If you spend enough time in the tech space, you will eventually hear the word "DevRel". You will see people with titles like Developer Advocate, Community Manager, or Developer Relations Engineer. They speak at conferences, write tutorials, hang out in Discord servers, and the community usually seems to love them.
But what exactly do they do? Is it just marketing for coders? Is it just customer support?
For me, DevRel is simply the combination of two words: Developer and Relationship.
If you have little to no knowledge of what Developer Relations is, this article will break down exactly what it means, what the day-to-day looks like, and help you decide if it is a career path you might want to pursue.
The "Developer" (The Builder)
A developer is a builder.
Someone who creates things from scratch or builds on top of existing infrastructure. Their goal is always to create something meaningful.
As humans, we naturally love creativity because it gives us variety, and variety is the spice of life.
Imagine I hand you a bag of flour. With creativity, you don't just see white powder. You see the potential to create bread, cake, doughnuts, and countless other pastries. Even with cake alone, there are endless flavors and styles.
That is the essence of creativity.
And that exact same creative spark lives in the heart of a builder. In software development, the "flour" is code, APIs, and infrastructure. They take raw technical ingredients and bake them into applications that change the world.
The "Relationship" (The Connection)
Now, let's talk about relationship.
A relationship is simply how people connect. And how do human beings connect? Through similarities.
We connect over shared interests, backgrounds, mindsets, experiences, or even just sharing the same birthday or hometown. If you meet a stranger today and find out they went to your high school, you naturally connect faster because you share common ground.
Bring that concept into DevRel.
A DevRel is someone who can genuinely relate to builders because they understand the realities of software development. They share common ground with them.
And what does that shared ground look like?
- Designing and building systems
- Dealing with broken deployments
- Staring at a screen at 2 AM trying to debug an issue
The Elephant in the Room: "Do I need to code to be a DevRel?"
Because of this shared reality, people constantly ask: "Do I need to know how to code before becoming a DevRel?"
From my perspective, the answer is yes-at least to some level.
Developers can quickly detect inauthenticity. If you try to relate to a developer's struggle with a broken API, but you have never actually written a line of code or consumed an API yourself, the interaction falls flat.
You need to understand the language developers speak so you can communicate naturally and actually help them solve their problems. You don't need to be the absolute best 10x senior engineer in the room, but you do need to have built things.
What Does a DevRel Actually Do Daily?
Have you ever wondered what a Developer Advocate does when they log into their computer every morning? Typically, their daily tasks involve:
- Writing Code & Content: Building demo applications, writing technical tutorials, and creating open-source templates so developers don't have to start from scratch.
- Community Management: Hanging out in Discord or Slack, answering technical questions, and helping developers get unblocked.
- Public Speaking: Giving technical talks at conferences, hosting webinars, or running hackathons.
- Product Feedback: Listening to what frustrates the community and carrying that feedback directly to the internal engineering team to improve the product.
Developer Relations (DevRel) is a function that bridges the gap between developers and a product or platform. DevRels help developers succeed by providing education, tools, and support, while also feeding real-world developer feedback back into the product and engineering teams.
Why Does DevRel Exist? (The Bridge)
You might be wondering, if a company builds a great technical product, won't developers just use it?
Not necessarily. There are many reasons companies hire DevRel teams, but the major responsibility boils down to one word: Onboarding.
Whenever a new system, protocol, or infrastructure is created, developers need to understand four critical things before they will dedicate their time to it:
- What it does.
- How it works.
- Why it matters (how it makes their life easier).
- How they can use it (the actual code and implementation).
If a company has a brilliant product but terrible documentation and no one to answer questions, developers will leave.
That bridge between the raw technology and the human community is where DevRel lives.
They write the tutorials. They build the sample projects. They answer questions in the Discord server. And just as importantly, they listen to the developers' frustrations and carry that feedback back to the company's internal product team to make the tool better.
Is DevRel the Right Career For You?
DevRel is an incredibly rewarding path, but it requires a very specific hybrid of skills. It might be perfect for you if:
- You love coding, but you also love talking about code. You enjoy building, but you enjoy teaching someone else how to build just as much.
- You have high empathy. When someone is stuck on an error message, you don't feel annoyed; you feel a genuine desire to help them figure it out.
- You are a translator. You can take a complex, intimidating technical concept and explain it simply to a beginner without making them feel stupid.
- You love community. You actually enjoy the human side of tech.
Final Thoughts
At the end of the day, a good DevRel does not just market products. Marketing is about telling someone to buy something.
A good DevRel helps developers feel understood. They provide the ingredients, teach the community how to bake, and celebrate the amazing things the builders create. If you love technology and you love people, DevRel might just be the perfect place for you.
Are you currently thinking about transitioning into DevRel? What is your biggest question about the role? Let's chat in the comments below.
