Developer advocate is one of the fastest-growing roles in tech — and one of the most misunderstood.... Tagged with devrel, opensource, career, developer.

Developer relations, abbreviated as DevRel, is an umbrella term for practices employed by an organization that builds developer-facing software to connect with the developers that use that software. Developer relations is a form of platform evangelism and the activities involved are sometimes referred to as a developer program or a DevRel program. DevRel programs often include the following: [...] • Developer marketing: Outreach and engagement activities to create awareness and encourage developers to use a product. • Developer education: Product documentation and resources such as videos to aid learning a product. • Developer experience: Often referred to as "zeroth customer" and "friction logging", devrel programs include using the product directly, finding problems, and improving the developer experience. [...] • Developer success: Activities to nurture and retain developers as they build and scale with a product. • Community: Events, forums, and social groups around the product. [...] following decades many companies formed DevRel programs. In the 2010s companies like New Relic, Twilio, EngineYard, and SendGrid branded DevRel programs as a " Developer-First approach". [...] DevRel theoretically intersects engineering, marketing, product management, and community management. [...] • Developer Advocates (aka Developer Evangelists): Focus [...] evangelizing) [...] , building webinars, hosting [...] issues with the product [...] software developers' [...] advocacy of tools [...] , and platforms. [...] solving real-world problems by [...] solutions to help developers improve their workflows and increase development efficiency. [...] also facilitate developer advocacy [...] empowering and evangelizing developers [...] champion a target product [...] Organizations which practice DevRel may be Developer-first or Developer-plus (aka Dev +) depending on their primary business model. Developer-First companies (e.g., Stripe, Camunda, PerceptiLabs, Unity, and Twilio) have a business-to-developer model (B2D) focused on selling products specifically designed to be used by developers. Developer-Plus companies (e.g., Slack, Spotify, Apple, Qualcomm, and Santander) tend to be business-to-business(B2B) or business-to-consumer(B2C). While the primary focus of Developer-Plus companies is to create and sell products for businesses or consumers, they also make products or services available to developers which benefit or enhance their strategy including: opening new market channels, creating new use cases, contributing to innovation strategies, or optimizing/enhancing existing products. [...] In 2021, a survey showed that 63.6% of organizations with DevRel programs were Developer-Plus, [...] 36.4% were Developer-First. [...] Regardless of Developer- [...] or Developer-First, companies are recognizing the growing power developers have in influencing purchasing decisions. This includes new companies focused on making tools for developers, and existing companies whose primary focus was elsewhere, which are now recognizing the developer opportunity. Thus, business leaders are now involved in starting new DevRel programs at their companies or increasing the impact of their existing programs. [...] Twilio, is an example of a Developer-First company, and more specifically an API-first company, that helped to shape the API economy (business models and practices designed around APIs), popularize DevRel programs, and became known for platform evangelism. Notably, their three-word billboard in Silicon Valley that simply said: "Ask Your Developer", followed by the Twilio logo, is credited with having started conversations between executives and developers in strategic decision making. [...] companies practicing DevRel globally were [...] North America (Canada and the US – 61.5%) and Europe (Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and the UK – 2 [...] %). Other countries/regions include Australia/New Zealand, China, India, and the