In my last blog, I wrote about how I discovered that I had skills that aligned with the Developer Advocate role without realizing it. Now I will go into detail as to what a DevRel is and what's with the 🥑?
What is DevRel?
Developer Relations, also known as DevRel, also known as Developer Advocate (hence the 🥑), is a role within the tech industry that is the mediator between a company's product and its community. A good analogy is to think of Public Relations or a PR. The purpose of a PR is to be able to manage information about a celebrity or organization to the public in order to influence a positive perception of their brand(s). Well, DevRels pretty much do the same, but with the target audience being businesses and developers and how the products that they are representing can make their community's job less complicated and be able to produce more efficiently.
There are three main pillars of DevRel:
1. Community Builder
One role of a Developer Advocate is to help build and maintain relationships between a company and its developer community. These communities can consist of sharing educational resources or it can be managing a discord community and providing support and answering questions, comments, or feedback that the community may have to better improve the product, and a DevRel can then take this information and report it back to the development team to work on enhancing the product.
I am currently the Community Manager of the ZONA TRIBE where I make sure that I'm present daily to answer questions or concerns, making sure that the community remains a safe space for everyone who is a member, and create internal events (such as coding sessions, watch parties of anime/movies, and karaoke nights) to make the community both educational and fun at the same time!
2. Content Creator
This has to be my favorite pillar of DevRel because there are so many routes you can take based on your personal skills. As an introvert, I found that I am good at capturing my thoughts through writing. If you have the skill to not only write but take complex coding concepts and break them down so that a five-year-old can understand, then technical writing might be for you. Or if you don't mind being in front of a camera, you can produce videos or courses and upload them on mediums such as YouTube, Twitch, or Tech TikTok! Lastly, if you'd rather interact with your audience in person, you can do so by providing talks or workshops at in-person conferences and events!
3. Developer Experience
If you want to be a DevRel and don't want to compromise on being able to code every day, then being a DX Engineer (short for Developer Experience Engineer)is for you! This is the most technical pillar in DevRel which your job is focused on the developer experience of the product you are representing. The purpose of a DX Engineer is to ensure that developers have a positive experience with their company's products/services. This can look like providing support and resources for developers, maintaining product documentation, and assisting developers who are having difficulty with the products.
DevRel plays a crucial role in companies by helping developers better understand and serve the needs of their developers. This leads to stronger and more successful products & services.
Thank you for reading!
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