Passionate, engaged communities are at the heart of every successful beta program. It's been a theme that we've had in a lot of our episodes, and today's episode is absolutely exemplary of that. Jake Francis has built beta programs with the help of these engaged communities. In his current role as GPU Software Dev Engineer and Game On Driver PM at Intel, he connects with passionate, engaged communities to help lead their beta program when it comes to graphics cards.
In this episode, Jake breaks down how he built his programs at AMD and Intel, starting with Discord as a basis before leveling up through the use of Centercode. We talked about how Centercode’s integrations allowed him to scale quickly, why it’s important to build strong communities through trust and transparency, and how Intel sees deep value in a continuous beta program.
In This Episode:
- (2:02) - How did Jake get started in beta testing?
- (5:41) - Intel, testing with varied audiences, and communicating effectively
- (12:45) - Recruiting from passionate communities, scaling programs, and dogfooding
- (19:08) - Wearing multiple hats and resolving issues in a timely manner
- (25:22) - Advice for new beta program managers
- (27:40) - Leveling up a beta program from Discord to Centercode
- (34:55) - Building strong communities via trust and transparency
- (40:41) - How Jake leverages Centercode’s integrations to easily scale his program
- (48:35) - Why AMD and Intel see incredible value in beta programs
- (56:32) - How Jake tackles a new beta project
- (59:36) - Transparency at Intel
- (1:04:59) - How has beta positively impacted AMD and Intel, and how Centercode helped
About Our Guest:
Jake Francis is a SW GPU Dev Engineer and Game On Driver PM at Intel. He has been in the discrete graphics industry for 14 years, primarily focused on gaming graphics software engineering in roles such as software product management, gaming social media, digital marketing, software quality strategy & execution, and program management.
This breadth of unique experiences enables him to effectively communicate end user needs through to internal teams to drive meaningful change from critical feedback.
Jake has launched two successful delta/beta programs with Centercode as the foundation for each, taking advantage of Centercode’s API integrations for true input/output workflows.
Follow Us and Listen to The Delta Huddle Podcast On The Go:
Thank you for listening to the Delta Huddle podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, leave us a like or a five star rating. You can also find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube and anywhere else you get your podcasts. We'll see you in the next episode and happy testing.
Download the transcript here.
