The Zero-to-One Developer Advocate: A Guide to Hiring this Person
Making your first developer relations hire can be fraught with challenges. Here are some of the qualities I look for when hiring.
If my recent mentoring calls are anything to go by, it’s a challenging time in the domain of developer relations, both for individuals and for companies.
Lots of folks are looking for work. As startup funding has dried up and scale-up cash runways are being conserved, one of the first departments to be cut is often DevRel. Even large organizations appear to have overhired within this department and are making cuts.
The bright spot is that I’m seeing new opportunities emerge within inner and outer loop DevEx tooling, security, and AI-based startups that were founded over the last year or two. However, some companies I’m chatting with have expressed concerns about hiring the right “zero-to-one” person to bootstrap the DevRel team — or they are reaching out to me because they made a bad hire and are wondering what to do next.
As no one wins if the person hired isn’t a fit for the role, I wanted to dive into some qualities I look for when recommending that first developer relations hire.
Been there, done that, got the (vendor) t-shirt? That’s a strong signal
It may sound obvious, but if you can find a developer relations leader who has successfully bootstrapped a team and is looking to do this again, you should hire this person if they match your other criteria!
Don’t get me wrong. I always aim to provide opportunities for junior folks looking to level up on their career path, and I like taking (calculated) bets on people with raw talent. Still, I’m very cautious about this approach when bootstrapping a team or function unless you (as a senior leader or company founder) have the time and energy to provide a lot of support. And let’s be honest, in a startup, your time and energy have to be ruthlessly prioritized.
Developer relations is already such a wide-ranging role that finding junior folks with true business awareness, an experimental approach, and team-building skills is quite an ask. And not everyone is ready for or wants this level of responsibility.
It’s also tempting to think the developer relations expert from BigCo or the developer advocate who joined a successful scale-up a few years back can reverse engineer what it takes to bootstrap a team, but my experience has been mixed with this. You can’t assume anything, and during the interview process, you should dive into what role they specifically played during setting strategy, executing on the day-to-day, and managing others.
Qualities I look for in a zero-to-one developer advocate
This zero-to-one developer relations role is not just about technical prowess but about bridging the company and the developer community. Here are the essential skills and qualities needed for a startup's first developer relations hire.
Experimental mindset
There is a temptation as a developer advocate to just do stuff without really thinking about the problem you are trying to solve. It’s relatively easy to write a sensible-sounding blog post, create a demo or two that show off your products, and submit CFPs to a bunch of conferences that kinda look good. I know because I’ve fallen into this “busywork” trap.
A real superpower for a first developer relations hire is an experimental mindset. This should be grounded in effective problem diagnosis and good experiment design skills.
I started seeing the biggest impact within my career when I told founders something like “I think XYZ is our biggest unknown with getting developers to adopt our tech. Do you agree? If so, here’s how I intend to test this hypothesis and here are the metrics of success.”
Empathy and customer insight
Empathy is crucial for understanding the developer community's needs, challenges, and feedback. This goes hand-in-hand with the experimental quality above because if you do not understand your user, it’s nearly impossible to design effective experiments.
A successful developer advocate can put themselves in the shoes of all types of engineers (especially those in your ICP!), provide insightful feedback to the product team, and help iteratively shape the product in a way that meets the community's needs.
Communication and storytelling skills
Effective communication is the cornerstone of a DevRel role. Related to the previous quality, an effective developer advocate must be able to articulate complex technical concepts in a way that is accessible to a broad audience. They must also be able to articulate complex user feedback and signals from the market in a way the founders and product team can understand and take action on.
Storytelling is a key aspect of this, as it helps create relatable and engaging content that resonates with the developer community and your leadership team.
I always enjoyed it when my team came to me with a new piece of tech and said, “at first glance, this tool doesn’t look like a competitor, but let me explain to you how several people in our community are using it to accomplish this ‘job to be done’ that our products are targetting.”
Community and team-building skills
A significant part of a DevRel role is to build and maintain a thriving developer community. This involves organizing meetups, webinars, and workshops, and actively participating in online forums and social media.
In a similar fashion, the first hire will work closely with internal stakeholders and peers and share insight. They may also be expected to build out a supporting DevRel team, or at least help define its shape, potentially including hiring leaders above them in the hierarchy.
There is a lot of overlap with these skills, and I like to ask behavioural questions about this in interviews (e.g. “Tell me about the community you’ve most enjoyed being a part of. What made it so valuable?” And “Who was your best manager, and what impact did they have on you and the overall company.”)
Business awareness
A zero-to-one developer advocate should always be able to explain to the community how the business makes money (or intends to make money). This helps to set expectations with the community upfront and align DevRel activities with the rest of the business.
Related to this, I also believe a first hire should be able to explain a basic marketing funnel and how the developer relations role will impact this. I’m not necessarily arguing that all DevRel folks should be driving MQLs, but they also shouldn’t be operating in complete isolation from the rest of the go-to-market team!
Additional references
Looking for more info on hiring your first DevRel role or being hired as the first person for the role? Check out these references:
The Zero to One Playbook for DevRels: A conversation with Brianne Kimmel and Cassidy Williams
Software Snack Bites #6 Brian Douglas - What is Developer Relations, How to Succeed at Dev Rel, Scaling Open Source Projects & Contribution
Want to know more about building an effective DevRel team?
I hope this post has helped to demystify how to hire for the zero-to-one developer advocate roles! As a shameless plug, I also offer advising services to startups looking to bootstrap their developer advocate teams.
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