From code to community: how I broke into developer advocacy

If you’ve spent any amount of time on the tech-side of social media, whether it be tech Twitter (RIP) or tech LinkedIn, you may have come across the terms DevRel or Developer Advocacy. 

When I first heard about DevRel, I really had no idea what it meant, but after a few weeks, I got the impression that “DevRel folks” do a lot of podcasts, live-streams, and overall seemed to be social media famous programmers (of course this was just my first impression, and often is a stereotypical representation of what the role is actually about). 

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Later, I found out that there was much more to DevRel than social media and live streaming (although to be fair there can be a fair bit of that stuff involved in it too).

Who is a Developer Advocate?

First, we need to set things straight. What is DevRel? What does a developer advocate do? Is it marketing? Is it sales? No, and no. But also yes.

Defining DevRel or Developer Advocacy, which are often used interchangeably, can be super confusing. People have ALL kinds of opinions about what these roles mean, so often it’s not very clear-cut. 

One of the best definitions that I’ve heard is from Kelsey Hightower himself:

“Developer Advocacy is whatever the person paying you wants it to be.” - Kelsey Hightower

That said, Developer Advocacy is really based on what your boss or organization wants you to do. The job description can vary drastically.

For example, in my role as a Developer Advocate at Pieces, I am mainly focused on social media management, content creation, community management, and events. But (as you’ll soon discover), this is just one variation of the role.

What’s the difference between DevRel and Developer Advocacy?

One important thing to note is that although the terms DevRel and Developer Advocacy are generally used interchangeably, they do refer to separate things. According to our Head of Dev Advocacy Jim Bennett:

“Developer Relations is a business area, like GTM, Engineering, etc. focusing on how your company interacts with developers.”

On the other hand: 

“Developer Advocate is one of many roles inside DevRel, which can also include documentation and online learning, community management, developer experience (e.g. API or SDK), OSS community integration, events, and social media.”

He also mentioned that:

“Sometimes a DevRel team just has Developer Advocates doing all these roles, sometimes parts of DevRel are done outside of a DevRel team”

To make sure I cover all my bases, I also asked Pieces to define DevRel, it described it as: “a marketing strategy that focuses on building and nurturing relationships with developers.”

However, “instead of traditional marketing, DevRel focuses on providing developers with the resources, tools, and support they need to be successful with a particular product or technology.”

I’d say that’s a pretty accurate definition of Developer Relations. 

DevRel, at least to me, is a combination of sales, content creation, education, support, feedback, and community building. 

And Developer Advocacy? 

It’s the role within DevRel where you’re out there connecting with developers, creating a feedback loop, and building community firsthand (plus or minus whatever your boss wants you to do).

How do people actually get into Developer Advocacy? 🤔

Now that you get the gist of what Developer Advocacy is, how do you actually get into it?

Well, in this article, I’m going to share my personal story of how I landed a Developer Advocate role and two other stories by much more experienced Dev Advocates (yes, yes, I found some real pros for this one 😉).

My journey to becoming a Developer Advocate

If you need a reminder, I am Ellie, a Dev Advocate at Pieces for Developers. And this is actually my FIRST Developer Advocate role.

A bit of background before I got into “tech stuff”: 

While I was attending University I studied Business Administration (that’s what people study when they don’t know what to do with their lives, right?), with a concentration in international business. 

I ended up learning lots about marketing, sales, and even ended up being the CEO of my own (fake) tech company senior year.

Since I was doing this degree online, I could learn from anywhere in the world. And since I was learning international business, I thought, what better place to learn about it than in China (one of the largest US trading partners).

That said, I went to Shanghai in early 2020 to study at Shanghai University. It was an amazing experience, albeit very brief. 

After a few weeks, COVID-19 hit, and the Chinese government + the University were all like, “You guys gotta get outta here and go back to your own countries”.

Obviously I was NOT going to do that. 

Especially since the semester had just started, going back home I would essentially be left twiddling my thumbs until the following semester. 

So I decided to head over to Taiwan and enroll in a fully immersive Mandarin school (without going into too much detail those 4 months were awesome and I learned SO much Mandarin in such a short time).

