✨ 7 learnings from my first months as a new DevRel 🚀
Tags: career, productivity, programming, python
Published: 2023-10-04 19:56:57

**🔬 tl;dr**

- DevRel is about growing, educating, and retaining the developer base of a company.
- Hackathons are extraordinary for feedback and users for your product.
- Utilise Dev.to to build an audience and drive traffic.
- Discord is essential for community-building → optimise onboarding.
- Place your Call to Action early in articles to at least 2-3x your traffic.
- Embrace AI tools like ChatGPT and MidJourney for content creation.
- Consider startup life for a more personable and impactful experience.

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Hey friends 👋

I recently got a job as a DevRel. 

DevRel, or Developer Relations, is a job whose primary responsibilities lie in growing, educating and retaining the developer base of a tech company. 

In other words, it is best to imagine my role as a combination of a **content creator, a developer and a growth guy.**

Whether you think this role is exciting or you are already in the industry, here are some learnings from my first three months that hopefully bring you some good value today.

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#1. You don’t have to be an ex-software developer to become a DevRel

That was the big “what??” moment when I first learned about the role. For context, I used to work in analytics at TikTok and Uber. I initially discovered SQL at Uber and went on a journey to learn Python online. I used these tools later on at work but still, I never entered the job market as a full-time developer. 

The one thing I did do is I enjoyed coding and sharing my coding journey on my [TikTok](https://www.tiktok.com/@bapfernandez). 

In the end, I was hired because I had experience growing a community of coders and that was my pass to get the job 🔥

Now, to take it a step further, there are even some DevRel jobs that do not require any sort of coding knowledge. These tend to be more geared towards marketing and community management but they are still DevRels.

In contrast, you have some DevRels, like this guy I spoke to at Google, who did not go about his day without ever not coding. 

tl;dr DevRel is a full spectrum lol - and you can get the job without being an ex-developer.

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#2. Hackathons are goldmines for growth and developer feedback

One thing that became evident very quickly was that participating and sponsoring hackathons is a brilliant way to get community feedback and increase users. 

Operational burdens exist behind organising, finding and sponsoring the right hackathons - and this requires a bit of brute force.

However, when done right, they can be a real catalyst for the growth of your business. 

PS: If you are reading this and you organise hackathons with 500+ people, do give me a shout 😏

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#3. Get organic exposure to developers? Write on Dev.to

[Dev.to](http://Dev.to) is a fantastic platform to reach a lot of developers. 

On my first week on the job, we had an exciting chat with the CEO of Dev.to (parent company is called Forem) and I had not realised the platform's potential yet. 

To shed some light on some numbers, in the first 3 months, I have only posted nine articles, which have gotten 8k+ people to click and read them. As a result, we got 600+ organic visits to our page and converted almost 200 developers.

Pretty good stuff for getting started on a platform for the first time 🏋️‍♀️

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#4. Put your CTA closer to the start of your article

I am no expert yet in having the best article conversion rates. However, one experiment I ran to be very successful was to have my CTA at the top vs. at the bottom of the article. 

Drop-off rates of readers are pretty astonishing as you go through an article. 

Therefore, please make sure that you place your CTA around the start of your article. You will, at the very least, 2-3x the number of traffic to your site.

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#5. Discord is where community-building is at

I was not an early adopter of Discord, mainly because my network around me was not using it as much. 

However, Discord is kind of like the new version of MSN (if you have no idea about what I am talking about you were definitely born after 2000 😁). 

It is a conversational place with much potential for triggering engagement between your users. 

I want to note that Discord is still a black box mystery I am trying to unpack, and creating that organic engagement is still not solved. 

However, one tip I would give is the Discord onboarding feature is extremely valuable as it allows your devs to tailor an experience whilst understanding what your server is about.

Finally, you also get to add a “to-do” task to guide your users on what to do first on your server. This is a pretty neat opportunity to get your users to create some initial engagement. If you have some nifty strategies to increase Discord engagement, please do let me know in the comments below 🫶

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#6. LLMs are not a threat, they are tools

In the game on content creation, especially technical content creation, I was initially concerned about LLMs (Large Language Models). 

I did ponder whether LLMs would be too strong a force and things might change too drastically. 

However, the reality is that the GPT models 3.5 and 4 are pretty impressive, but they are not remarkable enough to replace your writing entirely. I have tried many times to prompt “*here is an article I wrote; rewrite X, Y, Z the way I would write it”*. 

So far, results are good, but they are still far from great. My efficiency has increased as a result of it, but it is not able to replace me. 

This is why I believe that as of today, these are not a threat to the job but a tool for better performing at your job. 

Note: In the spirit of this little AI paragraph, I am currently trying out MidJourney and it is pretty wild the type of AI image generator it is. Though the service is paid and runs solely on Discord, the output is insane. I advise you to look into it for your banners and thumbnails (the banner for this article comes from MidJourney after I asked for "developers on a mountain with pixel art format"). 

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#7. Startup life may be what you have been missing

This one is just an extra for those not working in startups yet. 

DevRels exist in large companies like AWS just like in some startups like [Quira.sh](https://quira.sh/?utm_source=devtobap&utm_campaign=7_learnings_devrel), where we are less than 20 people. 

I originally came from giant tech companies and though I thoroughly enjoyed my experiences there, I am discovering that my personality may suit start-ups more. 

I enjoy the personable side of knowing everyone’s name at the company and seeing your impact on the firm *almost* instantly. 

In contrast, gigantic tech companies have their perks but it can be challenging to see your impact (at least from my experience). Additionally, your range of responsibility is limited. 

I don’t think one is better, but more of what works best for you. 

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I hope this article has provided good value to you 🫶

My career goal is to become part of the top leadership team at my startup and in this, I will share my progress.

If this is of interest, please let me know! ✨

Your dev.to buddy,

Bap