DEV Community: Caroline Lewko

Survey Insights: The Many Roles of DevRel

Caroline Lewko — Fri, 01 Dec 2023 17:24:56 +0000

What is a Developer Relations (DevRel) practitioner? How many job titles are represented in DevRel? You might be surprised to learn the variety of job titles that make up the dynamic practice of #DevRel.

Our 10th Annual State of DevRel Report, launched on October 17, 2023, showcased many interesting insights about DevRel. The variety of DevRel Job Titles and activities is one of those insights. What the Report shows and what we continue to witness, is the increased recognition of DevRel’s value to an organization. To meet those needs, the roles and responsibilities within a Developer Relations Program have expanded.

Let’s unpack this with some data from our survey respondents.

A Variety of Job Titles and Levels in DevRel
To find out who's doing what in DevRel these days, Question 8 from the survey asked: “What is your most recent developer relations job title?” The results were as follows:

Figure 1: Job Titles identified in the survey - more detail here.

No surprise, Developer Advocates at 42.8%, is the top grouping of job titles for #DevRel.

The Developer Advocate role is most familiar in DevRel, as it’s usually the most outward-facing role and often the first role that is hired.

However, as we dig deeper, we see that 57.2% of DevRel roles are not Developer Advocates.

As DevRel has grown, we see more Leadership and Managerial roles, and roles across the spectrum of DevRel’s core components, such as Dev Marketing, Dev Experience, Dev Education, and Community. We also see a strong tie-in to engineering with roles like DevRel engineers.

Although the survey didn’t uncover a C-Level DevRel role this year, we frequently encounter them, and continue to advocate for a Chief Developer Relations Officer to align with DevRel’s impact within an organization. Perhaps we’ll see more of those roles next year!

A Few Tips to Build Your DevRel Team
From a practical standpoint, you may wonder how to grow your team or your own role. Here are a few suggestions to help you get things moving.

Always start by understanding your company’s goals, where DevRel reports, and how your DevRel program will contribute to your company’s goals. You’ll also need to determine what your community wants. There are many questions to ponder here, and it helps to make a list. Below are a few considerations and the types of roles which can fulfill them.

Does your developer audience know about your product or DevRel program?
A Developer Marketer may be required here. Their duties often revolve around digital marketing (e.g., SOE, PPC, online ads, etc.) and outreach through developer newsletters and nurture campaigns. Strong research and analytics are needed here to keep up with trends, understand KPIs around activities, and impart findings to other departments.

What’s the state of your community? Do you have one?
Developer Advocate skills may be needed here as they represent the organization in relevant technical communities. Often wearing many hats, these folks may attend events, give product demos, generate content, and pull together other resources and departments. Traits can include a reasonably strong technical background backed by good social and writing skills.

Do developers need more information on how to get the solution working?
Are they finding friction or roadblocks while trying to build “hello world” or follow tutorials? Technical Writers and Developer Education specialists may be needed. As experienced writers and instructors, people in these roles have great communication skills and an uncanny ability to distill internal knowledge developers crave. Alternatively, a Support and Success person may be needed. They tend to have a strong technical background and in-depth product knowledge, as they often work directly with the product team to help customers scale.

In essence, DevRel is not just a role. It's a program and a team of people to deliver on the needs of your developers so they can find success with your product, which in turn creates success for your company.

DevRel job titles and activities are as diverse as the organizations that now employ and practice DevRel. For the full survey results, check out the rest of the 10th Annual State of DevRel Report.

The 2023 State of Developer Relations Report is administered by us at DevRel.Agency, and proudly sponsored by Common Room, Slack, and Orbit.

9th Annual DevRel Survey Results

Caroline Lewko — Tue, 01 Nov 2022 20:58:00 +0000

The 9th State of Developer Relations report, released on September 28, 2022, is the most comprehensive report on DevRel you will find.

If you are wondering what is happening in DevRel:

Read the latest report here.

Watch the Highlights of the launch event in this video, featuring a panel sharing their views with Caroline Lewko, Stacey Kruczek, Wesley Faulkner, James Parton, and Jordan Adler.

Highlights

DevRel is Diverse & Branching out

27% identify as female. Compared to the latest StackOverflow survey, which has 5.2% identifying as female - our results are significant. And, there is salary parity among all groups!
19.1% are neurodiverse, giving us pause to think about how we communicate and educate DevRel and those developers we serve.
25% of companies have more than one developer program
38.4% support internal and external devs

DevRel is also diverse in the wide range of Job Titles from various levels of Developer Advocate to DevRel engineers, Community Managers, Content Marketers, DX Managers, Program Managers, Product Managers, Software engineers, and Technical writers, all fall under the DevRel umbrella. See the image below directly from P. 11 of the report.

