams in six months. Co-led Hack Together, the 15-day GitHub and YouTube hackathon program; the flagship .NET 8 hack drove 16.8K landing-page views, 1.2K registrations, 67 submissions, and 4.8K live plus 32.1K on-demand viewers, with participant contributions merged into product SDKs.
  • Led DevRel program execution for .NET and AI experiences at Microsoft Build (2,000+ Ask-the-Expert interactions, the most engaged zone at Build 2025; 900+ combined in-person and digital lab and session attendees) and .NET Conf (95K live, 405K on-demand, 104K .NET downloads, 100+ community viewing events).
  • Authored foundational DevRel operating artifacts adopted across the org: the CAPM Onboarding Deck (the PM onboarding standard), the Cloud Advocacy Walking Deck Template (reused across 15 teams), and the Advocacy Playbooks.

Co-Founder · REFACTR.TECH (developer conference series + community platform) · 2018 – Present

  • Produced four multi-day community developer conferences (2019, 2021–2023) with two co-founders, spanning content programming, speaker curation, vendor selection, and production: 1,538 attendees, 100+ speakers across 140+ talks, 57+ sponsors, and $368K in combined ticket and sponsorship revenue on deliberately low ticket prices, with free and discounted admission for community partners and opportunity-grant recipients.
  • Own sponsorship operations across the series: tiered pricing and prospectus, pipeline tracking, inbound response and discovery calls, contracts, invoicing, collections, and all sponsor money communications. Sell into my own network and all inbound website leads; co-founders sell into theirs. Own conference P&L across all four years: under budget every year and never at a loss, with the 2019 flagship delivered at $118K against a $150K budget.
  • Scaled REFACTR.TECH into a multi-channel learning ecosystem spanning conferences, meetups, workshops, and a YouTube channel; since 2024 grew the meetup program to 60+ community events with 1,700+ Meetup RSVPs and 1,000+ Eventbrite registrations, sustaining a 2,000+ member community.
  • Built and own the operating system behind the programs: an internal dashboard tracking events, sponsors, and performance; the CFP, registration, and speaker forms and their workflows; and the founding team’s cadence of agendas, standups, and task tracking. Own metrics and post-event analysis and translate them into planning inputs.
  • Solely own brand identity, website content and design, social and event promotion, Discord (400+ members), and the newsletter (678 subscribers).

Technical Expert · Thinkful (part-time) · Sept 2019 – Aug 2020

  • Mentored software engineering bootcamp learners through technical projects, code reviews, and real-world development workflows; assessed submissions with structured feedback and coached learners on the transition from curriculum to professional practice.

Product Manager (promoted from Senior Product Designer) · First Data (Fiserv) · 2016 – 2019

  • Senior Product Designer 2016–2018 · Product Manager 2018–2019
  • Led cross-functional modernization of enterprise fintech payment platforms across engineering, design, and business stakeholders in a regulated environment.
  • Built and maintained a scalable enterprise design system for payment platforms: shared components, usage standards, and documentation adopted across engineering, design, and business teams. Drove UX research and design direction across complex transactional workflows.
  • Coordinated client migration to a modernized payments platform, aligning internal stakeholders and external partners to ensure operational continuity and successful feature adoption.

UX/UI Designer & Front-End Developer · contract and part-time · 2014 – 2016

  • MonkeyPants Studios (2015–2016), 4UIDesign (2014), and General Assembly (2015): designed UX, interaction patterns, and prototypes for early-stage web and application products; built front-end implementations alongside engineering; and taught front-end fundamentals as a General Assembly teaching assistant.

Director of Operations (promoted from Operations Manager) · Cutting Edge Counsel · 2011 – 2014

  • Directed operations across a multi-entity organization (law firm, consulting practice, and nonprofit), overseeing cross-functional teams, financial management, HR, and strategic planning. Led 3 direct reports and 10+ contractor attorneys and consultants.
  • Designed and launched client-facing bootcamps, workshops, and conferences. Sold securities in the firm's own Direct Public Offering, a raise targeting $500K-$3M: closed inbound interest by phone, email, and website, and sourced additional investors through networking. Coordinated the raise across legal, financial, and stakeholder workflows.

Community Leadership

  • Director (Volunteer), Women Who Code Atlanta (2016–2024). Scaled the chapter to 5,000+ members and ran its 2,000+ member community Slack; produced WeRISE Tech conference (2017–2018), the foundation that became REFACTR.TECH; designed and delivered 275+ developer education programs across cloud, AI, product, and modern engineering practices.
  • Organizer, NG-ALT at Devnexus (2020). After ngAtlanta collapsed weeks before opening, Devnexus’s organizers brought the idea and venue; I ran the popup conference end to end on a one-week timeline, rebooking stranded speakers, recruiting local ones, and programming the full multi-day agenda. Personally onboarded stranded attendees through re-registration, schedule, and travel logistics.
  • Organizer, Google Developers Group Atlanta (2018–2021). Co-organized DevFest Atlanta and recurring GDG technical programming. Ambassador & Organizer, Women Techmakers Atlanta (2018–2021). Co-Director, HackerX Atlanta (2016–2020). Curriculum Director & UX Instructor, Girl Develop It Atlanta (2017–2018). Co-Organizer, ATL Angular (2015–2016).

Selected Speaking

  • DevNexus 2018 · All Things Open 2017 · Revolution Conf 2017 · DevRel Summit 2017 · DevFest Atlanta 2017 · DevOpsDays Atlanta 2017 · JazzCon.Tech 2017 · podcasts 2018-2020. More at angelbanks.com/featured.

Education & Training

  • General Assembly, Web Development Immersive (12 weeks) · San Francisco State University, Business Administration coursework