What is DevRel? | What is Developer Relations ? | What is Developer Advocate ?

DevRel or Developer Relations, the term on its own defines itself but with work details and experience the meaning and name differ. In a very straightforward way, it means someone who focuses on the relationships between a software organization and the people practicing and developing software of that organization. Developer Relations uses the approach to enhance the engagement between a company’s internal and external users or programmers. At times it acts as community management for the technical audience since the work aligns upon building relations resulting to form a community and expanding it. A DevRel acting as a bridge between these communities and the company ensures a proper flow but exchanging feedback, solving queries, advocating for community needs, and more.

Why DevRel?

Till now from the explanation about what is DevRel or Developer Relations, the gist of why DevRel is required is quite covered, but to have a much better explanation about why DevRel is needed, the answer would be to fill the gap between a company and a developer in terms of understanding the product of the company and building with the help of product of the company.

With time, technologies are advancing, and companies are developing more and more services for developers so the gap is created that why a developer will use the service and if someone wants to use the service then how? Here the role of DevRel comes to action by filling the gap. DevRel or Developer Relations ensures that the conditions to understand the product are met. It ensures that the product of the company reaches its audience to increase engagement and meet their respective demands. DevRel drives awareness for a business by first educating themselves and putting up community efforts. Developer relations create opportunities for the developers to interreact freely with the experts at the company by providing documentation, campaigns, and more.

So, is it only DevRel?

DevRel or Developer Relations is like a big house with several rooms and each room has its own purpose and way of service. It must have been clear that when we talk about DevRel, it includes community, technology, technical writing, and even marketing. That is why DevRel is a vast term. This mainly focuses on expanding engagement through community and carrying out several tasks.Diving deep into it, these tasks create several roles too, like Developer Advocates, Developer Evangelists known as Technical Ambassadors, Developer Educations, Developer Marketing, and Community Managers. All these roles have the sole purpose of creating and maintaining a proper flow of engagement with people, marketing and reaching out of product, providing support to customers or developers, producing documentation and content, and increasing technical audience or community. They act as gears to the organization on different parts such as engineering, marketing, and product.

What are all roles of DevRel?

As mentioned earlier, about different roles such as Developer Advocates, Community Managers, and more. Their definitions and roles vary from company to company. There is no direct understanding or definition of any of the dedicated roles or designations. But based on work on a very basic level these roles were created.The interest of a DevRel basically defines the role. Whether it is more technology and coding aligned or more into writings and content or marketing and managing.

- Developer Advocate:

• An all-rounder of all fields from technology to public engagement.
• Focus on understanding technology to help and create success for customers with respect to the product.
• Responsible for product understanding and educating the customer about it.
• CS degree or something related to a developer role.
• They're regularly assembling test applications, live coding, or giving demos, drawing in with the community on a technical level.

- Developer Evangelist:

• It is quite the same as a developer advocate.
• People use this in terms of awareness or propagation of an organization’s motive.
• It is also called Technical Ambassador.
• The idea behind “getting the word out” is the focus of a Developer Evangelist.
• In this line, a person must conduct meetups, conferences, and even travel as a brand/company ambassador.

- Community Manager:

• Ensures proper flow with smoothness in a community that revolves around the product of a company.
• A community manager looks after people for their queries, feedback, and problems in a community.
• Focuses on all-time engagement (active engagement).
• Coding background is not a must, but yes, they can do it.
• They should have the option to carry on discussions that take a genuinely profound plunge into where your item fits inside the more extensive innovation market as well as answer inquiries regarding technical aspects of your product.

- Developer Marketing:

• Well, the marketing is not really under DevRel idea but the work of DevRel touches somewhat on marketing areas.
• The marketing of DevRel mainly runs inside the community, more like pulling developers not pushing the product to the developers.
• It acts as an awareness too.
• It helps the community to stay up to date and get informed of interesting new or existing features.
• The tasks revolve around messaging, researching, and campaigning.

- Developer Education:

• The main job is to make developers understand the features and functions of the product.
• It makes technical content and documentation.
• Creates educational videos and tutorials.
• Helps developers to build functional programs of the organization’s product with ease.

With all these being stated, the DevRel or Developer Relations helps to the overall growth of the organization and looks after how it will grow and which direction it will grow. It develops authentic relationships within the organization and community without actually focusing on marketing from a selling point of view.The jobs and roles of Developer Relations are not confined to any medium, it can be online, offline, verbal, and more. Just having one thing very important that technical communication should be aced. With different roles of Developer Relations, the job is distributed into segments like community engagement, developer experience, and product management.

What are the tasks of DevRel?

The tasks of a DevRel differ from role to role. Although there are a few things that are common in every role, one must understand the organization, its product, its work environment, and its developers in brief.They must understand the community by building relations on a personal and professional level and succeeding to spread awareness about the product of the organization. They must understand a little bit of coding which will give an upper hand on the level of easiness while handling the community and developers. This will help with creating resources for the developers and forming the base platform. DevRel must be there extending a hand to help others in terms of queries and educating.

There are some points that are often practiced by DevRel:

• - Speaking at conferences, meetups, and tech talks.
• - Creating content like documentation, guides, tutorials, and podcasts.
• - Developing demo applications to make a better understanding of existing as well as upcoming new features.
• - Taking feedback from developers and sharing it with engineering and marketing teams.
• - Promoting the company’s product to developers by participating in developer communities and also understanding how the product is being used.
• - Reviewing, tweaking, and providing content for social media posts.
• - Help the organization with improving work rate and workflow.

What are tips for DevRel?

One must understand that being a DevRel one has to be in touch with people and technology both, that too in a willing way.Start with joining a community. Indulge in the technical and managing side. Be confident in what you speak to others. Learn about the community and the tech it focuses on. Learning is the most vital thing.Ask questions to every doubt to yourself. Curiosity will not only enhance your knowledge but also will provide confidence.Use your knowledge to build or produce something. Not necessarily your own idea but building projects will help to have a better understanding.

Now share it with others. This can be done in any form. Conduct webinars, talks, meetups, write articles, or make videos. Mastery of the product is not needed to start with building, sharing, and developing relations.Start taking initiative and roles of a leader and present yourself Infront of others showcasing what you know. Grab opportunities without any hesitations.This will boost your confidence and your fluency with technical communication which is a big quality a DevRel must-have. Work on writing and communication skills repetitively.Aim for new roles and initiatives. This will help to grow with leadership qualities under various mentorships.

Is it all for DevRel?

Lastly, focus on personal branding. It defines your relationship with others in an external world without any organization having a role. The more people will know about you the more trust can be gained and more engagement can be produced. Personal branding helps to define a person and helps in boosting influence.

This can be achieved on social media and by publishing random articles and technical/ non-technical blogs. The more presence you create as your personal brand the more chance of getting recognized is created not only by the public but also by the company.