Hi Daniel, and thank you. Glad you understand me quite well.
My perspective over DevRel in the last few years? You jumped straight to the most difficult one! That's great though as I'm sure my perspective could potentially help others, or vice versa if they want to add to it.
Developer Relations has been mostly a known/popular position at tech companies in the United States, over 52%** to be exact, as of 2019. Over the years, especially in the next few years, the concept of DevRel will be expanding throughout different countries exponentially.
Developer Relations is such a broad skillset that I'd have high doubts if you can find one person with every single expertise that is required for such a position. In the last year, according to many Twitter debates
If we want to look closer to the near future for DevRel and how it will evolve, remote is going to become key and hiring a DevRel community manager and someone to manage DevRel logistics for online communities and events will essentially be the key to their success, or at least one of many.
With more DevRel teams comes more need for DevRel managers/directors. As the field is still quite new with it booming just over 5 years ago, we're at the stage where we have experienced people who are helping build strategy and growth for these teams. With more leaders comes more interest in KPIs and measuring success! With more of everything, it leads to more open thoughts to defining even more about this role.
Once DevRel is more an understood "department", it will be necessary for it to become a standalone group, rather than sitting within a department (Product, Engineering, Marketing...etc). Other teams will "know" that cross collaboration and communication with DevRel is a must. This is something that is slowly happening but we are getting closer to this point!
This is my opinion and jotted down some thoughts while cooking dinner. :-) I'm sure I can come up with a ton more!
Hey Tessa, thanks for the answer! I definetly agree, I like that the profession is changing and we're starting to add more structure to processes and we're getting better at metrics. I've found my focus has shifted a lot from the speaking and the like to working more in the background, doing content and working on strategy. I like to see it as a me evolving in the space because the career path isn't always the straightest.
I also love that more companies abroad are taking it up! So many nice new roles scattered around the world. I can only imagine the good it would do to the developer communities there. I'm very excited to see where the industry goes.
You are very welcome. I have noticed that in DevRel, focuses can easily shift based on where your product is heading, what your longterm/shortterm strategy looks like as that could potentially shift over time. This field and the individual will always be shifting. I know my position has in all companies I've done DevRel for!
Totally! The constant movement for me makes it exciting! On the other hand there's always the fear of having knowledge on so much yet not mastering anything. Slowly the fear is fading because it become apparent to me that it's probably just me limiting myself.
I was having a conversation with a few friends about DevRel and I made this analogy which at first was a little weird but started to make sense the more I thought about it. To me it seems like DevRel touches on a lot of the growth aspects of a product at least because of that it's different for every product, team, company and there a beauty in that haha. I'm writing a blog post about it this week if you'd like to read it before it's out.
Hey! Good to see someone with a similar journey. I'm curious to know how your perspective of developer relations has changed over the years.
Hi Daniel, and thank you. Glad you understand me quite well.
My perspective over DevRel in the last few years? You jumped straight to the most difficult one! That's great though as I'm sure my perspective could potentially help others, or vice versa if they want to add to it.
Developer Relations has been mostly a known/popular position at tech companies in the United States, over 52%** to be exact, as of 2019. Over the years, especially in the next few years, the concept of DevRel will be expanding throughout different countries exponentially.
Developer Relations is such a broad skillset that I'd have high doubts if you can find one person with every single expertise that is required for such a position. In the last year, according to many Twitter debates
If we want to look closer to the near future for DevRel and how it will evolve, remote is going to become key and hiring a DevRel community manager and someone to manage DevRel logistics for online communities and events will essentially be the key to their success, or at least one of many.
With more DevRel teams comes more need for DevRel managers/directors. As the field is still quite new with it booming just over 5 years ago, we're at the stage where we have experienced people who are helping build strategy and growth for these teams. With more leaders comes more interest in KPIs and measuring success! With more of everything, it leads to more open thoughts to defining even more about this role.
Once DevRel is more an understood "department", it will be necessary for it to become a standalone group, rather than sitting within a department (Product, Engineering, Marketing...etc). Other teams will "know" that cross collaboration and communication with DevRel is a must. This is something that is slowly happening but we are getting closer to this point!
This is my opinion and jotted down some thoughts while cooking dinner. :-) I'm sure I can come up with a ton more!
** Source: Hoopy's State of the Developer Relations 2019 Report
Hey Tessa, thanks for the answer! I definetly agree, I like that the profession is changing and we're starting to add more structure to processes and we're getting better at metrics. I've found my focus has shifted a lot from the speaking and the like to working more in the background, doing content and working on strategy. I like to see it as a me evolving in the space because the career path isn't always the straightest.
I also love that more companies abroad are taking it up! So many nice new roles scattered around the world. I can only imagine the good it would do to the developer communities there. I'm very excited to see where the industry goes.
You are very welcome. I have noticed that in DevRel, focuses can easily shift based on where your product is heading, what your longterm/shortterm strategy looks like as that could potentially shift over time. This field and the individual will always be shifting. I know my position has in all companies I've done DevRel for!
Totally! The constant movement for me makes it exciting! On the other hand there's always the fear of having knowledge on so much yet not mastering anything. Slowly the fear is fading because it become apparent to me that it's probably just me limiting myself.
I was having a conversation with a few friends about DevRel and I made this analogy which at first was a little weird but started to make sense the more I thought about it. To me it seems like DevRel touches on a lot of the growth aspects of a product at least because of that it's different for every product, team, company and there a beauty in that haha. I'm writing a blog post about it this week if you'd like to read it before it's out.
Hi Daniel, I'd love to read your blog post. You can DM me on Twitter (it's open) @tessamero