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This is a post from DevRelX. DevRelX was a community-driven platform by SlashData dedicated to advancing Developer Relations (DevRel), Developer Marketing, and Developer Experience professionals. It provided research, insights, and resources through initiatives like the Future Developer Summit & the DevRelX Summit, the DevRelX Podcast, and a book. DevRelX created a vibrant space for learning, connection, and discussion within the global DevRel community, until the community was sunset in 2023 as SlashData shifted its focs to wide Technology Research. Listening to developers' feedback in recent years, it became clear that our community members face anxiety, and burnout and are trying to find ways to improve their overall health and well-being. If you have been around the tech industry and developer communities for a while now, you might have observed an increased need to address these topics in your communities too. We wanted to learn more about our developers’ experiences and what is a better way than asking? In Q1 we ran a survey focusing on developer well-being and we are ready to share the results with everyone in the space! State of Developer Wellness Report With this week being Mental Health Awareness Week in the UK (15th – 21st May) it seems fitting to announce the launch of our State of Developer Wellness report. The report provides insights from our Developer Nation community including workplace experiences, burnout, mental wellbeing, happiness and lifestyles. We hope that the report will raise awareness around the importance of work well-being for developers and creators, and encourage more discussions within developer communities. Our first State of Developer Wellness Survey reached 870 respondents from 91 countries around the world. The report covers: Distribution of Developers based on their Workplace Setup Remote work, how it affects their mental well-being, do developers feel their employers care about their wellbeing Developer burnout How often developers have felt burnout in the last three months, how do they decompress and relieve stress, are they successfully managing their workplace stress? Developer Happiness and Health Lifestyles We encourage everyone to read the report and share it with their colleagues and peers. If you’d like to invite share it with developers in your community, here is the original announcement from Developer Nation . How developer community builders are addressing developer wellness? While working on the survey, we also reached out to the members of our DevRelX community , comprising of Developer Advocates, DevRel practitioners and community builders, asking if they’re addressing burnout and overall wellness in their respective developer communities, and here are the results. The overwhelming majority (62%) of the respondents are not addressing wellness within their communities. On the positive flank, 38% to some extent include wellness-related topics in their community activities, of which 60% are actively promoting wellness within their developer programs. Wellness tips from our team A big thank you to all developers and developer community builders who supported our first survey and the team, without whom this report would not have been possible. Here are wellness tips from some of our team members. Get your thoughts, ideas and worries out onto paper, break your tasks into manageable chunks, learn breath work, get out in nature, stay hydrated, keep moving during the day, listen to a fun podcast, and start every day with the question "how can I be of service to others today?" - Vanessa Measom, Developer Success Executive Organise your thoughts, your day, and your tasks. Stay active and don’t hesitate to reach out for help. Anastasia Alexopoulou, Senior Partnerships Manager For folks working remotely: invest in a good work desk and chair and separate it from your leisure space. Having a good essential aromatic oil in a diffuser also helps lighten the mood sometimes 😉. Don’t hesitate to change your work scenery; cafes, mountains and co-working spaces can be great places to work from. Ayan Pahwa, Developer Advocate It's ok to feel overwhelmed. It's not ok doing nothing about it. Find your passion and let it fill up your batteries. Fight energy draining with energy-boosting activities. Motorcycle rides do that for me. Stathis Georgakopoulos, Product Marketing Manager If you work remotely, adopt a pet. They will be your companion, distraction and a reminder of a different, stress-less way of being. If you're an anxious type, consider alternating your coffee with decaf - it also helps your nutrient absorption! Viktorija Ignatavičiūtė, Sr. Community Lead Find your optimal work hours. Discover the time of day when you’re most productive and build your schedule around it. Also, remember to take regular breaks. Coffee or Tea breaks work ☕️. Gottfried Moh, Community Lead Let’s build on a culture of wellness that promotes the mental, physical and emotional well-being of the developer industry! Organisations that can help with burnout: Johns Hopkins University BurnoutAid Rehab4Addiction

This is a post from DevRelX. DevRelX was a community-driven platform by SlashData dedicated to advancing Developer Relations (DevRel), Developer Marketing, and Developer Experience professionals. It provided research, insights, and resources through initiatives like the Future Developer Summit & the DevRelX Summit, the DevRelX Podcast, and a book. DevRelX created a vibrant space for learning, connection, and discussion within the global DevRel community, until the community was sunset in 2023 as SlashData shifted its focs to wide Technology Research. You’re familiar with at least one AI-assisted development tool; That’s right, the ChatGPT. Its popularity has skyrocketed in the last few months and with good reason. It is designed to assist users in generating human-like text but it’s been helpful to developers too, as they can leverage ChatGPT to automate certain tasks, generate code snippets, assist in writing documentation, or even prototype conversational interfaces. While ChatGPT is primarily a language model, it can be used in the development process to aid in various aspects of software development. In SlashData's 24th edition of State of Developer Nation , we asked developers if they use AI and how. This led to a dedicated chapter on all the new technologies that captivate developers’ imaginations. The data from the survey suggest that 63% of developers engaged in some aspect of AI-assisted development, making it evident that this technology is rapidly maturing and transforming from a mere trend to a valuable tool. AI-Assisted Development: A Growing Trend While overall engagement has experienced a slight decline of 4% over the past year, the nature of developer involvement has undergone a fascinating shift. More developers are actively working on or learning about AI-assisted development, showing a 6% increase in engagement. Simultaneously, the number of developers with latent interest has decreased by 6%. This dynamic suggests that AI-assisted development is maturing and gaining practical applicability in the development landscape. Generative AI: Unleashing Creative Possibilities Alongside AI-assisted development, generative AI has emerged as a new and exciting technology. With 57% of developers actively involved or interested in generative AI, curiosity and excitement abound. While AI-assisted development still leads in adoption at 17% , generative AI projects attract 14% of engaged developers. The Many Uses of Generative AI Developers use generative AI in three main ways: as a helpful tool for their development process by integrating it into projects through APIs or even by creating the models themselves. Ongoing investigations