A few weeks ago, if you'd asked me what "DevRel" stood for, I would've squinted, smiled, and given you a confident-sounding non-answer. Today I'm in a DevRel mentorship program so let me close that knowledge gap for you the way it got closed for me
The "Before": What I Thought DevRel Was
When I first heard the term Developer Relations (DevRel), my brain did what most people's brains do; it grabbed the two words and built a half-decent guess.
"Oh, so… you relate to developers? Like, customer support for developers?"
Not quite.
I also assumed it was basically being a tech influencer. Someone who posts on Twitter/X, shows up at events with a branded hoodie, and tells everyone how amazing their company's product is. Half marketing, half cheerleader.
Also not quite.
The "During": What DevRel Actually Is
Here's the cleanest definition I can give you:
DevRel is the bridge between a company that builds tools for developers and the developers who actually use those tools.
Think of it like this: imagine a company builds a really powerful kitchen appliance, but only professional chefs can figure out how to use it. That appliance will flop; not because it's bad, but because nobody knows how to get value out of it. DevRel is the team that writes the cookbook, hosts the cooking class, listens to chefs complain about the buttons, and then walks back to the engineers and says, "Hey, can we move this button?"
In tech, that "appliance" is usually an API, an SDK, or a developer tool. The "chefs" are software developers around the world. And DevRel is the function that makes sure the two actually connect.
One thing my mentor said in our first session that stuck with me:
"You should be a developer(Even at beginner level) before you become a developer advocate."
This is the part that demolished my "tech influencer" theory. You can't honestly bridge two worlds if you only live in one of them. If you've never written code, you don't know which parts of a product are confusing, broken, or magical. You can talk to developers, but you can't speak with them.
The Three Cs of DevRel
The work itself breaks down into three pillars what folks in the field call the 3 Cs:
🧑🏽💻 Code — DevRel folks build things. They use the product themselves, ship demo apps, write sample code, and feel the same friction real developers feel. This is how they earn the right to speak.
✍🏽 Content — They turn the product into something learnable. Documentation, tutorials, blog posts, videos, livestreams, conference talks. If you've ever Googled "how to do X with [some tool]" and landed on a guide that actually made sense; that was probably DevRel's work.
🤝🏽 Community — They show up where developers gather. Hackathons, meetups, conferences like DevFest Lagos, Discord servers, Twitter/X spaces. They're not there to sell; they're there to listen, teach, and build genuine relationships.
A DevRel person who only does one of the three? good but can be better. A DevRel person who weaves all three together? That's the real job.
The "After": How I'm Actually Getting Started
I won't pretend I've figured this out. I'm at the very beginning; accepted into a mentorship program. But here's what "getting started" looks like in practice:
Becoming a developer first. Not optional. Before I can advocate for developers, I need to be one, even at a beginner level. Code is the foundation that everything else stands on.
Learning from people already doing it. A few I'm watching closely:
Tejas Kumar — chief developer advocate, podcast host, and one of the clearest voices on what DevRel actually is and isn't. His ConTejas Code podcast has a whole episode dedicated to a deep dive into DevRel.
Sodiq Akinjobi — Developer Ecosystem Community Manager at Google and one of the organisers behind GDG Lagos and DevFest. If you want to see community-building done well in Africa, watch what he ships.
Joshua Omobola — a true polymath whose work cuts across engineering, writing, and community from Supertokens to Web3Afrika. The kind of multidisciplinary profile that DevRel rewards.
Timonwa Akintokun — DevRel Engineer at IQ AI, working on ADK-TS (the Agent Development Kit for TypeScript). She literally sums up the job on her site as "Code, content, and community that's what I do." Iconic. Also, a reminder that this field has space for women doing absolutely cracked work, and the more visible that is, the better.Putting myself out there. Which is what this blog post actually is. Writing in public is one of the best things you can do, you're practising content, learning to explain, and inviting feedback at the same time. (This is me practising.)
A Quick Word on Career Paths
DevRel isn't one job; it's a family of jobs. You can specialise as a Developer Advocate, a Technical Writer, a Community Manager, a Developer Experience (DX) Engineer, or a DevRel Engineer. Some lean more toward code, some toward content, some toward people. There's no single ladder, which is intimidating at first but freeing once you accept it.
So… What Do You Take From This?
If you're a fellow developer wondering whether DevRel could be a fit, it is if you like teaching and you don't mind being visible.
If you're non-tech and you've read this far, congratulations! You now understand a corner of tech that even a lot of tech people don't fully get. The next time someone says they work in DevRel, you'll know they're not doing tech support, and they're not just an influencer. They're the bridge.
And if you're somewhere in between, welcome to the club. I'll see you out there!
This post is part of my journey through the DX mentorship program. I'll be writing more as I learn. Feel free to follow along, or share your thoughts in the comments on what you thought DevRel was before reading this. I'm collecting answers!🥑
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