Is developer relations right for you?

How do you know whether moving into developer relations or DevRel is right for you?

Is developer relations right for me?Medium

Blog

Summary:

• Differences between being a product-based software engineer

• Pros and cons of this move

• Signals in your own life are strong indicators that you might be successful in DevRel

• What the DevRel mindset is

Scribbles

• The main focus of the blog is to focus on the engineering side of developer relations.

Difference between being a software engineer on a product and a software engineer in developer relations

Software Engineering vs DevRel - The difference

Time spent coding

• Product-based software engineer the majority of your time is spent working on

  • features

  • fixing bugs

  • writing tests

  • eliminating technical debt

  • writing design documents

• Engineer in developer relations, there’s simply a lot less time to do all of this

  • developer relations teams are the connective tissue between 3rd party developers and the internal product and engineering teams

  • time spent on creating, building, and connecting with communities.

  • collecting feedback and working with your internal stakeholders to make sure the product is evolving to better serve the developer community

Size of coding projects

• not always be the case, but generally speaking, the size of the coding projects in DevRel is smaller.

• building a proof of concept, a demo, a code snippet, or perhaps a client library

• your code itself is to be used by other developers within their own projects

• building a community, overhauling documentation, amplifying knowledge about a product through videos and speaking engagements -- less coding.

Part of everything

• part engineer, part product manager, part marketer, and part business development.

• encounter a lot of different stacks

• have to be flexible and learning new stacks on the go.

Focused on people

• DevRel at its’ core is about people

• software engineering is often more about the code you produce

• a mix of a great engineer who connects with other engineers and has the respect of the internal teams at the same time caring about people (developers) and making them successful.

Evaluation of contributions

• software engineer’s impact is likely focused largely on technical contributions

• For DevRel

  • community growth/support

  • growth of product awareness

  • product influence

  • communication regarding product launches

  • delivery of technical content

Pros

• Requires being good at a different set of skills.

• You have a chance to see the world.

• You’ll be closer to the people who use the product.

Cons

• There are less DevRel jobs than software engineering jobs.

• Most people understand the value a software engineer brings to a company, it’s not as clear in developer relations.

• There's a lot of explaining to do.

Signs to switch to DevRel

• Actively participated in or organized programming events, contests, hackathons, or workshops.

• Spoke at technical conferences or meetups.

• Have a mixed background of engineering and product or project management.

• Academic background or teaching experience of technical subjects.

At the end of the day, it's all about the mindset, #DevRel being about people, the mindset has to be one of empathy. Their success is our success.