are exploring these usage patterns to uncover more insights into this groundbreaking technology. Experimenting with AI in Developer Relations We also wanted to take a closer look into how Developer Relations are adopting AI in their work. We asked our DevRelX Community members to share their take on how AI technologies are affecting DevRel and developer communities. Ash Ryan Arnwine , Director of Developer Relations, Nylas, shared inspirational ideas for experimenting with these new technologies. Ash also wrote a blog post about how DevRel teams can start using AI. Ash: At Nylas, our DevRel team is using a framework of four questions to help us explore where AI can be useful in key areas of our work. My hope is that our team can grapple with emerging AI capabilities while keeping a couple of guiding principles in mind. First, the current wave of generative AI is the newest "bicycle for the mind"; it doesn't need to solve every problem perfectly to be a valuable tool. It's on us to learn this tool and wield it constructively in the service of our developers. The second principle is related: we experiment aggressively in private; we ship to developers with care and consideration. As an example of our framework in practice, we've used ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot to aid in writing a code sample showing developers how to build an AI-enhanced email spam filter. In other words, we're using AI to aid in completing the meta task of inspiring developers on ways to enhance their Nylas integrations with AI. On the developer experience side, it feels like the possibilities are almost infinite—as a simple example, I gave a talk at apidays New York a couple of weeks ago that highlighted the potential of enabling developers to "talk" to your OpenAPI spec. It's all so much fun. And the more we play, the better informed our product ideas and AI-enhanced DevRel work can become." Have ideas to share? Join the conversation with Ash and more peers on DevRelX Slack . Challenges and Opportunities Although generative AI is gaining high engagement, there are factors that affect its adoption among developers. Some developers may be hesitant to rely solely on generative models for critical or security-conscious tasks. However, there is a growing adoption of generative AI for visual assets in software development, which reduces the risks of errors and security vulnerabilities. Overcoming Challenges Developers who work on generative AI models face the challenge of needing a large amount of training data. However, certain tools offer the ability to fine-tune pre-trained models for specific tasks, making this challenge easier to overcome. As developers become more familiar with assistive and generative AI technologies, we can expect a surge in their adoption, leading to innovation and creativity. Leadership’s Role Interestingly, leaders in C-suite and other leadership positions show higher engagement rates with emerging technologies. About 49% and 50% of those who approve tool expenses or budgets are actively involved in AI-assisted development. This trend suggests that the revolution in AI-assisted development is driven by leaders who recognize its potential. Looking Ahead: The Changing Landscape When we take a broader view, we see a cyclical pattern in the adoption and interest in emerging technologies. Developer interest has dropped by 5% overall, while adoption has increased by 4 percentage points. This contrast indicates a dynamic shift in developer preferences, marking a change from previous trends. In summary, AI-assisted development is rapidly evolving and attracting developers’ attention. Generative AI opens up exciting possibilities, and leadership engagement plays a crucial role in driving its growth. Cryptocurrencies continue to be intriguing, and the landscape of emerging technologies is constantly shifting. Did you find this article interesting? Download the full free report to learn about: The rest of the technologies that capture the developers’ imagination The Role of female coders in software development An update on language communities How well-paid developers feel What makes a high-quality API An Overview of embedded software development

This is a post from DevRelX. DevRelX was a community-driven platform by SlashData dedicated to advancing Developer Relations (DevRel), Developer Marketing, and Developer Experience professionals. It provided research, insights, and resources through initiatives like the Future Developer Summit & the DevRelX Summit, the DevRelX Podcast, and a book. DevRelX created a vibrant space for learning, connection, and discussion within the global DevRel community, until the community was sunset in 2023 as SlashData shifted its focs to wide Technology Research. At DevRelX , we take great pride in supporting organisations and communities that contribute to the diverse and inclusive evolution of the tech industry. This time we want to bring into the spotlight the Ada Developers Academy whose mission is to prepare women and gender-expansive adults to be software developers while advocating for inclusive and equitable work environments. Ada primarily serves and addresses the needs of Black, Latine, Indigenous Americans, Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islanders, LGBTQIA+, and low-income people. Gender diversity brings substantial benefits to individual companies and the tech economy at large. We can see more companies recognising the importance of diverse workspaces. According to SlashData’s research , as of Q1 2023, nearly a quarter of all developers (22%) self-identify as female, up from 19% two years ago . Still, many companies struggle to recruit and retain diverse talent – that’s where Ada Developers Academy comes in. Ada Academy is a one-year, tuition-free coding school that fast-tracks women and gender-expansive folks into junior software developer roles. Through six months in the classroom and five months in an industry internship with one of our company partners, Ada students build the skills and experience they need to become developers. We develop engineers who are highly skilled and collaborative; graduates are experienced in practical, team-based software development and learning new technology rapidly. The results of their work speak for themselves – 94% of Ada graduates are hired into full-time software engineering jobs within six months of graduation. Meet Katherine Abrikian Katherine is an Ada alum and fills her spiritual cup through volunteerism and community ties. She builds up new coders as a mentor to incoming Adies and creates lasting relationships from city to city. Strong community ties and giving back can fuel your spirit – because when you’re around your people, something just clicks. Community is different for everyone. It can inspire, empower, or be a springboard for innovation. Helping not only feels good, but it can also make a difference. Build connections with your local organizations and get involved today. You never know the power of your contribution. Deepening Connections in Community Roots Share with us how you are currently involved with your community and what that means to you. Community involvement has always been important to me. Everywhere I go, I seek out opportunities to deepen community connections, give back through volunteerism, and show up for others. My family and I have moved three times in the past three and a half years, so my community involvement has been, at times, virtual, allowing me to maintain connections, and at times in person, in forging new connections. We moved into our current neighbourhood about a week before the school year started this past August. In applying to Ada, I was particularly drawn to Ada’s model of collaborative support. I’m continuing to deepen my ties with