Is DevRel dead? | What I am reading | conferences won't stop.
There are times when this questions sparks up time and again. Whenever there are cuts, recession and we see layoffs, we question the relevance of a particular position.
Recently also this conversation was sparked on X platform and people started to question the existence of DevRel as a job, I have personally seen many looking out for the jobs. I have been in this space for a long time, so with that let’s start with definition of DevRel.
What is DevRel?
DevRel (Developer Relations) is a role that can vary significantly depending on the company's specific needs and the product they are having. Despite this variability, DevRel universally involves community engagement and feedback loops between users and the engineering team.
Different Types of DevRel Roles
DevRel Who Writes Code
Responsibilities: These DevRels create sophisticated demos showcasing the company's products, often involving extensive coding. They engage in research and development, and identify bugs. Additionally, they frequently speak at conferences to share their findings, find gaps in documentation and promote their company’s tools.
Skills Required: Strong coding skills, the ability to create new and innovative proof of concepts, and the capacity to communicate complex technical concepts effectively.
DevRel Who Creates Content
Responsibilities: This role focuses on producing written content, videos, and improving documentation. While not necessarily coding-heavy, these DevRels need a solid understanding of development concepts to create meaningful and accurate content.
Skills Required: Strong writing and content creation skills, a good grasp of technical concepts, and the ability to translate complex ideas into accessible content.
DevAdvocates Who Do Not Write Code
Responsibilities: These individuals primarily write technical content that is product-focused, speak at conferences, create videos, and work based on existing documentation and integrations with other products.
Skills Required: Excellent presentation and communication skills, in-depth product knowledge, and the ability to engage with both technical and non-technical audiences.
DevRel Who Does Everything
Responsibilities: In this comprehensive role, individuals contribute across multiple areas including writing blogs, improving documentation, organizing and speaking at meetups and conferences, creating video content, testing products, and identifying bugs.
Skills Required: Ability in multiple areas including coding, content creation, public speaking, and community management.
Common Element: Community Engagement
Regardless of the specific role, community engagement is a core aspect of DevRel. This involves:
Interacting with Users: Understanding their needs, challenges, and getting their feedback.
Bridging the Gap: Communicating user feedback to the product and development teams to inform future development and improvements.
Building Relationships: Creating a supportive community around the product, fostering loyalty and long-term engagement.
Building Partnerships: Creating strong partnerships for collaboration opportunities.
Additional Responsibilities for Senior DevRel Roles
Senior DevRel professionals often take on broader responsibilities, such as:
Strategic Planning: Collaborating with CEOs and CTOs to align DevRel activities with industry trends and company roadmaps.
Marketing Alignment: Working with marketing teams to synchronize product launches with DevRel content.
Thought Leadership: Leading webinars, writing trend reports, and contributing to industry discussions.
Innovation: Conducting research, developing proofs of concept, and consulting on customer onboarding.
Is Heavy Coding Knowledge Always Necessary?
While not all DevRel roles require extensive coding knowledge, many do due to the need for creating demos and engaging deeply with the product. However, the specific requirements depend on the company's objectives and the nature of the product.
In short, DevRel is a dynamic and evolving field with roles that can range from code-heavy to content-focused, all united by the goal of fostering strong relationships between developers and the products they use. As Saiyam Pathak highlights, the key to successful DevRel lies in understanding and adapting to the unique needs of each company and its community, while continuously striving to bridge the gap between users and developers.
Now, coming to the point is DevRel dead? Here are my thoughts on this:
No matter how much work you do and how good you are, at some point in an organisation you will asked about your work or the related metrics. Documenting the work is essential part in Developer Advocacy. At some point, you will be asked for an ROI, though the direct ROI is tough in case of DevRel but you still can measure the impact. A few examples include
List of conversations at each conference you go
Number of downloads for the product you are advocating for to understand the developer reach and how are you impacting it by going to conferences
List of Demo’s you have prepares
Research you have done in writing whitepapers
Bugs you found out
Community growth across platforms in terms of numbers
Number of partnerships
Education material you created in terms of blogs, videos etc.
Preparing new ideas and strategies with the rising software innovation
Preparing nice dashboard to show all this data
These are just some areas, so IMO → “No, DevRel is not Dead but it has become more result oriented and companies wants to see the metrics“
Best case scenario is when a companies hires a DevRel with specific expectations at the time of hiring so that there are more clear goals to be achieved. When you let them do everything, it at times become less productive. also burning them out.
Well do let me know your thoughts as well.
What am I doing?
I created a video on → “Go to Kubernetes without Dockerfile“ where I talked about building a Golang application using Ko and BuildSafe rather than Dockerfile.
Upcoming Events:
GDG Bengaluru - I will be giving a keynote at Google office on Celebrating 10 Years of Kubernetes: Innovating Multi-Tenancy with vcluster on 27th July.
ContainerDays - I will be speaking with my friend Sven on BUILDING SCALABLE CLOUD NATIVE AI APPS WITH WEBASSEMBLY.
You can use this coupon to get 20% discount → “CDS24-20%- KUBESIMPLIFY“
Awesome Reads
AI Bill of Materials (AI BOM) - The AI BOM encompasses everything from the data that feeds the models to the infrastructure that powers them, and the processes that bring AI from concept to production.
Learn Nix the Fun Way - Learn nix by walking through a practical example of making a portable script.
WebAssembly components: the next wave of cloud native computing - The advent of WebAssembly components marks a new inflection point in cloud native computing, offering a paradigm shift akin to the rise of containers. With their interoperability, composability, and efficiency, WebAssembly components enable more productive, innovative, and flexible development, paving the way for the next wave of cloud native innovation.
How do you rollback deployments in Kubernetes? - The blog post explains Kubernetes' built-in rollback mechanism for deployments, detailing the process of rolling updates and the role of ReplicaSets in managing Pods. It highlights the importance of having a rollback plan, the functionality of `kubectl rollout undo`, and best practices for maintaining consistency between cluster states and version control to avoid regressions.
How to set up HA VictoriaMetrics - This blog discussed two scenarios Single Victoriametrics cluster with replicationFactor > 1 and Multiple independent Victoriametrics cluster and have vmagent as a global write endpoint for reating the HA victoria metrics.
As we reach mid-year 2024, a look at CNCF, Linux Foundation, and top 30 open source project velocity - At mid-year 2024, the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) highlights key trends in open-source project velocity, noting Kubernetes' maturity and OpenTelemetry's growth. Other notable projects include Backstage, GitOps tools like Argo and Flux, Crossplane, and KeyCloak, with CNCF projects increasingly supporting large-scale AI infrastructure.
Awesome Learning resources/ Repo’s
DevOps-The-Hard-Way-AWS - This repository contains free labs for setting up an entire workflow and DevOps environment from a real-world perspective in AWS
vpk - View k8s in graphical fashion
kubenstein - A prototype of an AI-based system administrator
Learn from X Platform
https://x.com/shrirambalaji/status/1807526714530242912
https://x.com/karpathy/status/1808686307331428852
https://x.com/SuhailKakar/status/1809509779313664399
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