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After Covid, DevRel has been a very trending word in the tech domain and tech industry. DevRel space has gained a lot of attention amongst companies and individual developers, thanks to Covid. Companies have now started realizing the importance of DevRels and why they should focus on hiring DevRels.
DevRel is an integral part of every SaaS-based business where the end user is a developer or someone who belongs to the tech industry.
DevRel is basically the bridge between the company and the end consumer i.e., the developer. They connect the companies and the products directly to the developers, ultimately increasing the awareness of the product in the tech industry.
Being a DevRel means handling and completing multiple responsibilities under your umbrella. A DevRel is responsible for multiple duties:
Collecting feedback from the end-consumer
Helping the developers in using the product
Managing the tech communities
Organising online and offline social meetups, events, conferences, workshops, and hackathons
Creating technical content for the community
Working with the product team to improve the product
and much more...
From all these job duties, you may think that being a DevRel demands a ton of skills. But that's not true! A DevRel's life revolves around just 3 C's-
Content
Community
Code
And these 3 C's are the core skills that every DevRel must have. Let's understand each one of these.
Content
Creating Technical content is one of the core job duty of a DevRel. A DevRel is responsible for creating technical content (revolving around the product) of multiple formats. Then share this content across multiple social media channels.
This technical content could be of any form for example a video tutorial that guides the users on how to use the product, a tutorial guide that helps the users to integrate the product in their personal project, a technical blog that explores multiple use-cases of the product, or a social media post promoting the product.
In addition to this, DevRels also have to contribute and manage the documentation of the whole company's website making it easier for the end consumer to read the docs and understand the product.
The main aim of all these technical content is to educate the users and developers about the features, functionality, it's benefits, and multiple use-cases of the product.
Sharing technical content across multiple tech communities nourishes the community and fosters the relationship between the developers and the company.
Community
A Devrel's 90% life revolves around tech communities. Being an integral part of the job responsibility, a DevRel's job demands to be active in multiple tech communities.
The point to note here is, a DevRel actively involves in the tech communities not for the sake of his job duty but it's more of a part of his lifestyle. These communities serves as a platform to share knowledge, meet and network with fellow developers, and increase your circle. All these eventually helps a DevRel to stay up-to-date to the current tech and trends going on in the market.
Additionally, being active in these communities helps a DevRel to deeply understand the pain points of a developer, problems they are facing, and their needs and then used that collected data to shape the future plans of the company.
Since a DevRel serves as the intermediary between developers and the company, they inevitably become the face of the company. As such, a DevRel's responsibilities also include giving talks and conducting live workshops at various events, conferences, tech meetups, and community sessions, both offline and online.
All of these practices teach developers and communities about your product and the best practices for utilizing it. These talks and workshops also contribute to the growth and development of tech communities.
Code
People have a misconception that DevRels don't code, and that's absolutely not true. The "Dev" in DevRel stands for Developer. Every DevRel is first a Developer before starting into the space of Developer Relations.
Certainly, a DevRel doesn't spend its entire working hours coding, much like a software engineer or a dedicated developer. However, this doesn't imply that a DevRel is completely detached from coding.
DevRel's coding work involves creating code snippets for blogs, conducting live workshops and demos, as well as providing assistance and guidance to developers in utilizing the product effectively. To do all these, it becomes necessary to have coding knowledge for the developer.
Having knowledge of coding and programming helps the DevRels to better understand the pain points of developers and connect with them.
Moreover, being skilled in coding boosts a DevRel's reputation among developers. By demonstrating their ability to code and solve technical problems, DevRels build trust and connections with developers. This trust helps make their advocacy more effective and encourages better teamwork between the developer community and the company's products or services.
Conclusion
Being a DevRel involves handling multiple responsibilities under the hood, that we have discussed earlier in this blog. But all these responsibilities comes down to 3 Cs - Code, Content, and Community. So, start working on these 3 factors if you want to build your career in DevRel space.