my new communities. I’ve volunteered at my son’s school, and I’m grateful to be active in supporting fellow Adies outside of the mandatory classroom requirements (facilitating review sessions, helping to think through blockers, providing a listening ear) and receiving their trust and support in turn. Making time for cultivating community and giving back outside of the 9-5 work schedule can be exhausting! What inspired you to get involved? What keeps you coming back or pushing forward? There’s a certain spiritual nourishment that comes from being part of an active community where you give, but also, when you begin to feel depleted, you can receive something in return. That something received can vary a lot. It might be the vicarious joy of a community member’s personal or professional victory. It might be some sort of direct support. One recent reaffirming moment for me occurred during our first week in our new neighbourhood. My family and I stopped in at Everyday Sundae and were immediately granted the gift of community. The owner welcomed us, saw our toddler, and took the time to invite us to a community event for children that was coming up soon. Whenever we stop in there now, we chat and deepen that connection. For me, it’s these sorts of connections that help to make a place feel like home. I’m determined to do my part in that work, pay the kindness given to me forward, and multiply that kindness in the world. Why does community building bring you joy? About two months after starting with Ada, I heard about Black Code Collective from a member of the Ada community and joined. It’s been such a blessing to have this community of Black tech workers, where we can talk about the issues that concern us, from the purely professional to the cultural. I went to a meet-up in December, and we took up a full third of the bar we were meeting in. Seeing so many Black people with connections to tech in one space was so powerful. Being an active part of that community absolutely brings me joy. What organizations would you like to share with folks to learn more about? Black Code Collective – supporting Black joy and Black progress in tech Everyday Sundae – amazing ice cream, feels like coming home Any other thoughts you’d like to share about being a volunteer, finding your community, or anything else? Community connection got more difficult during the pandemic in some ways, but it’s still possible. I message and call mentees when we can’t meet face-to-face; I’ve facilitated group sessions virtually. Connecting with people who don’t have a lot of resources gets even tougher, but if everyone is committed and sees a benefit, it can work. In terms of finding a community, if you’re already established in the community, and you see someone new, please reach out to welcome them and see what commonalities exist. Everyone has to start somewhere, and feeling welcomed is a huge leg up. You can connect with Katherine on LinkedIn . Since our founding in 2013, Ada has served over 1,000 participants and generated $50M in new salaries for women and gender-expansive folks in the tech economy, narrowing gender and racial equity gaps in one of our most prosperous and influential sectors. Learn more at www.adadevelopersacademy.org .

This is a post from DevRelX. DevRelX was a community-driven platform by SlashData dedicated to advancing Developer Relations (DevRel), Developer Marketing, and Developer Experience professionals. It provided research, insights, and resources through initiatives like the Future Developer Summit & the DevRelX Summit, the DevRelX Podcast, and a book. DevRelX created a vibrant space for learning, connection, and discussion within the global DevRel community, until the community was sunset in 2023 as SlashData shifted its focs to wide Technology Research. In our previous encounter, we discussed what is a DevRel, their types and what they actually do. Now, let’s dive deeper into DevRel and talk about how to create good and engaging content. We see content all around us, but what is the importance? How can you start creating content? Where? How to improve your content? Content is such a broad term, it basically means getting an idea and creating visual or written content to present it to the world. The better the content you generate, the more likely users will come back and engage with your community and with each other. On the business side of things, it will help you increase engagement, and clients are more likely to continue investing in your product. The most common type of content we see out there is technical writing. It's more common than we think! We see it with manuals, instructions on how to take medicine and more. But what exactly is technical writing? Technical writing Technical writing is designed to make difficult concepts as easy as possible for readers. Every time you read a user guide, tutorial, manual, case study, etc, those are common examples of technical writing in action. Technical writing is a core element within any community, especially when you're advocating for a product. Documentation is the first direct contact you have with developers and users interested in learning about and using a certain product. It is designed to explain specialized information to those who are not familiar with it and to help those who are looking to deepen their knowledge. This raises a question: Does technical writing always involve diving deep into technical content or do we need to separate our audiences? Sometimes we just want to share content with our community without technical intent. Is that possible? Developers vs Users When creating content, which audience should you focus on? Depending on the type of audience that you wish to target, you will have to take a different creative style to meet the particular needs of each group. We can identify two main audiences: developers and users. Developers Developers play an active role when consuming content or reading documentation. Having clear guidelines will make them want to contribute and help with the product, ultimately helping improve the code, documentation, and community. They usually focus more on: API (application programming interface) documentation: which usually defines how applications communicate with each other using requests and responses. Read Me’s: Work as a general description of the product usually with the source code. System Documentation: Help describe the product, technical design, software requirements and more. Release notes: Where they learn about the product launch, features or errors they’ve worked on or information on the latest version of the product. But it is not unusual for developers to be users and vice versa. Users They can play an active or passive role when consuming content. They want to use and understand the product to the best of their abilities. Some ways to target users are to write easy-to-follow guides, and tutorials and guide them to external sources when you need to expand on certain topics. Users tend to focus more on: How to guide: Help the user reach a goal. The whole purpose is to help the user complete a task. Tutorials: Leave the user with knowledge of a concept or process they didn’t have before. Explanations: Work as a way to shine light on more specific topics they might not know about. Reference documentation: They are made to share with the user more technical descriptions and concepts about the product. It is important to keep in mind that it is possible to keep both audiences balanced whenever you're creating content. But keep in mind, in some cases both audiences need to be addressed in different ways throughout the content creation process. User-focused documents should have less technical terminology than when we are talking to developers, always taking into account their background, experience