After a few months, I continued my degree online once the following semester started, and I even ended up finding a job as an English teacher in Taiwan. 

The whole point of me explaining my background to you was to get to this point. I genuinely think that the experience of teaching for a year or so was pivotal to me becoming a Developer Advocate later on.

Being a teacher is HARD.

Kids don’t really care, but if you can find a way to make the class fun, they will love you forever (and maybe even start to enjoy learning). Prior to getting this job, I HATED public speaking.

I would literally be cold-sweating doing presentations on camera for my online University classes, and now I had to teach a room full of 40 teenagers??

Suffice to say, I ended up getting the hang of it and even got the teenagers to think I was cool.

Fast forward to the Summer of 2023 (a few months after graduating), I was regularly thinking about my life and career (still had no idea what I wanted to do).

Due to several reasons (shoutout freeCodeCamp), I ended up deciding that I wanted to become a Software Engineer. If you scroll far enough back on my X profile you will see I used to post a lot about the #100DaysOfCode challenge (it was all the rage back then). 

Good times. Good times.

Anyway, at that point, I had been learning how to code for about a year and a half. 

Meanwhile, I was writing a few articles on my blog. 

Sometime during that year and a half, I managed to land a technical writing gig, where I could write C# articles. 

I was SO happy at that time since that was really my first paid “tech” job.

Throughout the entire process of working on my (mostly cat-themed) projects, learning C#, and writing articles, I was building in public. 

No, I was not building the next revolutionary SaaS, but I was building up my technical skills and personal brand. 

I know a lot of people don’t like the phrase personal brand, but it is a “thing”, especially in DevRel.

At this time, I was mainly trying to find a job as a software developer, and figured at least if I was sharing my “learning journey,” maybe someone would notice and I could find a job without directly applying.

Fun fact about me: I loath applying to jobs on LinkedIn, wasting hours thinking about cover letters, writing them, and then getting 0 replies. So I figured at least if I do this build/learn in public thing, I won’t have to apply to as many jobs, and maybe I’ll get lucky. 

Fortunately, I did get lucky (if luck means consistent effort over a year and a half + plus then finally something amazing happening one time). 

Somehow, Rosie, who was the Pieces COO at the time, had seen some of my posts on X and reached out to me about becoming a social partner. Long story short, I ended up accepting and posting some stuff on X promoting Pieces.

But how did I go from social partner to Dev Advocate? 

Well, right after meeting Rosie and Tsavo, I decided (and I am pretty sure I told them as well) that it was my goal to be a Dev Advocate at Pieces. 

From that point on, I tried my best to prove that I could do the role.

I guess this is a perfect example of “do the job before you get the job”, as Taylor Desseyn recently said in an X post.

The requirements of a social partner at the time were pretty simple: to make a couple of X posts and get a certain # of impressions. 

However (since I was trying to go the extra mile), during that month I ended up hosting an X Space with the Pieces team, hosted around 2-3 live events (live streams or spaces) every week, wrote an article all about how I use Pieces as a technical writer, and was a guest on the “Learn Pieces with me” live stream.

Now bringing it back to the English teacher story – I am almost certain that I would NOT have been willing to do any kind of live stream, go to tech conferences willingly, or even share my #100DaysOfCode journey publicly if I didn’t get pushed out of my comfort zone to an extreme extent. 

If you ever want a crash course on public speaking, become an English teacher for about 5+ months.

So, to wrap things up and answer the question of how I became a Dev Advocate at Pieces:

1. I got comfortable with public speaking (This includes getting comfortable with live streaming and speaking in front of a camera)

2. I learned/built-in public (this can be sharing technical content creation and projects publicly)

3. Did a LOT of coffee chats, which led to a bunch of new friends and professional connections

4. Started as a social partner and made a transition to Developer Advocacy

Hope this story helps anyone trying to get into DevRel, if you want to chat or have any questions feel free to reach out to me via DM @elliezub.

Now, let's hear from some amazing Dev Advocates!

First up, Amanda!

