Getting into Developer Relations

@jesslynnrose

jessica.tech

Housekeeping 🗑

What is developer realtions?

It's a great job for... 

• Networking
• Growing your visibility
• Pay
• Travel
• Learning business skills

Pressures and challenges... 

• Burnout
• Environments with drinking
• Work/life balance
• High levels of social contact
• Stress

Activities and Aspects common to developer outreach roles...

Technical Writing

Working in technical outreach you may be called upon to create, contribute to or edit documentation or tutorials.

Get Experience by...

• Writing tutorials for your own site
• Answering written questions online
• Contributing to open source docs
• Working a role in tech writing

Resources...

Write the Docs

writethedocs.org

An online community of technical writers with international conferences, online resources and friendly people.

Dev and Demo work

As part of your outreach to developers, many devrel roles involve doing hands on software engineering work, often with your company's product.

Get experience by...

• Working software engineering roles
• Contributing to open source projects
• Doing contract work
• Working on your own ideas

Resources...

You'll need to find projects or development ideas that fit your interests to build a portfolio of work. Find developer communities who meet your needs.

Presentation Skills

Working in outreach you may be asked to speak directly to developers at scale through conference talks, meetups, webinars or work with the press.

Get experience by...

• Speaking at a local meetup
• Submitting to a conference
• Asking a podcast if you can be a guest
• Giving a webinar
• Asking to be on a panel

Resources...

• meetup.com
• papercall.io
• @callbackwomen

Community Building

Many employers will want to see that you can make a meaningful contribution to the tech community and represent them well in your work for them.

Get experience by...

• Running or helping run a meetup
• Volunteering at events
• Mentoring technologists
• Get involved with community projects
• Involvement in open source communities

Resources...

• opensource.com
• Rails Girls, Django Girls
• 1:1 outreach via your network
• meetup.com
• Local communities and events

Finding work...

Developer evangelist slack:

https://evangelistcollective.github.io/

Jess will also be dropping some links into the chat 👀

Q&A Session

@jesslynnrose