So you know that Developer Relations is the practice of building and maintaining relationships with software developers.
You've heard that this is a role that can involve working with developers to understand their needs and providing them with the resources and support they need to be successful. As well as advocating for developers within the organization and representing their interests to external stakeholders. Makes sense.
But... why is it so important? And what value do those activities really create for an organization investing resources and human capital to do so?
Developers are a key audience for many products and services, and building strong relationships with them can help increase adoption and usage of those products and services.
Developers can be valuable advocates for a product or platform, and devrel professionals can help to foster a positive relationship with them to generate positive word-of-mouth marketing.
Developers often have valuable insights and feedback on a product or service, and devrel professionals can facilitate the communication of this feedback to the development team to improve the product or service.
Building a strong developer community can help to create a sense of belonging and engagement among developers, which can lead to increased retention and loyalty.
Devrel professionals can also serve as a conduit for information flow between the development team and the wider developer community, helping to keep developers informed about new features, updates, and other important information related to the product or service.
In other words, the impact of someone working in Developer Relations is to assist in activating customers, empowering referrals, gaining, product feedback, building effective communities of practice, contributing to marketing strategies (as well as de-risking marketing efforts in the era of crashing Facebook and Google campaigns), and ultimately building out defensive moats.
Each of these five points can be aligned with a KPI or OKR or measurable business value. But the magic happens in the extrinsic (or qualitative) benefits of the role. This mix of direct business value, and that certain something the makes the best devrel teams look like magic, makes this such an important and enjoyable role.