Amanda’s Journey to Becoming a Developer Advocate

Below is the story of how Amanda Martin became a Developer Advocate at Wix (yes Wix.com, isn’t that so cool??)

Amanda: “I had been working as a developer for about 6 years and was at a bit of a crossroads. I loved dev, but I also loved working with people. I often got placed in positions where I was leading, mentoring, or training other technical and non-technical people. In the roles I had been in, you basically had two tracks – you were a dev leading to tech lead, or you switched to project management. Neither of these felt like the right fit, so I began exploring outside of my job – what was out there that had everything I loved about dev but allowed me to be closer to people and work directly with people. I stumbled across dev relations in a blog. I had never heard of it – no one was talking about it or hiring for it really. I also was not active on social media – no devs I knew were on Twitter or livestreamers. It simply wasn't something I had ever seen anyone do. 

The blog I found was a "day in the life" style blog from someone who worked at Google. 

The job sounded like exactly the mixture of things I was looking for, but I'm not a risk taker and had never heard of this job, so I wanted to investigate further. I asked every dev I knew about the job – ZERO of them had even heard of it.

I had little confidence that this job had opportunities, so I didn't think too much of it, but when I was ready to move on from my dev team at the time and I was throwing out applications, I saw an opportunity at Wix for a dev advocate. This was a product I had used and was deeply involved with many of their competitors as I had worked in Drupal, Wordpress, and Joomla in one of my roles.

I tossed an application and cover letter in not expecting to hear anything but I did! It was a challenging interview with many rounds, but I got the job and have been there ever since.

Given the explosion of dev advocacy and its shift towards content creators, I think it's highly doubtful I would have been interviewed today with zero devrel experience. While I have a great skill set for the work I do, the way hiring works has shifted in the past few years, so it was a bit of a magical 'right place, right time' for me.”

What Amanda did prior to DevRel & transferrable skills

“As mentioned, I worked as a developer on traditional agile dev teams for about 6 years prior to my shift to devrel. Working on a dev team, refining tickets, understanding requirements, and communicating with clients and multidisciplinary team members were all directly relevant to understanding and supporting developer users. 

For Wix specifically, I had used their devtools and many of their competitor dev tools, so I had a keen understanding of the pros and cons in the space.

Prior to being a developer, I worked as a massage therapist for 13 years. While this may seem unrelated, nothing prepares you better for being customer-facing than working in a service industry. Empathy, the ability to remain calm under pressure, to leave your own shit at the door, and to not let others' emotional states control yours are all key to working in DevRel.  

Dev advocates are on the front lines of customer care – even if we are not serving as "customer service agents".  We will share in the joy and excitement of developers, but also the frustration and anger.  Working in the service industry allowed me to be able to "cut through the emotions" in a calm way and help get to the root of issues. In devrel, what this means is that I can get actionable feedback to product and de-escalate tense situations.”

Final thoughts

“I did not know what I wanted to be when I grew up". (a sentiment MANY of us can relate to) This led to many trial-and-error careers other than the ones mentioned above. Jumping in the deep end and giving things my full effort while also knowing when to let a path go and try something new has also been invaluable in devrel. We are always experimenting on a path that is evolving and, at times, unknown.

I've been at Wix over 3 years now and am still very happy I made this choice.”

James’ DevRel Journey

Below is the story of how James Perkins, CEO (From DevRel to CEO? So cool 🤯) of @unkeydev, got his first role in DevRel.

“I had been around in the industry for 12 years by the time I ended up doing Developer Relations, but people wonder how they get there. To give some background, the first 10 years of my career I spent my time building complex integrations and backend systems. In fact, the first “web app” I built was a Java web application that you had to manually deploy by copying a .war file to a server after backing up the old one. It was a mess. 

Then I moved around to a few roles and was running the team over at Plaid, which was awesome. 

During that time, COVID hit. So I decided I would spend my time inside building tutorials, guides, and even how to handle interviews. I spent hours making video content, livestreams, and all sorts of fun, which I still do today, albeit running a company means less time for this creative outlet. This was all for me, to be honest. I had no intention of amassing lots of viewers and subscribers but a way for me to have a creative outlet. 

