Valentin Despa

About

I teach engineers what I wish I'd known earlier.

For over a decade I've been quietly building one of the largest learning communities around API tooling and testing. What started as a side YouTube channel turned into hundreds of thousands of students, conference talks, and team workshops in companies most engineers have heard of.

The thread through all of it is the same: take something that looks intimidating and break it down so anyone can understand it in plain language.

Lately I've been spending more time on how teams adopt AI at work — not the hype, the practical part. New formats, same approach.

850k

Students taught

90k

5-star reviews

70k

YouTube subscribers

10+

Years teaching

What I focus on

  • API design & testing

    Postman, Newman, REST Assured, CI pipelines.

  • AI at work

    Practical workflows for non-engineers and teams.

  • DevOps & DevSecOps

    CI/CD pipelines, automation, and shifting security left.

  • Speaking & panels

    Conferences, podcasts, internal events.

Recognitions

Programs I've been part of

Over the years I've been recognized by some of the communities I care most about — for teaching, contributing, and showing up.

  • Postman Supernova

    Recognized by Postman for outstanding contributions to the API testing community through courses and content.

  • GitLab Hero

    Honored by GitLab for advocacy, education, and helping engineers adopt modern DevOps practices.

  • GitLab Contributor

    Active contributor to GitLab's open-source ecosystem — issues, content, and community support.

  • AWS Community Builder

    Multi-year member of the AWS Community Builders program, sharing knowledge on cloud and DevOps.

Work with me