When do you need a DevRel team and how do you build one?

What is DevRel?

DevRel stands for Developer Relations, which means developer relationships. DevRel teams are teams of people focused on building and maintaining a strong relationship between a tech company and their developer community.

These teams typically work closely with developers to get feedback on products and technologies, provide training and resources, and help developers build applications or integrations. They also often organize community events and conferences to promote the exchange of ideas and experiences within the dev community.

DevRel's main goal is to build strong relationships with developers to ensure they understand, use, and can successfully deploy a company's products and technologies. Through these relationships, a company can gather valuable feedback from the dev community to improve products and drive innovation.

5 reasons why companies have DevRel teams

• Improving product development: DevRel teams work closely with developers to get feedback and input that can be incorporated into product development. Through this exchange, companies can ensure that their products meet the needs and expectations of the dev community.

• Increase product acceptance: DevRel teams can help increase product acceptance and adoption by providing training, documentation, tutorials, workshops, and other resources that help the dev community work successfully with products.

• Strengthen brand reputation: By creating a positive relationship with the dev community, companies can strengthen their image and reputation and be perceived as innovation leaders in their industry.

• Increasing customer loyalty: DevRel can help build a strong relationship between customers and companies by encouraging engaged developers to share their experiences with other developers, increasing customer retention and loyalty.

• Innovation and competitive advantage: By collaborating with the Dev Community, companies can develop innovative solutions and applications that give them a competitive edge.

What does the work of a DevRel employee look like?

DevRel employees focus on building and maintaining relationships with developers and the developer community. Their work consists of helping developers understand a company's technology and products by providing training, resources, and support.

An important part of the job is also to gather feedback from developers and share it with the product and development teams. This includes organizing community events and conferences, and participating in developer forums and online communities to stay in touch with developers and understand their needs and requirements.

Although DevRel employees are not directly responsible for selling products or services, they contribute indirectly by strengthening the bond between developers and the company, thus building a loyal and engaged developer community. A strong dev community, in turn, can help the company grow by generating positive word-of-mouth and referrals.

Which companies have DevRel teams?

Some large technology companies that are known to be investing heavily in their DevRel teams include Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook. These companies have extensive developer communities and offer a wide range of resources, training, support and community events to help developers use their products and services.

However, there are also many smaller companies and startups that have DevRel teams and focus heavily on their relationship with their dev community. The size of a DevRel team often depends on the needs of the company and the size of the community it wants to serve.

How do you build a DevRel team?

The following steps offer a good starting point:

• Identify needs:Before you build a DevRel team, find out what kind of support and resources your developers need. Conduct surveys and interviews to understand the needs and challenges of your developer community.

• Build a team:Once you've identified the needs of your community, assemble a team of people who have the skills and experience to meet those needs. Typically, a DevRel team consists of developers, evangelists, community managers, and technical writers.

• Create a plan:Create a plan that describes the team's goals, strategies, tactics, and resources. Define the types of resources and support the team should provide and plan the activities it will undertake to support the dev community.

• Build a community:Build a dev community by organizing online and offline events to foster discussion and collaboration, and provide training and resources to meet dev needs.

• Measure success: Measure the success of your DevRel team by tracking metrics such as engagement, dev community growth, and feedback from developers. Use this data to optimize and continuously improve the team.

Building a DevRel team takes time, patience, and resources. It's important to build a culture of collaboration, engagement, and trust to build a strong relationship with your dev community.

Here are some KPIs that can be used to measure the success of DevRel teams:

• Community growth: This metric tracks the number of developers engaging with the company’s products and services. DevRel teams can measure this by tracking social media followers, event attendance, and online community membership.

• Developer satisfaction: DevRel teams can use surveys, feedback forms, and other tools to measure how satisfied developers are with the company’s products and services.
  Developer retention: This metric measures how many developers continue to use the company’s products and services over time. DevRel teams can measure this by tracking customer churn rates.

• Developer advocacy: This metric tracks how many developers are actively recommending the company’s products and services to others. DevRel teams can measure this by tracking social media mentions and online reviews.