During that time, I made one of my favorite videos, which was connecting TinaCMS to Strapi using Next.js. Now, if you don’t know what TinaCMS is, that is fine, but it’s an open-source CMS that allows real-time editing on the page. It had a Strapi integration, but it was super powerful at handling MDX or markdown files. This video did really well, and Frank, who worked with Tina at the time, sadly passed away. Frank introduced me to Scott, who was the CEO /  co-founder at Tina. They were struggling a little with adoption and also getting people excited about using Tina over the big players in the space. 

I left my comfortable job at Plaid, to work with the team. I was hired as a DevRel but focused on two main things, creating content and education. During that time I made tutorials, examples, improved documentation and finally created more read-through tutorials. This was my first foray into developer relations, and during that time I landed a few side gigs / contracts working with bigger companies who were also struggling with similar problems. 

When my time at Tina came to an end, I moved on to Clerk where most people know me from, I had worked with Colin and the team on a lot of launch videos, blogs and examples, so I came in to tackle a few things. 

1. Content

2. Getting Clerk to be a household name

3. Improving the DX every day by funneling feedback to the right teams. 

This was a fantastic experience, and I got to work closely with Colin and learnt a lot about running a company, which led me to what I do today running Unkey with my co-founder.”

What did all of these stories have in common?

Hopefully, after reading this article, you’ve realized that there’s no single path into DevRel. Success can come from:

• Building in public by sharing your coding journey and personal projects on social media

• Creating content like articles, tutorials, videos, and live streams on tech topics you are passionate about

• Leveraging technical experience from dev teams or building products

• Mentoring, leading, and supporting other developers

• Showing empathy and clear communication in technical and non-technical settings

• Providing actionable product feedback to the right teams while advocating to users and advocating for the users

No matter what your background is, consistently sharing knowledge, supporting other developers, and engaging with the community can be very helpful in landing your first Developer Advocate role.

I want to become a Developer Advocate, where do I start? 

The answer to this question depends on a lot of things, but there is one place where most people can start.

Coffee chats.

This is a great starting point because if you know little to nothing about DevRel (besides what you may have seen online),you can hear all about it, first-hand, from people you trust.

No matter what role you’re interested in, I’m almost always going to recommend coffee chats with people who are already in that particular role as the first step.

During these coffee chats, you will end up learning so much about the role, hearing about its pros & cons, and maybe even making connections that lead you to your next job!

After deciding that Developer Advocacy is a role that you are truly interested in, I would recommend starting with content creation, working on your communication skills, and getting involved with developer communities.

Our Head of Dev Advocacy, Jim Bennett, recommends that a good place to start is by getting 

“involved in a range of developer communities  – either part of programs like Google Developer Experts (GDE), Microsoft MVP, or just working closely with tech communities such as speaking at conferences, meetups and other events, blogging, creating content.”

The future of developer advocacy

Now that you’ve (maybe) decided to get a job in DevRel, are there actually any jobs left? 👀

Well, this is honestly a hard question to answer.

There are jobs out there, but it’s a tough field to break into. Like software engineering, DevRel has seen its share of layoffs over the past few years. 

Still, I’m personally optimistic about where things are headed.

There’s no official data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics for DevRel specifically, but they do track Software Developer roles. 

According to them, job growth from 2023-2033 will see a 17% increase which is much faster than usual. 

Considering that information, you can assume that DevRel roles might see a similar increase.

But there is one thing I am almost certain of. 

It doesn’t matter whether you are going for a Software Engineering role or a Dev Advocate role, the amount of jobs requiring knowledge of AI is increasing, and that trend does not seem to be slowing down. 

Just something to keep in mind!

Well, that’s it for this article. Hopefully, you learned something new, or at least feel a little bit inspired by one of the stories you read (if not, sorry about that, I’ll try harder next time 🫡). 

As always, if you’re interested in chatting with me, don’t hesitate to reach out! I am always open to collabs & coffee chats ☕️