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Getting your first DevRel job can be tough. The recruitment process varies from one company to the next and, often, competition is fierce. And it can seem like each company has a different idea of what the various DevRel roles mean.
As the founder of Develocity, a recruitment firm that specialises in placing people with developer tools companies, I’ve helped many DevRel professionals through the selection process and to secure new roles in companies large and small. So, I’ve been able to see what works and what doesn’t.
If you’re looking to get your first job in developer relations, here’s my take on what you need to consider:
Let’s dive into each of those.
If you’re applying for a software engineering role, your GitHub profile is one way to help hiring managers get a feel for what you have done and what you can do. When you’re applying for DevRel roles, you need a similar way of demonstrating to hiring managers where your skills and interests lie. That means building a portfolio.
Your DevRel portfolio is a collection of the relevant work you’ve done, whether paid or in your own time. That could be blog posts you’ve written, videos of talks you’ve given, or an account of how you grew a community. The crucial thing is that your portfolio provides evidence that you are the person that the hiring manager is looking for. Your CV/resume tells your story and your portfolio brings it to life.
If you’re applying for your first DevRel job, you might wonder what to include. Especially for entry level roles, what’s in your portfolio can be entirely things you did for yourself, as part of an open source community, or in other non-paid contexts.
While your portfolio is great for showcasing your speaking, content creation, community engagement, and similar skills, you’ll also need to demonstrate your technical expertise. Depending on the role, just how technical you need to be will vary. For most facing developer advocate roles, for example, you’ll need to be able to write code and build solutions using the company’s product. If you’re a developer educator, on the other hand, you might need only to read code and to understand how the different parts of the company’s tech stack work together.
Maintaining an active GitHub profile is a good idea, as is making sure that your DevRel portfolio shows off your technical abilities. But most important of all is that you should get to know the technology offered by the companies you’re applying to. You don’t need to be an expert but you should be able to hold an informed conversation with the interviewer.
Communication is key to all developer relations roles. As your career progresses, you might be able to specialise in one or two of public speaking, blogging, video creation, social media, and others. But early in your career you will almost certainly do a little bit of everything.
First, make sure you have something interesting to say. Pick a niche that excites you and learn it well enough that you have an opinion on it. Not only will that make it easier to pick topics but it will also add another dimension to your work.
Write tutorials and opinion blog posts and publish them on sites such as dev.to. Ask your friends and community peers to give you an honest review and compare your work to that of experienced DevRel practitioners. Then, write more but change the things that didn’t work so well the last time.
Seek out speaking opportunities, whether that’s at local meet-ups or as part of online events. If you have videos, watch yourself back and make a note of everything that could be better and then deliberately set out to improve on that next time.
Don’t be too hard on yourself, though! Public speaking is a skill that takes time to learn. And because of that there are organisations such as Toastmasters where you can learn public speaking skills amongst a friendly group of other people looking to do the same.
It’s important not to confuse being a DevRel professional with being a developer influencer. You don’t need to be internet famous in order to work in developer relations. However, being connected to other DevRel people can help you to find opportunities and to get vouched for.
Naturally, social media is important here. Share the content you’re creating for your portfolio on Twitter and LinkedIn as a minimum. Depending on where you are and the technologies that interest you, that could be Mastodon, Facebook, Bluesky, Twitch, or others. Similarly, try to join communities where you can meet other people in the industry.
It might take a while but you should be able to build connections with other people working in that area of technology. One bit of advice, though: keep your interactions grounded in real human connection and in a shared interest in the topic of the space you’re using. Lose focus of that and you might put people off.
When you do come to apply for specific roles, take some time to understand what they do, who is on their team already, and what they might be looking for.
You can even reach out to DevRel professionals already working for that company to gain an insight into its work culture and what things they value. That will help you to craft your application, including a cover letter, to the specific needs of that team and company.
As you move forward in the process, dive deeper into the technology you’d be working with and form your own opinions about that, the company, and its developer community. You don’t need to have all the answers but, at interview, you should be able to talk in an informed way about what that DevRel team does.
DevRel can be competitive, so don’t feel too bad if it takes a while to land your first job. Based on my experience placing DevRel people in jobs that they love, I do know that the advice I’ve given here will help you to showcase your potential.
So remember, build a portfolio, make sure you have the right technical skills for the jobs you apply to, practise your communication skills, meet the right people, and do your research.
Good luck!
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