and the different types of content that the two audiences focus on. How to start creating content Here's the layout of the content creation process you'll be following most of the time. Keep in mind you don't need to strictly follow one step after the other. There’ll come a time when you start with the investigation, get the idea, generate the content and then identify your audience, check for mistakes and ultimately post it. The general steps are: Ideate on a topic - what challenges do you want to help your audience with? Make sure that is stated from the get-go as it will help you shape your next steps around it. Investigate - do your research on the subject. Include your personal expertise, but make sure you cross-check other resources on similar subjects. Or perhaps understand what unique angle you can bring to this subject? Create an outline - it will help your storytelling. If you’re not following the structure, it’s most likely your readers/viewers won’t be able to follow it along with you. Identify your audience - remember the challenge you identified? Make sure this is tailored to a specific audience you’re catering to. Use this as a guide to shape not only the content itself but also the best style and format to deliver it. Create the content - start creating your draft, and find teammates or peers to bounce ideas off and/or share your draft for a peer review. Another pair of eyes can be extremely helpful for any content creation efforts! Check for errors - even if you’re the only DevRel in your organization, you can use different tools for fact-checking or grammar errors to make your content spotless. Some of the tools I use are Grammarly or you can also use some other free online grammar checkers. Publish - once you’re ready to go live, publish your work and make sure to also let others know about it. Reach out to your network on social media and the online communities you’re part of. People are likely to cheer for you and also can provide feedback that will help you improve. Repeat! That’s a no-brainer but is often left off the list. In the meantime, you will gather a network, community, and audience around you, who will be excited to see your new content out, so don’t forget to keep them engaged. A more tactical approach and regularity will also help you acquire new audiences along the way. You should and are encouraged to find what process or steps work for you and make you a productive content creator. Where to start creating content It’s quite easy to get trapped in the latest social media apps, but before you start posting content, for a company or your personal brand, you need to know where your users are the most active or where you want to start building a community. Where are your users more active: You want your content to be consumed by your target audience. Start by identifying which social media platforms they are more active on, which communities they frequent and what type of content is their preferred whether that is visual, written or audio. Where do you want to start a community: We often see communities being moved from one platform to another. One way to prevent this major decision is to take a step back and identify where your target audience has the least amount of resistance when joining your community, and which platform will make it easier for them to reach out to the team or share their feedback accurately. Remember that you want to effectively remove any pain points that will make users not join your community or consume your content, so by placing yourself in your users’ perspective, you help prevent some major pain points that are preventing your community from growing in both members and engagement. Common mistakes Now that we have a clear idea of the basic steps towards creating content, let's dig deeper into some of the most common mistakes you can avoid that will help you be an effective content creator. Assuming that the person consuming the content has the same technical knowledge as the one creating it: This limits the number of users and developers that will interact with your content. That's why it's important to know your audience. You should always generate your content based on the different levels of prior education your readers will have, not the ones you possess. Not explaining acronyms: You should always break down the meaning of the acronyms you use in text before actively using them in your content, in parentheses. This is very related to the previous point. Do not assume that the person consuming your content has the same technical knowledge as you. The use of the passive voice: By utilizing the passive voice when creating content, you are at risk of generating less clarity and ambiguity in your sentences. However, this can be addressed by using an active voice, which urges the reader to take action and understand the content they are consuming more confidently. Skipping minor steps you think are given: By skipping minor steps that the content creator believes to be a given, the person consuming the content will be lost and won't know what to do. This is particularly detrimental when the goal is for the user to complete a task or understand a concept. Upgrade your content skills We've gone over some of the most common mistakes to avoid when creating content. Now what makes the content good? What are some things we should be actively adding to our content? Write in simple terms: Depending on your content strategy and keeping in mind your target audience, technical terms can sometimes bring you closer to your users but, most of the time, there is no need to use extremely technical terms when creating content, especially for the public. Think of a way to present your content that is easy for readers to understand, whether or not they have previous experience with the product. Having a style guide: It can help you create a consistent voice and image within the community, the person consuming the content will respond better to the same form and styling of content, terminology and images. It is not necessary to create one, there are many guides on the internet. Being open and encouraging community feedback: This will help you know which content to improve, which guides work, and which ones are confusing. Remember that ultimately you're creating content for the community, so it is best to know from the source what is working for them and what is not. Tracking changes: Having version control will help you track content changes, especially when working with documentation. In case a new feature is removed due to user feedback, you can go back to the old documentation. Inclusiveness and accessibility:** The internet should be welcoming to everyone. Try to avoid idioms to help the international audience understand your content better, think about people who use screen readers, make sure you have good contrast in the design, and if you are going to use screenshots, make sure they are accompanied by alt-text. Ultimately, you should think about the users who find your content online. Is it accessible? Is it easy to follow? Can they easily find what they are looking for? Adaptability and Consistency: You need to be able to adapt and grow within the community, do check-ins and see how you can improve. It's a must for a content creator, and this is not possible without being consistent in your craft. And remember, It may take time, but there's nothing that gets worse due to practising . A good and sustainable content strategy takes a lot of trial and error behind the scenes . It's about figuring out what works for you and your goals but also what resonates with the community. Do not be afraid to reiterate some content you've published in the past with new ideas or in a completely new media format, it's all about practice. So practice on, my friend.

