Developer Relations, also known as DevRel, is a process of nourishment of relationships between software developers and organizations.Developer Relations (DevRel) is the team that interacts with software developers outside the company to spread awareness and knowledge about the company’s products.. The end goal is to attract developers (the people who create apps and hardware), build a community of supporters and evangelists, and increase the likelihood that developers will successfully adopt and use the products the company releasesEvery day, we hear about a new app or platform coming to market. Some will have an immediate impact, while others will fizzle out quickly. Some apps may even have long-term staying power, becoming an important part of our everyday lives.Many developers/companies, however, find it a struggle to sell their apps. Building an awesome product and taking it to the customer are different steps, it’s essential to educate the target users about the benefit of your app or website. This is where developer relations come into play.
Not so long ago, if a company wanted to release a new product, it typically involved pitching executives, negotiating with procurement, and building a solution from scratch. Today, however, companies increasingly rely on developers outside the company (communities) and depend greatly on their feedback. In other words, developer relations is the collection of tactics and strategies that aids software engineers to work closely with companies. There are tech product companies whose complete code is open sourced and they have raised funds or are making money too.A good number of techcompanies have to market their product such as an application, a SAAS product, plugin, API, etc to software developers, and to do this they take the help of developer relations (devrel). This, a devrel acts as a mediator between developers and the company.
Some of the known companies and their communities include Google Developer Groups (GDG) by Google, Postman Community by Postman, Github Community, Atlassian Community and many more!
The activities of these companies in developer communities help them in developing a large fan base of software developers. These raving fans then share their product or service with fellow developers, thus promoting the company’s product and services by word of mouth, helping these brands amplify their reach like wildfire.
The same model is adopted by other companies like slack, digital ocean, etc. and organizations are shifting more towards advanced methods of developer marketing leading to the creation of modern developer communities.
Let’s now look at some key areas of developer relations -
l. Marketing to a developer is different from traditional marketing approaches as they are busy professionals and and would be least interested if you are just trying to sell your product by repeated pitches from marketers. Awareness means letting the software engineers know about the product, its features, benefits, and the problem that the product will solve which will help them. This kind of information conveyed in a systematic manner will be helpful in making awareness campaigns successful.Awareness can be created in two ways - online and in person. Online awareness includes having sections (like discussion forums, landing pages) on your website or app, social media engagements, emails, newsletters, webinars, running ads on platforms and specifically targeting developers whereas offline outreach includes meeting them face to face in events, conferences, workshops and handing over the details of your product or service. Offline and online modes together work really well and help build a long term relationship with your users.
Feedback is important in any aspect of building a product. In business, it’s important that the company is able to know its offerings and products are meeting or exceeding the needs of its customers.It is also known as developer advocacy, these people are called developer advocates and have two responsibilities. First is to be an advocate of the company’s product to the software developers in the region they are based in the software developer and another is to make sure that the voice of developers should be heard during product discussions by taking their feedback to the product teams.This can be done by gathering feedback from the potential & ideal users of the product. The feedback could be related to user experience, difficulties they face while using the product, bugs reported, features that are helpful, or other attributes that are working poorly or fine.All these reviews are collected and later analyzed by engineering and marketing teams. This kind of data will help in upgrading the products (making it more developer-friendly) and aids the marketing team to frame better branding strategies for it.
Developer Plus companies are either marketing their products to businesses (B2B) or to the customers (B2C) directly. Examples of these companies are Apple, Slack, Spotify, etc.
So, the main responsibilities of a developer relations professional are -
Not so long ago, if a company wanted to release a new product, it typically involved pitching executives, negotiating with procurement, and building a solution from scratch. Today, however, companies increasingly rely on developers outside the company (communities) and depend greatly on their feedback. In other words, developer relations is the collection of tactics and strategies that aids software engineers to work closely with companies. There are tech product companies whose complete code is open sourced and they have raised funds or are making money too.A good number of techcompanies have to market their product such as an application, a SAAS product, plugin, API, etc to software developers, and to do this they take the help of developer relations (devrel). This, a devrel acts as a mediator between developers and the company.
Some of the known companies and their communities include Google Developer Groups (GDG) by Google, Postman Community by Postman, Github Community, Atlassian Community and many more!
