Developer Relations is a niche field in software engineering. It is an umbrella term for a lot of activities that are geared towards building relationships with developers.
I've been in this field for almost 2 years, and one of the most significant activities as part of my work is to create content, mostly in the form of technical deep dives. But to say that I'm a content writer or technical writer seems like an understatement, and I feel like I might be under-selling myself.
There are several more activities that I (or anyone else in this field) could be involved in. Here are some examples (in no particular order):
- Before even beginning to create content, one would need to do a lot of research, and planning what they create and how they'll execute it in the first place.
- Sometimes the content might be talking about tech, but isn't necessarily a coding tutorial. For example - if my organization is into Retail, I would need to write articles like "What challenges do online retailers face when trying to scale up?" That again involves research and acquiring industry knowledge.
- For the actual content, it's not always text-based. Often someone who's doing the writing also might be involved in creating infographics, and even explore other formats like videos.
- Working with Director of Talent for coming up with creative job ads for hiring developers.
- Working with the Head of Marketing to decide on factors like SEO, and the right platforms to publish the content on.
So if a person working in DevRel does the above activities and need to describe themselves in short, what should they call themselves? Would Content Creator make more sense, or Content Developer? Or are there are other titles that would work better?
What do you think? Let's discuss in the comments below - I'd love to know your thoughts! 😄
Top comments (10)
A technical writer needs you to provide content. DevRel would come up with the content on their own and do everything else to get the word everywhere. We also do everything else in between (speaking, social, community etc.).
I usually say we spread awareness and technical information.
Agreed. But DevRel seems more like the name of the field or department, right? What's a good job title for someone that creates the content on their own and also everything else in between to get the word out?
Developer Advocate, no?
Ideally yes I'd like to use that. But often when introducing myself as a developer advocate, people are like "what the heck is that" 😆.
So i was thinking whether there is a next best way to describe what we do. "Software engineer & Content developer", perhaps? Or is there a better way?
I say "I'm a social influencer for software developers" ;-)
Hahaha omg that is brilliant 💯. Can I steal that please? 😄
Sure... I take royalties in the form of social likes...
I'll do the above things, still I'm a 'Senior Software Engineer'. A title is just a title and doesn't say all that much.
I totally get where you're coming from. In-fact at my current company, my official title is "Senior software engineer, developer relations".
I just wonder whether the current titles accurately capture what we do. 😎
I like that's it's generic. A collegue with the same title is also making Podcasts. I'm also still writing code. I'd rather don't have a title that seems to limit me in what I do. On the other hand, it's less obvious to people only seeing the title to know what I do.