This is a post from DevRelX. DevRelX was a community-driven platform by SlashData dedicated to advancing Developer Relations (DevRel), Developer Marketing, and Developer Experience professionals. It provided research, insights, and resources through initiatives like the Future Developer Summit & the DevRelX Summit, the DevRelX Podcast, and a book. DevRelX created a vibrant space for learning, connection, and discussion within the global DevRel community, until the community was sunset in 2023 as SlashData shifted its focs to wide Technology Research. Last month we got together with the DevRelX Community to look into and discuss the latest Developer Program Leaders survey results. The session was joined by our research analysts and a panel of Developer Program Leaders Forum experts. Together we deep-dived into how Developer Relations practitioners prioritise their resources and activities, and justify the value of their developer program, offering everyone in the community an insight into how they compare against the industry’s practices, especially in times of uncertainty. You can rewatch the full session and get access to the results at devrelx.com/dpl-survey Since not all audience questions were addressed during our recent Developer Program Leaders Forum session, we are back for a spotlight series with our Forum experts! In today’s spotlight is Katie Miller, Director of Developer Marketing at Slack, who answers your questions, and shares tips and takeaways from the 10th Developer Program Leaders survey. Continue reading below or enjoy the video of the on-demand Spotlight Session with Katie! Are DevRel practitioners spending enough time researching? The thing I find interesting about this chart ( see below ) is not what it says, but what it doesn’t say. For example, how do folks differentiate the research they do for creating a strategy from general research? Or did they answer the developer strategy question with the assumption that research was baked into it and that the stand-alone question was browsing SlashData research independent of focused planning work? If not, what informs planning? If research isn’t something folks engage with, why? Is it time? Cost prohibitiveness? Usefulness? A sense that the research isn’t custom enough, or custom research takes too long or is too resource intensive? Having the right skills themselves, or within the org, to apply them to program planning? And then… why is so much time spent strategizing vs doing? My hypothesis (assumption?) is that it’s because we wage a constant battle for the resources to implement said strategies, along with constantly fluctuating (and often conflicting) goals and priorities from partner organizations, that create a never-ending cycle of making plans, justifying plans, starting to implement plans, and changing plans. Does this resonate? Too cynical? And at the root of it is…when folks see that stat, is the reaction “Wow, I need to spend more time doing” or is it “Yeah, feels about right…this is the right balance to get the work done?” And this weaves back to the initial conundrum about strategy vs research – all of the questions above would be research questions to better inform strategy - how resources are used, what work needs to get done, etc. and yet, would we make the time within our strategic planning to get the answers to said questions. And now all I can think about is “If you give a Mouse a Cookie” or “There’s a Hole in the Bucket, dear Liza,” or “I’m Henry the 8th I Am” or any story or song that brings you back to the beginning. So what will it take to break the vicious cycle of planning so we can focus on the virtuous cycle of the developer flywheel? Perhaps…research? Now, let's dive into the audience questions! How do you distinguish between Developer Relations vs Developer Marketing vs Sales? It’s easy to say “It depends” or “They’re not distinct” and the truth is, depending on the company’s developer offering (ex: is it platform first or an “API to extend the product?”), where the team sits organizationally, how big the functions are, etc… the lines can definitely blur. And truthfully, some short-term nimbleness can help products and strategies flex (although not advisable longer term, as lack of clarity can affect professional growth, the ability for impact to be appreciated, and burnout). But if I must define them: Developer Relations are the front-line subject matter experts, building relationships and trust, without a direct quota, through empathetic listening and feedback collection , content creation and delivery, internal advocacy, and community building. Note: content can include docs, samples, code labs, tutorials, product overview videos, social media, conference talks, etc. This does NOT mean they’re not involved in Sales. In fact, they ideally should be for top customers and should be OK referencing sales meetings in reporting out the impact. However, I do believe that sales metrics should not be a primary goal or metric for Developer Relations. Success should be measured by reach, engagement, satisfaction, and product adoption. Developer Marketing builds and manages the campaigns and programs that marries a company’s developer product offerings with Developer Relations activities to propel the “developer flywheel” - driving awareness, engagement, adoption, and trust. This can include high-touch programs from which Sales can benefit, such as invitation-only technical workshops, champions networks, advisory boards, etc., and like DevRel, should be OK to acknowledge the influence on sales outcomes. However, like DevRel, sales metrics should not be the primary goal or metric for marketing. Success should be contributing to reaching, engagement, satisfaction, and adoption metrics defined by Devrel. Sales…sells the product. They’re defined by quota. If sales of developer products are done well, it recognizes a) the importance of IC devs’ buy-in in influencing sales (see: empathy and trust); b) the importance of involving DevRel in strategic sales calls as a trusted, empathetic expert; and c) the importance of partnering with marketing to execute high touch technical programs for strategic customer accounts. When is it time to scale with more people on the DevRel team? My guidance on scaling is when the program or programs have internal buy-in and external adoption, and are secure enough to have a longer-term, sustainable impact (ie: they’re deemed critical to the delivery of company goals and objectives), but there are “single points of failure” in the execution of the programs. It’s nuanced for sure - companies cannot (and shouldn’t) endlessly scale. But if there’s a team of 1-2, and their departure would mean business-critical work cannot get done, it’s probably worthwhile considering advocating for resources. In the absence of a full-time headcount, temp, vendor, contractor, or agency partners can stop gaps, but in the long term can be more costly (ex: heavy investment in product training/company knowledge that is lost more quickly because they’re short-term contributors). Something underlying this question though is 2 other questions - what do we do in the absence of resources, and HOW do we advocate for an additional hire? For the former point, if the work is mission critical, this is where leaning into cross-functional partners and advocating for budget for agencies and contractors may come in. If it’s the latter, it’s really about showing the impact of work to date, and the gap that is left if it isn’t filled. What are some best practices for scaling developer programming with a super small team/limited resources? I used up my scale tips on the question above:) But in a nutshell: Ruthlessly prioritize Build really strong cross-functional relationships and find opportunities to mutually amplify work through each other’s initiatives Use data from “proofs of concept” to demonstrate impact and opportunity to advocate for more resources. Being lean in a time of growth is not sustainable for people’s productivity and well-being. Scale and scrappiness ideally are short to medium-term. How important is content syndication in your marketing plans? Developer Marketing IS content syndication. Content reigns supreme - the nuance is what content, for whom, with what intention, and what distribution strategy. If you sense a developer "doesn't like to be sold to" then how do you sell to them? Developers are OK with buying if the product is trustworthy, useful, and worth the value. The goal is no BS. But that doesn’t mean it cannot be clever and fun. Like any good marketing, it’s about knowing the audience, and delivering campaigns and programs that get them what they need in a way that resonates with their motivations and preferences! Kudos to Katie for her insightful answers! You can rewatch the full session and get access to the latest Developer Program Leader survey results at devrelx.com/dpl-survey . To be part of peer discussions like this one, get notified about the next survey and access more industry data, join the DevRelX Community !

