My Path to Developer Relations and Thoughts on the Future of DevRel

[swyxio]

---

source: devto
devToUrl: "https://dev.to/swyx/my-path-to-developer-relations-and-thoughts-on-the-future-of-devrel-d00"
devToReactions: 8
devToReadingTime: 1
devToPublishedAt: "2020-12-30T22:06:02.484Z"
devToViewsCount: 119
title: My Path to Developer Relations and Thoughts on the Future of DevRel
published: true
description: Alex Lakatos interviewed me for the Devrel Advent calendar he put together
tags: Reflections
slug: adventcado-qna
canonical_url: https://www.swyx.io/adventcado-qna
displayed_publish_date: "2020-12-08"

Alex Lakatos interviewed me for the Devrel Advent calendar he put together. Extracts below:

How did you get into Developer Relations?

My first dev job was extremely unfulfilling, so I started blogging and speaking at meetups on the side to continue learning outside of work. After about 6 months of this I got a DM from Matt Biilmann, Netlify’s CEO!

What advice would you give people looking to join you?

Start Learning in Public. what else did you expect me to say?

How has your role changed in the past year?

I’ve begun to realize that individual speaking and writing can only scale so much, and you can have much more impact working behind the scenes on docs, demos and reusable resources, helping others to speak, and developer exceptions.

How do you see the future of DevRel?

DevRel will split into community-focused, product-focused, and content-focused specializations.

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You can read the full piece here.

Further Reading

Linked resources from me:

• https://dev.to/swyx/moderating-a-220k-developer-community-3doj
• https://www.swyx.io/learn-in-public/
• https://www.swyx.io/learn-in-public-hack/
• https://www.swyx.io/writing/marketing-yourself/
• https://www.swyx.io/developer-exception/
• https://dev.to/swyx/tips-for-speakers-prerecording-talks-for-online-conferences-4ic9