Whenever I introduce myself to people in German, I get confused looks. It goes like this: Ich bin Inder, which could roughly translate to I am Inder or I am Indian. In my case, both things are true.
It gets even more confusing when I say I’m a Developer Advocate. I’m assuming they picture this.
If I say I work in Developer Relations (or Devrel), I assume they picture the following:
Since it’s not true, I wrote this blog post to explain what I do to my audience.
Introduction
As the name suggests, Developer relations revolve around Developers.
In the software world, there are usually two entities: Providers and Consumers. A consumer consumes the software created by the Provider. When this consumer builds on top of the software provided, this immediately becomes a different type of relationship. And It’s where Developer relations come into play.
I particularly like the way Sam Julien explains the field of Developer relations:
The main task of developer relations is to build relationships with users and potential users, mediate between them and the company, and advocate for their best interest.
Developer relations is an umbrella field encompassing multiple skills and responsibilities. That’s why many job titles exist, such as Developer Advocate, Developer Relations Engineer, and Evangelist. Many of these roles have overlapping duties and skills and are often used interchangeably. However, the common thing is that both roles nurture this relationship between a developer and the provider.
Areas of Developer relations
Let’s try to understand what are the key areas of responsibilities:
Awareness
First, Developers need to know if such software or tools exist. It’s one key responsibility of a devrel team. You, as a team, have to spread awareness of the company’s product. It doesn’t matter how good the software is. If developers don’t know about it, they can’t use it.
There are multiple ways you can do that:
- Booth in a meetup/conference to spread the word
- Create YouTube videos for awareness
- Introduce developers to the tool via a blog post
Education
After finding your software, Developers also need to know how it works. Therefore, they need educational material.
Following are some ways this can be done:
- Give a talk at a meetup or conference
- Education via Documentation
- Conduct a workshop
- Create a sample code and share it with your audience
Feedback
Once they start using your product, they might want to provide feedback to the software company about what works and what doesn’t.
Following are things you as a devrel team should do:
- Gather the feedback, understand it, and finally refine it
- Report this feedback to the dev teams
- Respond to developer’s queries
Community
Finally, developers might want to talk to other developers working on similar things. They need a place where they feel they belong.
A Devrel team can do the following to create a community:
- Create a place for developers to hang out. It can be online/offline. Maybe start a regular meetup or a meetup at a conference
- Run events like hackathon
How do you get started in developer relations?
Suppose you want to be part of a DevRel team but don’t have enough skills to be with. Let me tell you how I started.
First and foremost, you don’t have to join a company to start working as a DevRel. Since DevRel encompasses various skills, start with something you already know.
- If you’re interested in writing, create a blog. I vividly remember my first blog. While studying at college, I wrote blogs about tech news and how-to guides. Here is my first-ever blog post on the internet: https://iarenapc.blogspot.com/2010/07/using-open-source-packages-for-php-web.html.
- If you want to create samples and demos, share them on Git Hub with your audience.
- Talk to your local meetup organizer for a speaking slot if you like to give presentations.
- Are you good at creating videos? Make YouTube videos.
Not only does this improve your skills in the field, but you also get a body of work. Most importantly, you get exposure.
If this piqued your interest, don’t wait for the next Devrel opportunity. Start doing your thing, and you might get your next role in DevRel.
References
https://www.samjulien.com/what-is-developer-relations/ https://slack.engineering/defining-a-career-path-for-developer-relations/