RIP DevRel (2010–2024): Why it died — and how to stop killing it

RIP DevRel (2010–2024)

Pour one out for Developer Relations, cause it’s about to be gone, for good. Forget everything I did last year as a DevRel in the Cloud Native space for a second — this blog has nothing to do with that.

Instead, it’s both:

• A cheeky post-mortem on why, thanks to the way many companies handled their DevRel org, we can confidently say DevRel died in 2024.
• A helpful vademecum to figure out if you need DevRel and, if you do, how to keep it alive.

Yes, I know some people think DevRel was born before 2010 but this blog is not Wikipedia, lol.

The question is: DevRel is flat-lining, can (or should) we save it?

WTF is DevRel?

I’m not trying to explain what is DevRel, there are plenty of articles and resources doing that already:

• https://www.whatisdevrel.com
• https://developerrelations.com/what-is-developer-relations
• https://www.jonobacon.com/2023/04/02/what-is-developer-relations-devrel-a-complete-guide/ (shoutout to Jono)
• https://roadmap.sh/devrel
• https://blog.mb-consulting.dev/wtf-is-devrel-18cc6c82abf9 — this is mine if you are curious about my take — unfortunately paywalled as I was stupidly trying to make some money with Medium at some point This is a list of reasons why, especially as a startup, you might be contributing to killing DevRel — or maybe you just did NOT need DevRel at all, to begin with. A big shoutout goes to all the DevRel colleagues that contributed in shaping this blog, by having open chats with me about their companies and generally speaking about the current situation in the space.

As a startup, you are contributing to killing DevRel if…

• You see DevRel as a marketing channel. Here’s a harsh truth for you: DevRel is not marketing. Sure, it can work with marketing, but reducing it to a lead-generation tool is like asking a Michelin-starred chef to sling burgers at a drive-thru. Companies that treat DevRel as a shortcut to sales are setting themselves up for failure and numbers will show that at some point. DevRel shines when it focuses on authentic engagement — building trust with developers, fostering communities, and creating technical content that helps users succeed. Misusing it as a pure top-of-funnel strategy only frustrates your DevRel team and alienates your audience. If you already have a successful product like Snyk, you will surely benefit from DevRel regardless but for most startups it just won’t work.
• You are a Closed Source startup (with a DevRel)
  Let’s face it: if your startup is closed source and doesn’t already have a vibrant community, hiring a DevRel is probably a bit of a hazard. For closed source startups, it’s better to focus on building traction, refining your product, and growing your user base before throwing DevRel into the mix. Otherwise, you’re just setting them up to fail. You can have closed source but be fondly contributing to open source and communities, like Chainguard does.
• You are not targeting developers or techies as your persona.
  DevRel works where developers are already engaged — like Open Source projects, API-driven tools, or dev-focused SaaS. If your product is not targeting developers and it doesn’t naturally create a community around it… why are you even thinking about a DevRel? I know investors can be really fond of the idea and say “since Google has them, you must have them too!” — Errm. WRONG. If your product is purely enterprise, you won’t need any DevRel early on. If your product is an API Management tool, like Zuplo, go for it!
• You don’t have money [dun dun dun] to pay and support actitivies
  DevRel without funding is like a metal band without instruments and booze: doomed to fail. Many companies hire a solo DevRel and expect them to work miracles — speaking at conferences, creating content (including video editing and assets creation?!), building communities, and somehow driving adoption — all on a pisslow (or zero) budget. In reality, DevRel programs require serious investment. You need money for event sponsorships, travel, swag, content production, and a support team (think designers and video editors). Without these, even the most talented DevRel can’t deliver any result. In short, you gotta have a marketing budget to work with (or actually engineering/product, because that’s where DevRel should be) and be fine with hiring contractors for social media management, video editing, design and such.
• You don’t want to sponsor conferences and speaking opportunities
  Sweet summer children, you’ll need a booth if you want to get some leads* from your DevRel programs, so go on and read those sponsorship prospectus and be ready to sign that juicy check! On top of this, you need to spend money to send your DevRel(s) to various and relevant conferences — and don’t worry about those, we can always provide a list, as we most probably are already part of those communities rich of potential users for your product. * As long as you don’t use leads as the success metric for your DevRel team, because (repeat with me) DevRel is NOT marketing.
• You micro-manage content creation or any other creative process
  Dear Mr. CEO, there’s absolutely no need to be in every single standup meeting for every single department of your company. Chillax, just stand back and let the professionals work! No, really. If I’m writing a script for a video (or maybe not since it’s the best way to result unautenthic), you cannot jump in there and change it as much as you like or ask for 10 revisions. You need to communicate your target and your need clearly BEFORE any creative process starts. Align on the general message and topics and let it flow. I assure you creativity will blast your socks off, if you let it happen. Enable your team to perform A/B testing on content they create, don’t be too afraid of flops, it’s the natural way for you to learn what works for your audience. Summarizing: stand back, give agency and let your DevRel people use their own tone of voice when creating content for your company.
• You want DevRels to leverage their audience to grow your userbase
  This is wrong in so many ways. I’ve seen many companies hiring people just because they have a high follower count on social media and force them to post content that just doesn’t work for their audience; ruining the experience for both their followers and them as “tech-fluencers”. Now, if you follow the previous point, you won’t need to force anyone to share such content on their LinkedIn, Bluesky, Mastodon or whatever social media. DevRels are mostly proud of what they do, so they will share it with the world if the content created is authentic to themselves. Quoting Robert Sirchia — Director of Technical & Community Marketing at SUSE*: “You accept that even if they have followers it’s their audience, not yours.” *(semi-cit from this video) That’s it, nothing more to add.

