- General hello and elevator pitch for Algolia.
- Introducing the speakers.
- Highlight "job of the day" - in this case, an Education Engineer (SF/Paris)
- Every company that has a product that is used by a developer can benefit from DevRel.
- DevRel communicates directly to developers, raising awareness both before and during the product lifecycle.
- Engage the dev community.
- DevRel is not sales. They evangelise or advocate for the product, but don't sell.
- Sales isn't about authentic relationships.
- DevRel isn't generic community management.
- Developer community sure - but not social media mavens.
- The developer has to beleive in the product. Making that connection is the DevRel job.
- Q: Dev Evang vs Dev Advo: is there a difference?
- No, I don't think there's a difference.
- This is the wrong answer. Oh well!
- No, I don't think there's a difference.
- Reponding to previous Q&A: Dev Advo is a two-way street, Evang is one-way.
- Started as a developer, started doing talks and training for customers.
- Got bored by the product and joined the marketing team to try something new.
- Assumed title of "Community Liason". Goal: nurture community. Notably: not community manager.
- Started working with Matthew from DevRelCon.
- Tangent into content strategy: concentrate on quality at the expense of quantity, every time.
- DevRel competes from "brain attention time".
- Biggest problems in DevRel: budget and org position.
- Marketing is numbers-driven. DevRel is fuzzier.
- DevRel is a cost centre that is hard to measure. You need CEO buy-in or else it will suck.
- "The average lifespan of DevRel is 9 to 12 months, because burnout."
- Most DevRel that I know have stopped drinking alcohol.
- DevRel is a field, not a job. Public speaking is a skill, not a job.
- "I've become an expert in buying t-shirts. My last order was about 20,000 €. We buy a lot of t-shirts."
- Working on week-ends? Normal. Just travelling for Monday events means working on Sundays, at the least.
- People who leave DevRel often move into Product Marketing.
- Q: Should it be a full-time job or can it be done a little on the side?
- Tech people in the company can definitely do some aspects of DevRel: talks, blog posts, etc. Be careful on the burnout aspect though.
- Q: We're having trouble attracting developers at events. How do we market to devs?
- Devs hate marketing. They don't want to be pitched at. Marketing people shouldn't talk to devs unless they themselves have a development background. Most important: don't try to sell anything. You need to create a genuine connection.
- Q: How to convince management that they need to focus on events and DevRel?
- You need to get your CEO on board. That's where you start. DevRel needs to be sold internally, and it might be really hard to do this in your specific environment.
- Not every company is designed for DevRel.
- You need to get your CEO on board. That's where you start. DevRel needs to be sold internally, and it might be really hard to do this in your specific environment.
- Q: When are hackathons a good idea?
- "I generally hate hackathons. As a leftist, I think that making people work on the week-ends sucks. But these people are adults and if that's what they want to do, ok."
- Hackathons have low numbers - but those numbers can be very high quality, so that's the selling point.
- Q: What are the most efficient DevRel strategies?
- Talks are good but they don't scale (plus you burnout so fast). There's no magical recipe. Just do a good mix of things and build up the follower base organically.
- Q: What is the culture of DevRel in France?
- DevRel is not so new anymore. It's new-ish in France though. In France it's much more about culture. Europe has way more conferences than the USA, possibly because people want to have confs in their native language. The native language aspect is important in Europe in general, and France in specific.
- In France if you want to reach people, lunch meetups are a great idea. Most developers can't justify conferences, and have to take PTO. Evening events too. Maybe breakfast? Meetups all the time though.
- https://twitter.com/noel_mace
- "Being a Developer Advocate in a Development Consulting Company"
- Developer 🥑
- Always wanted to be a scientest, and also a comedian.
- Taught at an IT school. Moved into programming professionally. Eventually become a "technical director".
- Didn't really like any of that.
- Wanted a job that mixed "pure tech" and "helping community".
- Was hired as a Developer Advocate at a consulting firm.
- As a consultancy, we don't have a product per se. Our product is our developers talent and energy.
- We have principles which form the basis of the DevRel programme.
- "Dev Advocac is: advocating for developers' happiness".
- Important to be aware of over-work. Take week-ends off! Lead the dev community by example.
- Dunning-Kruger effect is tough for developers. Some get stuck in the "I'm never going to understand this" phase. Dev Advo can help developers move past this phase.
- Q: Why does a company need DevRel?
- Not every company does. Our team is an extension of the ethics of our company.
- Every developer should be encouraged and enabled to do talks, blog posts, etc. DevRel just does this most of the time.
- Q: (Honestly didn't catch this one.)
- Any company can benefit from Developer Advocates. DevRel grows the entire industry, not just your company - and that benefits everyone.
- Q: What is the component of education in DevRel?
- Helps us to transmit knowledge, but in a more concentrated way. Also allows us to gather feedback directly from the dev / customer community.
- Q: How do you pick what OSS project to work on?
- This is a really new thing - somebody else at the company handles it. For now it's really just every person sort of picing a project they like.
- Q: Are you working with Marketing?
- As a matter of fact we sit directly beside marketing, but we don't work directly with them. We don't "do marketing", we don't have the same mission. We don't really talk about the company very much, for example.