DevRel Engineer – Roles and Responsibilties

What is DevRel Engineer has always been a topic of interest among the tech community. But the solution to this question is not clear. So, to explain about DevRel here’s an article that will clear your doubts. Before getting into DevRel, you must know about software development. So, software development is a process of different stages which includes requirements, design, development, testing, and maintenance. Building software applications or scalable and sustainable products is not easy. The quality of the product is based on the people and the community while developing software applications. Multiple people work on multiple things and are divided into different teams, some work on operations, while others work on product development. 

So, What is DevRel? DevRel engineer deals with the Development and Operations to maintain the flow of the overall product development. DevRel also known as Developer Relations or Developer Advocacy, is a role that exists in developer companies that target the developers’ markets. DevRel helps to educate developers and get people into the community to contribute. There are multiple DevRel types exist that help to scale communities.

Why DevRel?

The DevRel is like a bridge between the development and operations teams. A person who is good with multitasking and basic programming fundamentals with a marketing approach can become a DevRel engineer. Now everyone’s thinking to be DevRel but before taking a decision to be cleared with fundamentals and why DevRel. The companies B2B and B2C cater to communities and developers to evolve products.

These companies built more and more products and DevRel handles the community and communicates with developers to maintain communicative relations between the community and developers. After getting the idea of why DevRel is important you can make a decision on why DevRel.

Have a look at How To Become A Software Engineer? to have a glimpse about software engineer.

Roles and Responsibilities of DevRel

DevRel engineer is responsible for maintaining relations between communities and developers. There are different types of DevRel roles available in the community it depends on which type of DevRel role you belong to. 

Primary Goals of DevRel Engineer

1. Maintain relations between the community and developers.
2. Educating the community about the product.
3. Creating suitable product content (Videos, Blogs, Newsletters, Articles, etc).
4. Organizing events, talks, meetings,s, etc. to increase awareness of the product.
5. Taking feedback regularly from the community.
6. Interact and Community management.
7. Community Development.

These are a few responsibilities handled by DevRel engineers but it completely depends on which type of Devrel you are, the above roles are the primary goals of any type of DevRel engineer.

Approaches to Follow

To get started with DevRel you have to start with writing because communication and well-writing skill is the foundation of DevRel. Start sharing your learnings and experiences publicly and start helping others with code or no code and start getting involved in the community and be active on socials. You can choose any blogging platform to start with writing and join communities on social platforms and take part in meetups.

Points to remember:

1. Start adding value to the community with code or non-code.
2. Choose which type of DevRel you want to be and start exploring.
3. Be active on social platforms. 
4. Learn in public.
5. Start looking for opportunities.

These are some essentials to getting started with DevRel you need to be practical and start doing hands-on practice because DevRel is more about doing things practically. Start organizing small events, talks, and gatherings and start connecting with people who are doing a great job in the field.

Types of DevRel

Developer advocate or DevRel has three types Community, Content, and Product.

1. Community: A community DevRel also known as a community builder focuses on organizing events, hosting live streams, and handling community socials and community feedback these all are the responsibility of community DevRel.
2. Content: A content DevRel is also known as a developer educator and the responsibilities are writing blogs, making videos, designing courses and roadmaps, and speaking at events or conferences.
3. Product: A product DevRel is a person who deals with development as well as educating the community, the responsibilities are creating development docs, coding examples, working on integrations, and improving the overall product. 

Different DevRel Engineer plays different roles and some experienced developers are a combination of two or more. Creating a scalable and sustainable community that helps to grow products and educating others with roadmaps are the goals of Developer advocates.

Benefits of Becoming DevRel

There are various perks available for Devrel engineers which are listed below but you have to learn and improve daily in the field of DevRel.

1. Community Support
2. Became a Personal Brand
3. Swags and other Perks
4. Collaboration skills
5. Enhance Leadership skills
6. Community Management

These are some of the benefits available for DevRel engineers and traveling which depends on company-to-company services, not for all. The core fundamentals of DevRel are to learn, build, share and lead.

Conclusion

Currently, DevRel is a more demanding field, and learning it is the best decision you can make if you know how to code. Community needs leaders who support them to grow and create value for others. You don’t need a strong social following to become DevRel but you need a passion for the field and community. So far we discussed DevRel, roles, and responsibilities, types, how to get started with it, and the skills you need as a DevRel engineer.