So, how can I stop killing DevRel?

To stop killing it (or even adopting it successfully) as a startup you need to know that a functioning DevRel program:

• is not a marketing channel
• is not marketing, but needs a marketing team around it
• needs (to be active in) Open Source (communities)
• targets developers as main persona
• needs a (conspicuous) budget
• needs graphical artifacts and a supporting media team
• needs to send people to be at conferences as sponsors (with a booth)
• needs to send people to speak at conferences
• needs to enable failures and A/B testing of content strategies
• avoids forcibly leveraging the DevRel audience for content distribution

Wait, but these bullets are also valid for enterprises!

Exactly. You got it right, the recipe is quite the same for an enterprise, main difference being the budget amounts and some more branding guidelines to follow.

My final 2 cents.

DevRel is definitely not doing well lately and companies bastaridizing it — or should I say enshittyfing? — are not helpful. DevRel is not an instant money-making machine and it requires time to become an effective tool, working together with your marketing, product/engineering and even sales.

Take a look at Datadog, for example. They did all the steps to create a functioning DevRel org and now they started to enable their own engineers to talk at conferences, with the DevRel team educating them to start leveraging storytelling in addition to their technical skills. See this post from Jason Yee to learn more about how Datadog enables DevRel in the way that works for them, by expanding its team not reducing it.

Enstablishing your presence in the various communities, creating one of your own, enabling open source contributions, raising awareness around your offering, enhancing your product and documentation, creating a fantastic Developer Experience and creating engaging lines of content takes time, effort and investments. Some companies are doing (seemingly) great with their DevRel programs: Dynatrace, Elastic, Fastly, Twilio and most probably some more.

Hoping that this message arrives at the right people (and companies), saving money, saving poor — often solo — DevRels from burnout and be a way to discuss DevRel openly in such a bad market current condition that saw many companies (almost) cutting off entire departments like: Fly.io, Aiven, Broadcom and most certainly many more.

Yes, I know the economy is not great either, interest rates and bla bla, but it’s still SO sad to see so many great DevRel people looking for a job and finding none in months, often having to switch to other roles.

So, is DevRel truly dead? Not quite. It’s more like on life support, waiting for companies to stop stepping on the power cable and plugging it out. Maybe it’s time to let DevRel rest in peace — or at least stop trying to perform a never ending cardiac massage but without the right budget and mindset.

With this, I suddenly announce that I’m moving slightly away from DevRel for my next role, but worry not — you will still find me (speaking?) at conferences.

Once a DevRel, always a DevRel. 🫡

You can find all my links 👉 here.

See you around, ciao!

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Originally published on blog.mb-consulting.dev