• Developer engagement: This metric tracks how actively developers are engaging with the company’s products and services. DevRel teams can measure this by tracking the number of developers who attend events, participate in forums, and contribute to open-source projects.

These KPIs can help DevRel teams measure the success of their efforts and identify areas for improvement.

What do employees of DevRel teams earn?

Salaries can typically range from $60,000 to $150,000 per year. Entry-level employees with little experience may earn less, while experienced DevRel professionals with specialized knowledge and skills may earn a higher salary.

How does stackstream help DevRel teams?

By using stackstream, DevRel teams can provide real-time workshops, training, and tutorials to help developers work with their products and services. In addition, DevRel teams can use stackstream to engage with the dev community and gather feedback and input. For example, they can host live Q&A sessions or panels to interact directly with the community and hear their concerns. This way, DevRel teams can ensure that their products meet the needs and expectations of the dev community.

Another benefit of stackstream for DevRel teams is the ability to use the recorded videos for training purposes or as a reference for future workshops and training.

Practical examples

What does the Facebook DevRel team do?

• Facebook's DevRel team is responsible for developing tools and APIs that help developers build on the Facebook platform. These tools and APIs include the Facebook Graph API, Facebook Login, and the Facebook SDKs, among others.

• The DevRel team provides developers with a wide range of support, including documentation, tutorials, code samples, and support through various channels such as forums and social media.

• Facebook's DevRel team provides training and workshops for developers to help them get the most out of the Facebook platform and tools. These trainings can take place both online and offline.

• Engagement with the dev community: Facebook's DevRel team is present on various channels to engage with the community and gather feedback. These include social media, forums, meetups, and conferences.

• Fostering innovation: The DevRel team works closely with the developer community to gather feedback and suggestions for improvements and new features for the Facebook platform. The team also uses feedback from developers to build new tools and APIs that meet the needs of the dev community.

90 companies with DevRel

1. Google
2. Microsoft
3. Amazon Web Services (AWS)
4. Facebook
5. Salesforce
6. Oracle
7. IBM
8. Red Hat
9. Mozilla
10. Shopify
11. Twilio
12. Auth0
13. GitHub
14. DigitalOcean
15. Algolia
16. Kong
17. LaunchDarkly
18. Nexmo
19. Sentry
20. Elastic
21. HashiCorp
22. Okta
23. MongoDB
24. Atlassian
25. Docker
26. CircleCI
27. Cloudflare
28. Datadog
29. Fastly
30. Firebase (Google)
31. Heroku (Salesforce)
32. JetBrains
33. New Relic
34. Rasa
35. Segment
36. Slack
37. Square
38. Stripe
39. Adobe
40. Akamai Technologies
41. AppDynamics (Cisco)
42. Box
43. Chef
44. Cisco
45. Cloudera
46. Couchbase
47. DataStax
48. Dynatrace
49. GitHub (Microsoft)
50. GitLab
51. Google Cloud
52. Hortonworks (Cloudera)
53. InfluxData
54. Intuit
55. JetBrains
56. LinkedIn (Microsoft)
57. MuleSoft (Salesforce)
58. New Relic
59. PagerDuty
60. Pivotal Software (VMware)
61. Postman
62. Salesforce Marketing Cloud
63. ServiceNow
64. Snowflake
65. Splunk
66. Tableau (Salesforce)
67. ThoughtWorks
68. VMware
69. Zendesk
70. Algosec
71. Appen
72. Authy (Twilio)
73. Avi Networks (VMware)
74. Bitnami (VMware)
75. CloudBees
76. Confluent
77. Digital.ai (CollabNet)
78. Gainsight
79. Hazelcast
80. Mattermost
81. Netlify
82. Nginx (F5 Networks)
83. Puppet
84. Rackspace
85. Snow Software
86. Solace
87. Sumo Logic
88. TIBCO Software
89. Travis CI (Idera)
90. Weaveworks

In a world where technology is playing an ever-increasing role, the importance of DevRel teams will only increase. By bridging the gap between business and developers and supporting the dev community, DevRel can help align products with user needs better and drive innovation faster.