DevRel Weekly - Issue 217 - Escape the unhealthy cycle

Welcome! 👋

Hi DevRel Weekly fam! I hope your week is off to a great start. We're in the midst of 4 more decently big storms here in the mountains, so we're alternating between hunkering down and staying warm, and snowshoeing and skiing in the beautiful outdoors.

Whether you're more inclined to stay cozy indoors or adventure outside during your time off, I'd encourage you to take 10 minutes to participate in the State of 2023 Community Management Survey. This survey helps shape the future of our industry and provides invaluable insights into how other teams are handling day-to-day efforts at their organizations.

Let's dig into the resources from this week!

Best,
Mary (@mary_grace)
DevRel Weekly Patreon

Tidbits 🕔

Authenticity is Key

Authenticity is key in developer relations. Be honest about your product's strengths and weaknesses. Developers will respect you more for it.

-Sara Waszyńska

The Unhealthy Cycle

James Seconde pointed out an important lack of foresight that many of us have seen or been impacted by:

Watching a prominent tech company trying to re-hire an entire new #DevRel team after everyone left shows the -excruciating- cost in money and time of misunderstanding the field. All of that knowledge, gone.

While it may not be possible to keep that from happening in every circumstance, it's important to keep in mind what Wayne Kurtzman says, as aligning with the company goals is necessary in order to gain the confidence of stakeholders:

Communities are about people, not about corporate goals. The two, however, are not mutually exclusive.

Consider all facets of the job

Being a Developer Advocate takes more than just technical proficiency – it takes a true passion for collaborating & empowering developers to make the right decisions.

-Shivdhwaj Pandey

Show me by your actions

Belief: members learn about our rules from our rules page

Reality: members learn rules by seeing them modeled by other members and enforced by mods

-David Spinks

Reiterate your goals

You'll not go wrong by reiterating the goals of your project to your community as often as possible & in different ways

Especially what they stand to gain by sticking with you.

Give them that sense of purpose & ownership

-The Mod Academy

Tangibles 🤓

How to Start a Mentorship Program for Your Community

If you're exploring the idea of a mentorship program for your community, Shivani Shah has pulled together a fantastic resource that walks through everything from the basic goals to the launch and gathering feedback from your initial mentees.

Where Does DevRel Belong

The age-old question of "which department does DevRel fit within?" is back again, but Dawid Ostrowski has approached it from a pros and cons analysis that can help you make an informed decision. I found both the chart and the resulting discussion extremely beneficial!

Twitter and its Impact on DevRel

Questions about the future of Twitter and whether the exodus will impact our ability to do our roles properly started a number of conversations this week. Rahul Khinchi explored whether having a large following could land you an internship, while Brian Rinaldi tackled the question of how the departure from Twitter changes our role, and Andy Piper shared his thoughts on how things might change, but the premise of DevRel will remain the same.

Storytime 📚

Let's Chat About AI

Let's Chat About AI with Rizel Scarlett & Chris DeMars - Community Pulse
CMX Masterclass Recap: Mastering the Community Growth Funnel with Amber Atherton (video)
The Art of Community Building with Jono Bacon (Twitter Space)
Turning Users Into Advocates, at Scale by Karin Wolok (video)

Events 📆

DevRel Events

Planning on attending a professional development conference sometime this year? Take a peek at our list of upcoming events around the world to see if one is right for you. Don’t worry if you don’t see one that sparks your interest right now, we’re constantly adding to the list so check back frequently!

Jobs 👩‍💻

Head of Developer Relations

Drive awareness, deepen our developer relations, and become a key stakeholder in our company strategy as Unleash’s new Head of Developer Relations.

Unleash is the biggest and fastest-growing open-source feature management platform in the market. We have an amazing community that actively engages with both our open-source and upper-tier enterprise offering. A diverse, supportive, and collaborative culture is a big part of our DNA. We like to think we’re pretty fun, too. We look for people who are curious, creative, and inventive. Sound like a good fit? Apply today!

Developer Advocate and Community Manager

Multiplayer is a collaborative platform that makes it easy for teams to design, develop and run distributed software. We are hiring a Developer Advocate and Community Manager to increase awareness and adoption of Multiplayer by developing technical content and building an engaged developer community. This person will join the founding team and help define the trajectory of a venture-backed company from the early days.

Jobs 👩‍💻

Developer Relations Jobs

Do you feel like you're ready to level up but don't know where to look? Maybe you're wanting to break in to the DevRel field? We have new positions of all levels from Internships and Entry Level through Senior Manager and Director. Come check out our collection!