Introducing Python Software Engineer of Technical Content, Dylan Frankcom

A Box of Possibility

I’ve always believed that the best use of technology is to build things that help people. In the beginning, that mostly meant helping my cousins and I figure out how to play Doom on the first computer I’d ever seen. It was loud, mysterious, and incredibly cool. From that moment on, I was hooked.

The actual MS-DOS machine that we played Doom on. From a home video, circa December 1994.

When my dad brought home our first family machine, a similar looking Compaq, I spent weeks figuring out how things worked. I fondly remember playing Boulder Dash off a floppy disk and exploring the file system just to see what was in there. It wasn’t just gaming that pulled me in, it was the endless ability to tinker. A computer felt like a box of infinite possibility. I quickly realized this wasn’t just a toy, it was a tool for building, experimenting, and learning.

In elementary school, the computer lab quickly became my favorite place. I was lucky to have a technical teacher who made it clear that a future in tech wasn’t just possible, it was promising. Those early sparks of curiosity turned into a lifelong passion for understanding and creating with computers.

Ideas Taking Shape

I remember following the MacRumors live blog of the iPhone announcement from the high school computer lab. Streaming live video wasn’t much of a thing yet, and even if it had been, our internet connection couldn’t have handled it. But that moment shifted my perspective the same way seeing that computer at my cousin’s house had years earlier. Suddenly, the future felt closer. And you didn’t have to use a T9 keyboard anymore.

The phone that cost my parents 15 cents a text message. Circa 2005 BI, Before iPhone.

Around the same time, I stumbled across the made-for-TV movie Pirates of Silicon Valley (which, by the way, is way better than it has any right to be). It opened my eyes to the early years of Apple and Microsoft. That led me down a rabbit hole of watching interviews of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates on this new site called YouTube (and Google Video). Like many, Jobs’ quotes and philosophies really resonated with me. The idea of making a dent in the universe stuck. The metaphor of the computer as a bicycle for the mind made a lot of sense. It made computing feel like more than just a career path. It felt like a way to shape the future with intention and care.

Learning by Doing

I kept finding inspiration in people who were building things that felt personal and full of purpose. I remember following the career trajectories of journalists from Gamespot to Giant Bomb and from Engadget to what would eventually become The Verge. It wasn’t so much the work that resonated with me, it was their passion to build something new and better than what came before it.

Around this time, the rise of the indie iOS developer was in full swing. It seemed to check all the boxes for what I wanted to do with my life, the same question that was posed years earlier: Work with computers. Build something meaningful. Help people. And all of it could be done from anywhere in the world with a laptop and a little creativity.

I started teaching myself the basics. I built small tools that solved little problems I ran into. I figured out just enough to be dangerous, and eventually enrolled in a computer science program. I didn’t know where it would lead, but I knew I wanted to keep learning and building.

Connecting the Dots

After college, I reached out to one of my instructors for some resume advice. To my surprise, he offered me a chance at a job instead. It was with a small startup in San Francisco, working as a developer advocate, a role I didn’t even know existed.

Flying into SFO for the first time felt surreal. The Bay Area had always seemed like this mythical place where all the cool stuff happened. It felt like I was stepping onto hallowed ground. Somewhere I never thought I’d eventually get to.

The fog rolling over the hills of Sausalito. October 2022.

It was around this time I started making contributions to the open source community. I added support for a subsection of smart home devices in Homebridge, I built indie macOS apps, and fixed real problems users were facing, like broken HDR support in the linux Moonlight game streaming client (shout out Steam Deck!). These weren’t just school projects or assignments. They were things people used.

Additionally, I started teaching iOS development at my alma mater. Helping students go from “I don’t know where to start” to publishing their first app was a very rewarding experience.

Thankfully, all of these experiences have reinforced why I got into tech in the first place: to help people, to build things, and to do it all with technology.

A Natural Next Step

Joining Twilio feels like both a culmination and the perfect next step in the same journey I’ve been on since the beginning: using computers to build things that genuinely help people. Twilio has a culture that emphasizes creativity, empathy, and impact. Its Magic Values align closely with the ones that have quietly guided me for years: be curious, build with heart, and create tools that empower others.

I’m incredibly excited to join the Developer Voices team as a Python Software Engineer of Technical Content, working alongside people who care deeply about the craft and the community. I’m grateful for the chance to keep learning, keep building, and hopefully make a dent in the universe.

Dylan Frankcom is a Python Software Engineer on Twilio’s Developer Voices team. He’s passionate about building tools that help developers learn, create, and ship faster. You can reach him at dfrankcom [at] twilio.com, find him on LinkedIn , or follow him on Github .