11–20 of 57 posts
In my mind, they exist to win business, and provide confidence when clients need it.
For those unfamiliar with the term, it's in the article about two-thirds of the way down. > Commonly it’s just known as a ‘developer relations’ role (so ‘DevRel’ for short) No, it's not a typo for Dev Reels, which would be an interesting alternative to open source repositories, but I guess you'd have to get good at video editing first!
I skimmed the article but didn't find it at a glance. Isn't it blog 101 to ensure your readers now this stuff?
Devrel here, (by the way it’s typically called a Developer Advocate or a Developer Evangelist, don’t get me started on how many questions I’ve gotten about the relation to religion lol) I think the article does a good job describing what devrel looks like at companies that are smart about selling to the new “tech business world” which is desperate for a way to measure the technical credibility of potential vendors. B…
For those unfamiliar with the term, it's in the article about two-thirds of the way down. > Commonly it’s just known as a ‘developer relations’ role (so ‘DevRel’ for short) No, it's not a typo for Dev Reels, which would be an interesting alternative to open source repositories, but I guess you'd have to get good at video editing first!
Thanks, I put a link in to help people on the first mention. In my bubble DevRels are more of a thing than most people's. I have never heard of 'Dev Reels' either!
So much less "technical sales" than "developer whose role includes public interaction"
For those unfamiliar with the term, it's in the article about two-thirds of the way down. > Commonly it’s just known as a ‘developer relations’ role (so ‘DevRel’ for short) No, it's not a typo for Dev Reels, which would be an interesting alternative to open source repositories, but I guess you'd have to get good at video editing first!
The impression is that a "DevRel" spends all their time writing talks, traveling to conferences, pitching products and speaking. This makes sense, because the "DevRels" you probably see the most are the ones that are doing these things, and you don't see them doing anything else. A lot of people are surprised to discover that traveling and speaking is actually a very small part of my job, given the number of talks I give, and how often they see me at events.
I think part of this perception comes from the conflation between an advocate and an evangelist. There is endless debate about what these terms mean in the context of developer relations, but for me, the difference is this:
* Evangelists want users to know that a product exists: They're speaking to developers, about the product. They probably report to & work with Sales/Marketing.
* Advocates want products to know that their users exist. They're speaking to product owners, about the developers. They probably report to & work with Engineering/Product.
Both roles are equally important (and sometimes done by the same person), and the "publicly-validated credibility" the author talks about is just as valuable to the product team as it is to the sales team.
So a sales like role, but with someone with a bit deeper technical knowledge who can speak to not just the nuts and bolts of features, but talk to the customer about what they do with tech, maybe how, and etc? Seems like a role that I've seen done by sales, sales engineers, product managers, etc.
They used to call it Technical Sales in the circles I travel.
Devrel here, (by the way it’s typically called a Developer Advocate or a Developer Evangelist, don’t get me started on how many questions I’ve gotten about the relation to religion lol) I think the article does a good job describing what devrel looks like at companies that are smart about selling to the new “tech business world” which is desperate for a way to measure the technical credibility of potential vendors. B…
And a lot of the dev advocates I see on social media (most seem to have a strong presence there) also have an image of an avocado, since apparently a lot of people confuse "developer advocate" with "developer avocado". Just noting that in case you notice a number of people with avocados in their about text and wonder what that's about.
That, but for account management.