DX Tips / Page
Resources
On this page
Featured DXTips Resource posts
- Best Pitches/Demos of All Time: https://dx.tips/pitches
- Hiring: First DevRel Hiring Process
- Best Company YouTubes: https://dx.tips/youtubes
Recommended reads on Community
Newsletters and Podcasts
- https://devrelweekly.com/
- https://www.communitypulse.io/ site and podcast
- DevRel Content Channels with Cassidoo and Joe Karlsson
- Internal vs External DevRel (Community Pulse podcast)
- Community specific devrel
- B2B devrel
- external -> tie activities to some sort of value
- Internal devrel -> developers, no social, network - just making devs succeed internally - embrace community within your company
- Twitter Spaces on Devrel with Angie, Sarah, Kelsey, Emily, James
- https://devxpod.buzzsprout.com/ from GitPod
- https://developerexperience.buzzsprout.com/ from Algolia
Other DevRel Communities
Metrics
Books
- https://www.samjulien.com/devrel-book-links
- The DevRel Handbook by Weavr AI (free)
- The Business Value of Developer Relations by Mary Thengvall
Misc
- https://devrelresourc.es/ (Mary Thengvall)
- https://devocate.com/ (Tessa Kriessel)
- Career Ladders
- Devrel Career Ladder - Mary Thengvall
- https://www.devrel-ladders.com/
- Salary survey https://dev.to/bffjossy/2021-devrel-salary-survey-results-table-of-contents-43fe
- https://devrelcollective.fun/#resources
- https://jobsindevrel.com/
- https://medium.com/the-devrel-salon/devrel-sales-2af834139b9e
- https://alexlakatos.com/avocados/2020/11/24/building-first-year-devrel-program/ a nice comparison and rejection of the Orbit and the AARRRP model
- https://www.heavybit.com/library/podcasts/developer-love/ep-2-collaboration-platforms-with-joyce-lin-of-postman/
- pro tip: double dip
- job changes over time towards OKR justification
- devrel can be too insular
- hot take: you don't have to travel
- https://www.lastweekinaws.com/podcast/screaming-in-the-cloud/devrel-done-well-with-matt-stratton/
- devrel's relationship with marketing and sales - dont try to sell
- at a conference - connect to the content of other speakers' talks
- dont be too clubby with other speakers
- https://helenmin.com/blog/marketing-to-developers
- Author worked at Plaid, Quora, Dropbox, FB
- TL;DR: How do I build a strong developer brand like [Stripe]? Be a great developer. Hire great developers. Engage 24/7 with developers using your product.
- B2B marketing fails with developers
- A developer isn’t going to sign up for your company’s webinar, give their email to download your whitepaper, or click on your link-bait. They detest spam and any attempt to sell products to them. They don’t want to hear that your product is the best; they want to get their hands on it quickly and decide for themselves, so remove any lead-capture techniques that feel like barriers.
- The mortal sins in selling to developers are 1. Sharing inaccurate information, and 2. Slowing them down.
- Hiring devrel
- Early stage - just founding team does the work
- First hires: Hire from within the community, e.g. Patrick McKenzie
- Later: Hire for technical chops/passion for helping devs
- Measuring ROI
- Tracking things like developer satisfaction, engagement, and retention can give you a sense of how you are doing. Companies can eventually track upsells or conversions to a paid version of the product down the line.
- The main thing to understand is that building a developer community happens tweet by tweet, event by event, with little reward in the beginning. This requires immense amounts of patience. Many brands abandon their efforts too early, or continuously delay their start (most common).
- Engaging Developers
- Rule 1: Show, don’t tell - Break down barriers to getting their hands on the product as quickly as possible so they can determine whether or not your product is right for them.
- Rule 2: Features not benefits - Be straightforward about specs and feature comparisons against other product lines or competitors. Don’t bury the lede.
- Rule 3: Be genuinely helpful - Invest in comprehensive, high-quality resources (e.g. great API documentation, a well-maintained help center, how-to videos, sample use cases) and make it easy to contact you directly if they need some extra help. (Chances are, they won’t)
- Rule 4: Be direct - get to know a developer and then imagine you are writing to that individual person each time. This quickly eliminates anything sales-y and helps produce genuinely useful content.
- Rule 5: Think beyond the 9-to-5 - Many developers are developers in and out of work, with side projects on a wide range of topics (from hacking their dishwasher to building a marketplace or a game).
- defining developer relations
- list of activities https://leggetter.github.io/devrelometer/
- the 3 functions of devrel - Awareness (dev advocacy), Enablement (dev experience), Engagement (community mgmt) https://www.marythengvall.com/blog/2021/3/9/the-devrel-path-to-success-awareness-enablement-engagement
- https://cdoyle.me/posts/getting-better-at-devrel from head of devrel at Slack
- https://www.samjulien.com/growing-your-career-as-a-developer-advocate
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv5W4jXk4P4 devrel in data science
- https://www.lastweekinaws.com/podcast/screaming-in-the-cloud/splitballing-on-devrel-with-talia-nassi/ giving talks, teaching, making people feel better
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h4chtNOuuc Building an army of advocates without a big budget -- Paige Paquette
- Jeff Lawson, Ask your Developer? NFX podcast
Softer/Personal takes on the devrel role