My experience as Facebook Developer Circle Phnom Penh Lead

Being part of the developer community has always been my passion. In 2016, I noticed a lack of a serious developer group in Cambodia, so I decided to take on the challenge and started the KhmerCoders group. Over the course of two years, the group experienced rapid growth. In 2018, I faced a tough decision.

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        "content": "After running a few successful developer events, I got offered $1,000 per per sponsored. It was one year contact to do one event per month. It was an attractive offer given that it only costed me $200 to run one event excluding labor cost.",
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        "content": "I applied to be Facebook Developer Circle Phnom Penh Lead and got accepted.",
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Unfortunately, due to time constraints, I had to choose between the two offers. Ultimately, I decided to accept the role of Facebook Developer Circle Lead.

Responsibilities

Facebook Developer Circle Lead was like a volunteer work. You were responsibility to run developer community, promoting the Facebook developer products, and running events.

Due to limited budgetary resources, for each event (usually between $200-$400), you are required to propose a budget and submit receipts to reclaim the expenses.

They encourage you run at least one event every 2 months.

The Good Sides

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        "content": "Every year, they will fly you to the Facebook Headquarters in Singapore along with other Facebook Developer Circle Leads from across the APAC region. I had the opportunity to meet many like-minded individuals and made some friends during this trip.",
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      {
        "content": "You had your name in their official developer circle website. I found it was pretty cool.",
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Lead That Got Permanently Banned

One of the reasons why I chose to become a Facebook Developer Circle Lead was because one of my businesses heavily relied on Facebook. At that time, I operated one of the most visited media sites. Occasionally, some of our content would be flagged for violating Facebook's community policies. This wasn't uncommon, as many major media Facebook pages faced similar frustrations, given that Facebook never clearly indicated which policy was violated.

Unfortunately, due to one of my pages violating their policy, my account was affected, and my Facebook developer account was permanently banned. Despite successfully appealing the decision and having everything return to normal, my developer account remained banned.

I raised my concerns about this issue with the Facebook team. It was quite awkward being someone who promoted Facebook developer products and was supposed to support the community, yet faced a permanent ban.

To this day, this issue remains unresolved.

Covid and Sunset 

The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on my business and personal life. I became extremely busy trying to navigate through the challenges it brought. Organizing physical events became difficult, and unfortunately, due to my inactivity during this period, the Facebook Developer Circle Phnom Penh came to an end.

In 2023, Meta made the decision to close the Developer Circle program altogether.

Conclusion

It was indeed an enjoyable experience. However, if given the opportunity to choose again, I would prioritize focusing more on the KhmerCoders community.