Effective DevRel means Quality over Vanity

The developer relations team should have its roots in engineering. Empathy for the audience they need to serve is essential. Advocacy is first for the developer community. This community is any developer involved in the product, internal or external, past and present. In a Software tool company, this means overlap in different departments. DevRel is the least biased path to a developer’s first success with any new tool or product.

To the developer community, represent the company. To the company, represent the community.

Focus areas

Documentation

• Window to the product
• Trust is earned or lost
• Simple & Thorough

Samples & SDKs

• Modern
• Easy to Use
• Always Open Source

Guides

• Expand on Documentation
• Are use case driven

First Success

• Helping others
• Reduce friction
• Time to Value focus

Foster Community

• Chat groups
• Answer questions
• Meetups
• Write, Record, and Share

Areas DevRel can Help

Dev Experience

• Accurate/Searchable Resources
• Language libraries and SDKs
• Getting started guides Self-service/Open-Source
• Community chat & question forum
• Sample applications
• Developer blog posts
• Audit Feature/API references
• Service status/uptime info
• Interactive documentation

Community

• Local events, Meetup/User groups
• Audio/Video content
• Social Media
• Ambassador program
• Swag store