Product & Technical
Developer Relations
Developer relations sits between a company and the engineers who use its product: teaching, writing, speaking, and carrying honest feedback back to the product team. It rewards people who genuinely enjoy explaining things and who can stay credible with a sceptical technical audience.
Start here
Credibility is the entire currency of this role, and it comes from having built things. If you have not built and shipped something, do that first — no amount of communication skill substitutes for it.
Before you begin
- Can build and ship real software
- Comfortable explaining technical ideas in writing
- Willing to work in public and be wrong in public
Technical credibility
The non-negotiable foundation. Developers detect a non-practitioner immediately.
RequiredBeing a practitioner
You cannot advocate for a developer product you have never seriously used, and an audience will know within one demo.
Being a practitioner
You cannot advocate for a developer product you have never seriously used, and an audience will know within one demo.
What to learn
- Shipping real projects
- Fluency in at least one language and ecosystem
- Reading and evaluating other people's code
- Debugging in public without panicking
- Staying current
Practice
Next: Communicating it.
Communication
The craft half. Writing first, because it scales and it underpins everything else.
RequiredTechnical writing
The highest-leverage format there is. A good post is read for years; a good talk is seen once.
Technical writing
The highest-leverage format there is. A good post is read for years; a good talk is seen once.
What to learn
- Tutorials that work start to finish
- Blog posts with a single clear point
- Documentation
- Writing for scanning
- Honest comparisons, including where your product loses
Practice
Project
beginnerA tutorial that works
Write a tutorial taking a developer from nothing to a working result in under thirty minutes. Test it on three people who have not used the technology.
- A blog or dev.to
- The product
Three strangers completed it without asking you a question.
Next: Speaking and demonstrating.
RequiredSpeaking and live demos
Conference talks, workshops and meetups are how this role builds reach and reputation.
Speaking and live demos
Conference talks, workshops and meetups are how this role builds reach and reputation.
What to learn
- Structuring a talk around one idea
- Live coding without disaster
- Always having a recorded fallback
- Handling hostile questions gracefully
- Running a workshop for mixed skill levels
- Managing your nerves
Practice
Next: Building a community.
Community
The part that cannot be faked and cannot be rushed.
RequiredCommunity building
A community is people who help each other. Getting there takes consistency over months, not a campaign.
Community building
A community is people who help each other. Getting there takes consistency over months, not a campaign.
What to learn
- Answering questions consistently and publicly
- Moderation and setting a tone
- Recognising and supporting contributors
- Running events
- Onboarding newcomers
- Knowing when to step back and let others lead
Tools
- Discord or Slack
- GitHub Discussions
- Community forums
Next: Open source.
RecommendedOpen source participation
Maintaining or contributing publicly is the most credible signal available in this field.
Open source participation
Maintaining or contributing publicly is the most credible signal available in this field.
What to learn
- Contributing to projects you use
- Triaging issues
- Reviewing pull requests
- Maintaining sample projects
- Working with a community that disagrees with you
Next: The half that makes it a job rather than a hobby.
The professional half
What separates developer relations from enthusiastic content creation: feedback, measurement and honesty.
RequiredThe feedback loop
The most valuable and most neglected part of the role. You are the only person in the company hearing unfiltered developer frustration.
The feedback loop
The most valuable and most neglected part of the role. You are the only person in the company hearing unfiltered developer frustration.
What to learn
- Collecting friction systematically
- Turning anecdotes into evidence product will act on
- Advocating internally for developers
- Influencing the roadmap without authority
- Closing the loop back to the community
Practice
Next: Measuring it.
RequiredMeasuring developer relations
This function is cut first in a downturn precisely because its value is often unmeasured. Measure it.
Measuring developer relations
This function is cut first in a downturn precisely because its value is often unmeasured. Measure it.
What to learn
- Metrics beyond follower counts
- Time to first successful API call
- Documentation and tutorial completion
- Community health indicators
- Attribution and its genuine limits
- Reporting to leadership
Next: Staying trusted.
RequiredCredibility and honesty
Trust is this job's only real asset. Overselling once costs an audience you spent years building.
Credibility and honesty
Trust is this job's only real asset. Overselling once costs an audience you spent years building.
What to learn
- Saying when the product is the wrong tool
- Acknowledging competitors fairly
- Disclosing your affiliation clearly
- Not overstating a benchmark
- Handling a bad launch publicly
Project
advancedA body of public work
Over three months: publish four technical posts, speak once, maintain a sample project, and produce one internal report of developer friction with recommendations.
- A blog
- GitHub
- A community platform
You have a public track record and evidence you changed something internally, which is exactly what this role is hired on.
Where this leads
You do not have to pick one now. These are the directions this path opens up once you are working.
Continue your journey
The paths closest to this one. Skills overlap more than the job titles suggest.
You do not have to do this alone
Our programs are free, taught live, and built around the same progression. Join one and work through it alongside other people.