This is a post from DevRelX. DevRelX was a community-driven platform by SlashData dedicated to advancing Developer Relations (DevRel), Developer Marketing, and Developer Experience professionals. It provided research, insights, and resources through initiatives like the Future Developer Summit & the DevRelX Summit, the DevRelX Podcast, and a book. DevRelX created a vibrant space for learning, connection, and discussion within the global DevRel community, until the community was sunset in 2023 as SlashData shifted its focs to wide Technology Research. More than 60% of developer relations professionals believe their organizations view their work as “mission-critical” or “quite important,” according to our 2022 Developer Relations Compensation Report . And with good reason: DevRel practitioners are key to fostering passionate user communities that power up product adoption, raise brand awareness, and drive business growth. But connecting the dots for C-level leaders isn’t always easy. That explains why DevRel practitioners use a wide range of KPIs to justify their programs to senior leaders, from video views to monthly active users and everything in between. Common Room ’s CEO and co-founder Linda Lian spoke about that and much more with dbt Labs ’ Senior Director of Community and Data Anna Filippova as part of the DevRelX Summit event’s fireside chat “ C-level Metrics to Unlock Community-led Growth ”. If you’d like to be part of more insightful talks like this one, the registrations and Call for Speakers for the 2023 DevRelX Summit edition are now open! Visit devrelxsummit.com for more. Here are three of the top takeaways from that conversation: Why C-level executives should care about community-building How dbt Labs approaches community metrics to track success Why community success starts with understanding your data 1. Software sales are community-first According to SlashData’s latest State of the Developer Nation report, 41% of developers influence purchase decisions and 26% are decision-makers. And they’re not getting swayed by sleek marketing campaigns. They’re turning to their peers across a massive ecosystem of digital touchpoints, from private Slack communities to Reddit forums. This means product discovery, adoption, and activation are increasingly happening outside of direct marketing and sales channels. Instead, they’re happening in communities. “One of the reasons why we set out to build Common Room is because of my personal experience leading developer marketing at AWS for serverless computing,” Linda said. “When I was there, our business was seeing gangbusters growth—300% year-over-year growth—and we found that all of these services were growing not through a traditional kind of sales-led model, but rather through developer community.” Communities are where purchase decisions are being made. That makes the ability to find, track, and engage community members—across both owned and unowned channels—crucial. 2. Community success correlates with customer success Hosted by dbt Labs, the dbt Community is where dbt users come together to discover and share new ways of working. “The dbt Community is very much a community of practice, first and foremost, and all of the other things around brand and around open-source contribution come out of that,” Anna said. “And so, what community-led growth means for us in this context is dbt enables folks to work differently than they've been able to in the past.” With this in mind, dbt Labs uses Common Room to ensure members are receiving value and to facilitate the growth of the community. The platform helps track: Engagement: Community members who are active, engaged, attending meetups, and talking to each other Contributions: Community members who tell their success stories more broadly, such as by writing blog posts about how they solved a particular problem using dbt Influence: Community members who are stepping up and taking on more visible roles, such as running community programs Influential members can help companies grow their brand awareness by driving others to join the community, all while raising the skills (and product adoption) of the community at large. “These are also thought leaders, these are folks who are influencers in a particular area that we operate in and who carry a lot of weight,” Anna said. “And what we do is we invest a lot in their development in order to support their growth, and that creates great outcomes for us in terms of word of mouth.” In many ways, dbt Labs views community engagement and product engagement as two sides of the same coin. The more engaged someone is with the dbt Community, the higher the likelihood that they’re getting value out of the product. “We have metrics that help track where different folks are in their community journey, the same way that your product team may have metrics that track where someone is on their product journey,” Anna said. “For us, those are very closely linked things.” The data backs this up. Our research revealed that community engagement resulted in three times more feature adoption when compared to companies that are not affiliated with a community. 3. Community data shouldn’t stay in the dark Community creates a flywheel effect that builds and sustains momentum over time, from increasing product awareness to driving product adoption. But it’s hard to get your community flywheel spinning—or prove its worth—if you can’t see it. DevRel pros need to be able to understand where community activity is happening across all channels, as well as how it relates to business priorities on a data level. This is essential to demonstrating the value of community to company leaders (and getting the resources you need to deliver more value to community members). When community data is siloed across different platforms—or completely hidden from view —it’s next to impossible to tie it to business outcomes. The first step is getting a bird’s eye view of which levers your community is pulling and where. Just remember that the key to building a community people actually want to spend time in is centring it around the wants and needs of your product users. Ultimately, your users should dictate your community-led growth strategy and execution priorities. Start with your customers and work back from there. “I think one of the best parts about community-led growth is that it's not just extracting value for the business, it's not just growing pipeline, it's really again about creating this platform of economic opportunity and helping people grow their careers and enabling them to go out and tell their story,” Linda said. By balancing revenue and relationships, you can reap the rewards of community-led growth —more sales pipeline, more deals won, and faster sales cycles—without turning your community members off or losing sight of your primary goal: educating and empowering your product users. No matter which metrics you’re prioritizing, we designed Common Room to help. Try it for free to see how you can scale and measure the impact of your developer community today.