DevRel is spreading around the globe & Salaries are rising

Silicon Valley still has the highest number of companies that practice DevRel headquartered there at 31.3%, but only 7.9% of the people who practice DevRel.
The median base salary is $148K USD, and the median total compensation is $180K USD, up from $163k in 2021.

Content is a continued Story

57.1% say content marketing is the most effective tactic
41.8% say Continuous content creation is the biggest challenge, and many manage external contributors for this.
Driving awareness is the main purpose of DevRel at 85.3%

There is more

There is so much more, so check out the report if you want to learn about:

How many products do programs support?
What are the size of annual budgets?
Is there a defined career path?
Does Leadership support DevRel?
Which online channels are most effective?
How often do teams review friction logs?
Who directs the team’s work?
What type of companies practice DevRel?
What’s the definition of community?
How many DevRel practitioners work remotely?
How do DevRel people spend their time?
What % hold the title of Developer Advocate vs Evangelist?
Do you have to have a technical degree to be in DevRel?
What resources are effective to be in DevRel?

Thanks and gratitude

Much thanks to everyone involved, and those who took the time to fill in the survey.

The Report is administered by Revere Communications and supported by a Working Group that provided critical analysis, asked why this and why not that, added new questions, crunched the numbers, edited the report, and promoted the survey.

You can download a copy of the 2022 State of Developer Relations report here.

2021 Report: State of Developer Relations

Caroline Lewko — Fri, 10 Dec 2021 20:39:38 +0000

The State of Developer Relations 2021 Report is now available. This is the 8th DevRel report, based on the findings of the 2021 DevRel Survey. Thanks to all of you who took the time to participate.

The report shows the continued growth and maturity of Developer Relations as a practice and as a growth strategy for companies. You'll find information on the companies of DevRel, their types and industries, the size of programs, teams, budgets, and communities, and the people of DevRel including what they do, salaries, and challenges.

Here are the highlights:

This report is a tool for DevRel practitioners to benchmark their activities and provide some scope to the emerging practice of DevRel. We encourage you to ponder the revelations, insights, and implications. Feel free to share the report, comment on it, and review it with your peers. #devrel2021 #stateofdevrel

Which companies are doing DevRel?

Caroline Lewko — Thu, 30 Sep 2021 19:01:44 +0000

Have you ever been asked or wondered - "How many companies have a DevRel program?"

So have we, and we never had a good answer, or a reference to point to so we created a Developer Relations Program Directory.

Developer Products include APIs, SDKs, HDKs, tools, and reference designs. There are also Developer Services from hackathon organizers, recruiters and app stores.

What's missing or inaccurate? Check it out and let us know.
As of this post - we have 760 companies.
DevRel Program Directory

A Framework for Developer Relations

Caroline Lewko — Mon, 23 Aug 2021 19:39:21 +0000

Have you ever been asked, “What exactly is Developer Relations?” Or perhaps you are the one asking the question. It’s a difficult question given the scope of DevRel, so we challenged ourselves to come up with a succinct framework.

Back in January, we shared some of our early thinking for a Developer Relations Framework, one that attempted to describe the surface area of Developer Relations, its components, and how they intersect.

Publishing V1 stimulated a really constructive discussion in the community. We weren’t 100% happy with the framework when we shared it publicly for the first time, so the feedback was exactly what we needed to challenge and shape our thinking. Thank you!

In this post, we present V2 of the Developer Relations Framework and the one that is included in our book.

What Needed to Change

Specifically, having Developer Relations in the center of the original framework didn’t work. In V1 ‘Developer Relations’ was being used both in the context of an umbrella term encompassing all the components of the framework, but also plotted as a specific set of activities within the framework. This obviously created confusion.

From our work on The Developer Journey Framework it became obvious that the Developer Experience (DX), which encompasses both the product and Docs, should be at the framework's core. Your chances of success are going to be severely hindered if you have a poor DX that creates friction in your signup, onboarding, and product usage workflows.

The final insight from the feedback received was the growing importance of Developer Education (DevEd). We had hinted at the importance of great learning resources, but on reflection, we felt that the momentum and importance of DevEd was undeniable. This was especially so considering the impact of COVID on traditional developer field-based advocacy. It was right to recognize it as a core component of DevRel.

The new diagram reflects the changes as shown in the Figure below.

So What is DevRel?

