DevRel Roles and Responsibilities
An overview of the various roles and responsibilities in Developer Relations
An overview of the various roles and responsibilities in Developer Relations
Developer Relations (DevRel) encompasses various roles that bridge the gap between a company and its developer community, fostering engagement, support, and growth.
In the study by Oliveira et al. [2021], a delineation of roles in Developer Relations is established, which encompass:
- Developer Advocate
- Developer Evangelist
- Developer Experience
- Developer Marketing
While the roles of Developer Advocate and Developer Evangelist are often conflated in industrial parlance, the practical distinction between the two remains evident.
Understanding the distinct roles within DevRel is crucial for organizations to effectively structure their teams and maximize their impact on the developer community.
| Title | Necessary Skills | Examples of Work |
|---|---|---|
| Developer Advocate | Deep technical understanding, communication skills, feedback gathering, problem-solving, advocacy. | Enabling developers to leverage the platform/Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), advocating for developers' needs to internal product teams, creating demos and code examples, finding solutions to product issues and bugs. |
| Developer Evangelist | Technical understanding, public speaking, event hosting, writing skills, social media management, feedback to product team. | Speaking at conferences, running events, writing blog posts, recording videos, overseeing developer social media presence, helping announce new features to the public. |
| Developer Experience (DX) | UX design, API/Software Development Kit (SDK) design, documentation writing, onboarding process design. | Owning onboarding flows, SDK/API design, and documentation, acting like product owners for anything developers use. |
| Developer Marketing | Marketing strategy, content creation, event sponsorship, ad campaign management. | Creating marketing campaigns and strategies to reach developers and technical audiences, content syndication, managing paid channels like Ad Words, event sponsorship. |
Developer Advocate
A Developer Advocate is a technical expert who acts as a bridge between the developer community and the company's internal teams, focusing on enabling developers and gathering feedback.
The role of a Developer Advocate revolves primarily around cultivating relationships with developers and facilitating their interaction with the company's products. This role is inclined towards the technical side, working in close proximity with product teams to provide developer-centric feedback. A major function of the Developer Advocate is devising, implementing, and overseeing strategic approaches to engage and advance developer communities Oliveira et al.[2021]. Contrary to evangelists, advocates adopt a more internally oriented role, serving as a bridge between the developer community and the company's internal product teams. Their duty includes enabling developers to efficiently utilize a company's platform or APIs, collecting feedback, producing demos and code samples, and finding solutions to product-related issues. Their technical expertise often overlaps with roles such as sales engineers or solutionsconsultants. The requisite skills for this role include a deep technical understanding, strong communication skills, ability to gather feedback, adeptness in problem-solving, and strong advocacy skills Oliveira et al. [2021]. Their tasks are mainly focused on leveraging the platform/APIs for developers, advocating for developers' needs to internal product teams, creating demos andcode samples, and resolving product issues.
Developer Evangelist
A Developer Evangelist is a technical communicator who promotes the company's products and services to the developer community through various outreach activities.
The primary focus of Developer Evangelists is promoting the company's products and services to developers. They lean more towards marketing and collaborate closely with marketing teams to generate content that appeals to developers (Hughes [2022]). A developer evangelist, traditionally part of sales or marketing teams, generates awareness and stimulates interest in a company's products or technologies. This involves public speaking at conferences, hosting events, authoring blog posts, recording videos, and more. They bridge the gap between the company and its developer audience by translating technical information into an engaging and understandable format. While not necessarily engineers, they need to possess a technical mindset. Their responsibilities include speaking at conferences, hosting events, writing blog posts, recording videos, managing developer social media presence, and assisting in announcing new features to the public.
Developer Experience
Developer Experience (DX) focuses on optimizing the interactions developers have with a company's platform, APIs, or other developer-focused products.
Developer Experience (DX) pertains to the quality of interactions a developer has with a company's platform, APIs, or other developer-focused products. Analogous to a good user experience in mobile apps or software, a positive DX is crucial. DX teams function as product owners for the tools and systems used by developers, and their main responsibilities are overseeing onboarding flows, SDK/API design, and documentation (Gilling [2020]). The necessary skills for this role include User Experience (UX) design, API/SDK design, documentation writing, and onboarding process design. They are responsible for onboarding flows, API/SDK design, and documentation, acting as product owners for anything developers use.
Developer Marketing
Developer Marketing is specialized marketing that focuses on promoting a company's products or technologies specifically to the developer community.
Developer Marketing is dedicated to promoting a company's products or technologies to the developer community. This role deviates from conventional Business-to-Business (B2B) or Business-to-Consumer (B2C) marketing and often involves inbound marketing strategies that seek to attract developers rather than imposing a brand onto them. Developer marketing strate- gies often involve content syndication, paid channels like AdWords, and event sponsorships. While not traditionally part of the developer relations umbrella, developer relations frequently collaborate closely with developer marketing (Hughes [2022]). The necessary skills for this role include marketing strategy, content creation, event spon- sorship, and ad campaign management. Their tasks primarily involve creating marketing campaigns and strategies to reach developers and technical audiences, content syndication.
Each role in DevRel contributes uniquely to building and maintaining a strong developer community, which is essential for the success of developer-focused products and platforms.
Sources & References:
- "Developing Successful Developer Relations Programs in Blockchain Data Companies: A Metrics-Driven Approach" by Fabian Hug | 2024
- Raphael Oliveira, Camila Ajala, Davi Viana, Bruno Cafeo, and Awdren Fontão. Developer Relations (DevRel) Roles: an Exploratory Study on Practitioners' opinions. September 2021. doi: 10.1145/3474624.3474628.
- Understanding the Role of a Developer Evangelist by Karl Hughes | May 2022
- Best practices for Developer Relations Programs to measure success of an API platform by Derric Gilling | January 2020