This is a post from DevRelX. DevRelX was a community-driven platform by SlashData dedicated to advancing Developer Relations (DevRel), Developer Marketing, and Developer Experience professionals. It provided research, insights, and resources through initiatives like the Future Developer Summit & the DevRelX Summit, the DevRelX Podcast, and a book. DevRelX created a vibrant space for learning, connection, and discussion within the global DevRel community, until the community was sunset in 2023 as SlashData shifted its focs to wide Technology Research. At DevRelX our mission is to empower the more Developer Relations practitioners to understand developers and make educated decisions based on data to create the best experience for their developer communities. To get there, we bring you an all-around view of the developer population, who they are and what are their needs. This time, we are taking a closer look at female coders. Since the beginning of computing, women have consistently played a pivotal role in software development that has frequently been overlooked; from Ada Lovelace developing the first algorithms for modern computers to Margaret Hamilton’s crucial role in the development of on-board guidance software for NASA’s Apollo program. However, despite women’s exceptional contributions to the field, they have often received less credit than their male counterparts, and their place in the field is questioned. Today, efforts are being made across the software development ecosystem to address these historical biases. While efforts have been made to promote women to get involved in the historically male-dominated field, there is still considerable work to be done. Data and technology are not free from bias. Past applications and software development projects have demonstrated the need for input from diverse groups2. In the latest 24th edition of State of the Developer Nation report , we specifically explore the involvement of women in software development. According to our latest global developer survey (Q1 2023), nearly a quarter of all developers (22%) self-identify as females, the highest proportion since we began asking respondents about their gender. This is a small increase from two years ago, since Q1 2021, when female coders accounted for 19% of all developers. This slight increase in the proportion of developers self-identifying as females can be partially attributed to the rise in the representation of women among early-to-mid-career developers. Women currently make up a quarter (25%) of developers between the ages of 25 and 34, the highest proportion of all age groups, up from less than 20% in Q1 2021. This is followed closely by 23% of developers between the ages of 18 and 24. The highest proportion of women falling within the 25-34 age bracket indicates the possible beginning of a positive trend for the future of women in the tech industry. This is the age when people begin to settle into their careers and is a point where people are likely to develop additional skills that allow them to cross-train and enter industries of their choosing. Further to this, we are also seeing an increasing presence of women in certain regions that are leading to an increase in the proportion of women in technology overall. Specific highlights include the Middle East and Africa, where the proportion of women in technology in this region has gone from 10% in Q1 2021 to over 20% currently. Similarly, women made up 15% of developers in East Asia in Q1 2021 and now makeup almost 30% of developers. Overall, a higher representation of women in the software development ecosystem is a great development. Not only do they bring critical perspectives and approaches to the work being undertaken, but diversity in the workforce offers fresh experiences that can help businesses address underserved needs. It also enhances efforts to make spaces that are less hostile to women in both overt and subtle ways, allowing even more women to follow their interests in the technology space. The proportion of women among developers varies substantially depending on the types of projects they are involved in. Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) projects have the highest proportion of women, at 33% and 28% respectively, followed by games (28%). On the contrary, backend services and web application projects have the lowest concentration of female coders, at just 13% and 16%, respectively. With these sectors selecting those with formal degrees at higher rates than other areas, and a 10 percentage point difference between men and women having such a degree, this may be one factor in the lower presence of women. Undergraduate degrees in computer science or equivalent are held by 45% of backend developers and 43% of web developers, compared to 37% of all developers. Further, the lower proportion of women working in backend services and web application development may, in part, be attributed to the historically male-dominated culture within these sectors. Addressing cultural differences3 and fostering a more inclusive atmosphere can contribute to balancing representation and mentorship opportunities within these sectors. Further, there may be potential unconscious biases in hiring practices derived from existing workplace culture, which may prevent certain development areas from harnessing the full spectrum of talent, and benefit from the input of individuals with diverse backgrounds. Examining the sizes of organisations that female developers work for throughout various stages of their life and career could indicate that company characteristics have an influence on women’s decisions in the technology sector. Like young men, young women are more likely to work as freelancers relative to other age groups and only return to similar proportions among developers aged 55 and above. Additionally, younger female developers (18-24) tend to work for smaller companies, whereas older female developers (45+) are more inclined to work for larger organisations with over 10,000 employees. Examining a particular age group, women between the age of 35 and 44, may offer an insight into issues women have with progressing through their careers. Previous research into women’s careers in the software development sector has highlighted that women are promoted at a lower rate than men4. However, when looking at the roles women self-identify with, we find that at mid-market companies (251-1,000 employees) and enterprises (1,001-10,000 employees) the percentage of women in management positions (20% and 29%) is significantly higher than at other organisation sizes (13% on average). These organisations could offer better opportunities for career growth, decision-making, and leadership. In larger companies, management roles might be more hierarchical and bureaucratic, leading to less autonomy and slower career progression. In smaller companies, limited opportunities due to their size might result in fewer leadership positions being available overall, and with women being a minority in software development, there are fewer women in leadership positions. Further, there is an underrepresentation of women in certain leadership roles. 11% of men list their role as CIO, CTO, or IT manager, and 14% identify as technical team leads, compared to just 9% and 8% of women. This could create a cycle whereby there may be fewer mentorship opportunities for other women. When there are fewer female leaders, it has been found in a range of fields5 that it can be harder for women to progress in their careers, and it can be more challenging for aspiring women to find mentors who can guide them, provide valuable insights, and help them navigate their career paths. However, while still a minority of those in such roles, 25% of those in CEO or management positions are women, compared to their position as 22% of the developer population. While only a small percentage difference, given their underrepresentation in other leadership roles, this represents an area where women are getting leadership positions. Among the previously discussed issues women may face, women are also less likely to apply for leadership positions where they do not fulfil all of the requirements than men6. This may be leading women to also self-select towards management positions that are not solely dependent on technical skills. The observation that women hold a higher proportion of CEO/management roles compared to men (7% against 5%, respectively), particularly in companies with more than 250 employees (8% of women to 4% of men), could indicate a positive shift in gender representation and diversity in leadership positions. This trend might be driven by a changing corporate culture that is increasingly recognising the importance of gender diversity in leadership, leading companies to seek out and promote women into these roles6 proactively. Embracing diverse perspectives at the decision-making level can result in better organisational performance and decision-making. Another factor that may contribute to this observation is the growing appreciation for women’s leadership styles, which tend to be more collaborative, participative, and relationship-oriented. These qualities are often valued in today’s business environment and might make women particularly well-suited for CEO/management roles. Moreover, women, through their skills and abilities, are likely actively contributing to this positive trend, demonstrating that they are well-equipped for leadership roles. Despite women remaining a minority in leadership this growing representation in CEO/management roles is a step in the right direction, highlighting the benefits of diverse and inclusive leadership. Want to support our mission and access more data about developers' population and software development trends? Check the latest developer trends , join the DevRelX Community and subscribe to our bi-weekly newsletter .