History of Developer Relations
Apple isbelieved to be the first company who has started practicing developer relations back in the 1980s to persuade software developers to develop software for their Macintosh program. Actually, the term software evangelist was coined by Mike Murray at that time, and later in 2013, developer relations became more popular when companies like New Relic, Twilio, etc. started adopting this approach.The activities of these companies in developer communities help them in developing a large fan base of software developers. These raving fans then share their product or service with fellow developers, thus promoting the company’s product and services by word of mouth, helping these brands amplify their reach like wildfire.
The same model is adopted by other companies like slack, digital ocean, etc. and organizations are shifting more towards advanced methods of developer marketing leading to the creation of modern developer communities.
Essential Areas of Developer Relations
As mentioned earlier, developer relations teams act as a link between the users (developers) and the company that created the product.Let’s now look at some key areas of developer relations -1. Awareness
The first step of marketing a product or service is to create awareness of that product. No matter how well suited as a solution your product or service is, if no one knows about it, it's not gonna sell. Marketing to a developer is different from traditional marketing approaches as they are busy professionals and and would be least interested if you are just trying to sell your product by repeated pitches from marketers. Awareness means letting the software engineers know about the product, its features, benefits, and the problem that the product will solve which will help them. This kind of information conveyed in a systematic manner will be helpful in making awareness campaigns successful.Awareness can be created in two ways - online and in person. Online awareness includes having sections (like discussion forums, landing pages) on your website or app, social media engagements, emails, newsletters, webinars, running ads on platforms and specifically targeting developers whereas offline outreach includes meeting them face to face in events, conferences, workshops and handing over the details of your product or service. Offline and online modes together work really well and help build a long term relationship with your users.
2. Education
It is the duty of every company to educate their customer regarding the product like how to use it, how to solve problems with it, and whom to contact in case of any assistance regarding technical aspects. For instance, developer relations for the JavaScript framework provide educational tutorials regarding the JS fundamentals, coding principles, and the framework itself and companies like Google and Atlassian often do hands on codelabs & office hours to interact with developers who want to or are using their productsThese people might not yet be their paid customers, but are still interested to know about the product. The education and support are necessary as when developers are confident in using your platform, they will refer it to their fellow software engineers.
3. Feedback
Feedback is important in any aspect of building a product. In business, it’s important that the company is able to know its offerings and products are meeting or exceeding the needs of its customers.It is also known as developer advocacy, these people are called developer advocates and have two responsibilities. First is to be an advocate of the company’s product to the software developers in the region they are based in the software developer and another is to make sure that the voice of developers should be heard during product discussions by taking their feedback to the product teams.This can be done by gathering feedback from the potential & ideal users of the product. The feedback could be related to user experience, difficulties they face while using the product, bugs reported, features that are helpful, or other attributes that are working poorly or fine.All these reviews are collected and later analyzed by engineering and marketing teams. This kind of data will help in upgrading the products (making it more developer-friendly) and aids the marketing team to frame better branding strategies for it.4. Developer Community
An active developer community is the backbone of developer relations and it signifies that developers are using that extension, API, cloud service, etc. Developer Community comprises building authentic relationships with users, celebrating their wins, solving their problems, and empowering them to excel in their careers.A community can be a forum, a Discord server a Slack group, WhatsApp group (intended to be free from spammers), a mailing list or an event platform. The engagement in the developer community provides critical feedback to the devrel team about the positives and negatives of the product. By considering the pain points of customers, the product can be improved and the needs of users are addressed directly. It creates a fun environment where developers from diverse backgrounds come together to learn, build & share knowledge. It’s a plethora of free knowledge and opportunities.An active community acts as social proof that the product is successfully used by developers. This makes new developers comfortable with the product and existing ones feel more committed to it.Developer communities can be of any domain, web development, mobile development, product testing, cyber security, machine learning, artificoal intelligence, technical writing to name a few.Why Do You Need Developer Relations?