DevRel is a professional practice focused on the engagement of developers as the primary user of a product. It’s also a program and set of activities with a company, most often called a Developer Program. The Developer Framework outlines the core components activated to interact with developers on their journey with your product and company.

Here’s a recap of the individual components of the DevRel Framework:

1. Developer Marketing - outreach and engagement activities to create awareness and convert developers to use your product.

2. Developer Education – product documentation and education resources to aid learning and build affinity with your product and community.

3. Developer Experience (DX) – includes the developer portal, product, and docs, to activate the developer with the least friction.

4. Developer Success – activities to nurture developers as they build and scale with your product, including retention.

5. Community – like the trunk and roots of the tree, a community must be nourished to grow and stay healthy for a successful, sustainable program.

We hope you will now be able to confidently answer the question, “What is DevRel?”

We are always open to feedback. The DevRel Framework is shared here under a CC:BY:SA license, so let us know what you think and feel free to adapt it to keep improving its utility.

Are you a DevFirst or DevPlus company?

Caroline Lewko — Thu, 12 Aug 2021 16:16:00 +0000

Knowing if your company is a Developer First or Developer Plus company offers context into how you set up your #devrel program.

Developer First companys' primary focus is to create and sell products specifically designed to be used by developers (a.k.a. Business to Developer, or B2D). Think Twilio, Stripe, MongoDB, Arduino, Unity, PerceptiLabs, etc.

Developer Plus companys' primary focus is to create and sell products for businesses (a.k.a Business to Business, or B2B) or consumers (a.k.a Business to Consumer, or B2C). These companies also make products or services available to developers which they believe will benefit or add to their strategy in some way. Benefits that might accrue from adding a B2D approach include opening new channels to market, extending into new use cases, contributing to an innovation strategy, or a new method to optimize or enhance existing products. Examples include Qualcomm, Apple, Ford, Santander, Microsoft, Salesforce, Amazon, and Google.

And as you attempt to establish and scale your program, understanding and being prepared for the differences will dictate how much time you must dedicate to internal matters of strategic alignment and stakeholder management vs. getting out there into the developer community and driving the adoption of your developer tool or product. This context also affects your ability to attract and retain top talent, and it affects your freedom to execute your ideas.

Perhaps not surprising, life is - generally speaking - significantly easier for a DevRel professional inside a Developer First company. After all, a Developer First company's sole purpose is to build tools for developers, therefore one would hope, there is little confusion about answers to simple questions like, “why are developers important?” Friction in Developer First companies tends to arise due to a lack of communication between departments or investors, disagreements on go-to-market tactics and metrics, or a lack of understanding of what good looks like, rather than a more fundamental existential crisis, questioning the need for a DevRel team at all.

In Developer Plus companies, always be aware that your activity is likely not viewed as core to the business because, by definition, it isn’t. Therefore, your job must include educating your stakeholders to ensure you have the air cover you need to flourish. Find ways to connect your efforts to the core goals and priorities of your department and the wider company. Connect the dots and make the case that a dollar spent on your program provides a better return than a dollar spent elsewhere in the business.

If you are working in a larger multi-national business you will have additional challenges to overcome. The company culture may not be ideally suited to nurture a DevRel effort. For DevRel to be successful there has to be openness, a willingness to share information, receive and act on feedback, within a supportive and collaborative environment, with an entrepreneurial and partnership mindset.

Are you part of a Devfirst or Devplus company? Do you have any tips for our Devrel community?

The Developer Journey Map

Caroline Lewko — Tue, 03 Aug 2021 16:42:39 +0000

Perhaps no other tool or framework went through as many revisions as The Developer Journey Map during the development of the book. It’s our most ambitious framework, as it seeks to document the end-to-end life cycle of a developer interacting with your DevRel program. Consequently, in the book, there are six chapters totaling over 15,000 words dedicated to exploring The Developer Journey Map. This post can only scratch the surface of this topic, but will hopefully serve as a useful introduction to the concept.

Like a customer journey, The Developer Journey Map is a visualization that identifies the path a developer follows and experiences. As they move left to right across the stages, their level of interaction increases with your brand, team, and product. It’s one of the most valuable tools in DevRel in that it helps you to think holistically about the experience from the developers’ perspective while providing a very practical guide for you.

Your goal with the map is to progress your developer from left to right as quickly as possible to increase product adoption and revenue potential.

The fives stages of the map (Discover, Evaluate, Learn, Build, Scale) indicate significant changes in the developer’s intent and actions. They do not imply elapsed time.

See more about the Developer Journey: https://lnkd.in/dfNmFrC

As always - all comments appreciated!