This kind of question pops up in the minds of a lot of technical folks - Why Should I care about Developer Relations?Well, most people think that companies use communities to host a bunch of conferences, speak on stage, travel and give gifts for free. Conversely, this is not the case as when one looks deeper into the role of devrel, one cannot imagine the value they bring to business and software engineers."The reason why you need developer relations is to advocate the product issues, modifications, and benefits on the behalf of the customer. Also, they take good or bad feedback from the end user and present it to the marketing, product, sales, and engineering team so that they analyze the pain points of the target audience and what changes software engineers are expecting from them."As per a survey, the DevRel team mostly falls under the marketing team and their budget can be anywhere between 30% to 90% of the whole marketing budget.Additionally, here is the list of objectives that a devrel can fulfill inside an organization
- They create content, tools, and free samples for the software developers so that they get to know about the product and have hands-on experience with it.
- They organize conferences, online meetups and create communities not only to attract more and more people towards their product but also to create goodwill around the company’s image in the larger picture. This is the reason why they travel a lot and can be seen more on roads than in offices. Eventually, a devrel is the brand ambassador of your product.
Companies that are Practicing Developer Relations
Devrels of different companies participate in & organize meetups and conferences to understand the regional developers’ needs, connect with them and help them solve their problems with the product and services their company has to offer.Here is the list of some renowned companies have strong DevRel teams which are impacting developers’ decisions and enabling them with new technologies-Google Dev Rel Team
Google Dev Rel team was founded in 2006 in the USA and the aim of the team was to spread the word about google products in communities. Apart from that, their responsibility is to support the developer community in different possible ways such as writing tutorials, and codes, providing documentation or giving lectures. As per my knowledge, they have more than 400 people in this team and more than 1000 regional communities.Apple Dev Rel Team
According to the official website of Apple, it is one of the largest third-party developer communities in the world, and they are working actively to support developers across the world in building solutions and facilitating app development.Stripe Dev Rel Team
Stripe’s Developer Relations Team makes developers aware of the latest developer products, and the adoption of those products. They engage with an extensive, thriving developer community in which they inspire, educate and support developers + OSS projects around the world.Furthermore, there are many other well-known organizations that have cultivated thriving developer communities and are performing well in this niche. Depending upon the type of business model they have, these companies are classified into Developer-first and Developer-Plus companies.DevFirst or DevPlus companies
Organizations that are into dev rel can be classified into two categories - Developer First and Developer plus.Developer-first companies are focused on marketing their product to developers only, and are often called Business to Developer (B2D) companies. Their primary objective is to design and sell their product specifically to application developers, including both web and mobile. For Example - Stripe, Camuda, Unity, etc.Developer Plus companies are either marketing their products to businesses (B2B) or to the customers (B2C) directly. Examples of these companies are Apple, Slack, Spotify, etc.
What are the responsibilities of Developer relations?
For every company, the role and duties of the DevRel are different. The main thing that is common between them is that each company offers products to software developers. A Devrel team comprises of developer advocates, developer evangelists, developer marketing, developer experience experts, and community managers.The career path is a mixture of technical knowledge plus conveying that information in the form of reading, writing, or speaking to developers. There is no specific degree that you need to become a dev rel and this is the reason why people come into this career path from a wide variety of backgrounds.So, the main responsibilities of a developer relations professional are -
- Respond to what is happening in the online as well as offline developer communities.
- Organize meet-ups and conferences.
- Grow the presence in the web dev and tech communities by sharing information about the product and addressing the appropriate problems of developers.
- Share helpful tips and educate web developers in the community
- Creating a beautiful developer experience by successfully aiding web developers to adapt to the company’s products or services and advocating on their behalf to the product teams.
- Continuously provide feedback regarding bugs and other product issues to internal stakeholders. For this, he or she may need to interact with the developers in different forums, discord groups, or do one on one calls to uncover the problems that the developer may encounter while using the product.
- Contributing to the open source using helpful content such as codes, articles, podcasts, educational videos, etc.
- Explore the new possibilities in the tech world and how to bridge the gap.
Goals of Developer Relations Team
The goals of the developer relation team include -- Increase the funding and revenue of the company.
- Expand the number of users and increase their retention by converting them to regular customers.
- Aids in innovation and advancement of the company’s product or service and also making the product market fit.
- Increase the satisfaction of developers using their company’s products.
- Raise brand recognition and enhance brand awareness.
Attract new developers for recruiting, contributing to their open source repositories.