This is a post from DevRelX. DevRelX was a community-driven platform by SlashData dedicated to advancing Developer Relations (DevRel), Developer Marketing, and Developer Experience professionals. It provided research, insights, and resources through initiatives like the Future Developer Summit & the DevRelX Summit, the DevRelX Podcast, and a book. DevRelX created a vibrant space for learning, connection, and discussion within the global DevRel community, until the community was sunset in 2023 as SlashData shifted its focs to wide Technology Research. Numbers matter, but how can we keep track of what is relevant to our goals? What can we improve? Which numbers should we focus on? In previous articles, we have talked about what DevRels are, their types and what they do . In our second article, we went over the ultimate guide for content creation and how to start sectioning your community to reach your goals . In this new episode, we'll learn about which metrics you should focus on as a DevRel, data sources, vanity vs actionable metrics and more. This is often referred to as the least fun part of being a DevRel, but working on it will guarantee you better results and a clear overview of how to achieve the very important company goals. Why focus on metrics Don't confuse a metrics exercise as a test of your creativity. It's a test of your impact. -Developer Relations. How to Build and Grow a Successful Developer Program Metrics work as the north on what your next steps should be, who to hire, which community activities to do, what content to produce, what collaborations to make and more. They also help you see ahead in time when you'll be reaching certain goals and which activities will get you closer to it based on previous metrics. Metrics help you unify the company fort and get everyone working towards the same goal. Numbers matter . That's the reality, but which numbers matter in particular? Which metrics to focus on It's a priority to focus on the metrics that align with the company goals and the expectations of your investors/stakeholders. The company’s goals may vary depending on what the company’s focus is at the moment, like, for example, the number of developers who are moving from the free version of your product to a paid version, better known as conversion. It's important to set a baseline on when to analyze the information. The most common measuring times are quarterly or monthly. Another key part that will help you is identifying a KPI (Key Performance Indicator) . KPIs will help measure your company’s numbers in contrast to previously set targets, objectives, or industry equals. The rule of thumb on which metrics to focus on is whether or not it will help your company achieve its goals. Some of the most common numbers to keep track of are signups, stars on GitHub, discussions/issues on GitHub, conversion metrics and often community insights like the number of members in your community, number of page clicks, or number of followers on social media. Keep in mind there are two types of metrics, the one that matters, actionable metrics and the ones that are considered vanity metrics. Vanity metrics vs Actionable metrics It's so easy for DevRels to fall into the vanity metrics trap, trust me . Vanity metrics are those metrics that don't bring useful information on what steps to take next or what to keep doing to achieve business goals. Some common examples are the number of followers, clicks on an article, number of views on a video, etc. Even though they demonstrate improvement and interest that comes from the community, they mean little to nothing if those views and clicks are not converting to paid users (if that's the company goal). Think of vanity metrics as looking at your company with rose-tinted sunglasses. They don't reflect reality. There is no way of tracking and repeating these numbers to reach the previously established company goal. Actionable metrics, on the other hand, are those that we can directly track back to a certain number of users utilizing our product. They, contrary to vanity metrics, help you make informed decisions on what needs to stay the same or what tweaks need to be made. You can repeat them and get the same result, if not better, after making some iterations. They show a direct correlation between the numbers and business impact. It's important to mention that even though the number of views can be considered a vanity metric, it can be considered an actionable metric if, for example, a website gets paid for page views. The metrics you track will go hand in hand with the company goals. Why? Because it's so easy to become focused on the numbers and not on the value delivered. Data Sources There might be several metrics you want to keep track of. Sometimes it will be easy to track, but in other cases, it will be more obscure to do so. Some of the most common tools to track different types of data based on your goals are: HubSpot Common Room Salesforce Google Analytics Mixpanel Ahrefs Optimizely For surveying your developer community, you can use any form-generating service like Google Forms, SurveyMonkey or Typeform. These, and many others, are tools that will allow you to present the metrics insights to the whole company and help you visualize the information clearly for reporting the results of the DevRel department and the reality of its efforts, things to improve and what is working. Testing and iterating your metrics You will not find a metric that will align with your company’s goals at the first try and that's normal. Find ways of testing and iterating through the metrics you have chosen that relate the most with the previously set goals. This will help you fix some mistakes and some misalignments that might be in place and are the reason you are losing users. Like, for example, friction in documentation causes users to drop off after signing up or not completing their first project. Like most things in life, you need to practice and test it to master it, so don't be frustrated when some numbers don't match your goals. Keep tweaking and you will find the metrics that work for your goals. Yuri Santana is a Developer Relations Advocate at Supabase. Check out more of Yuri's work on a personal blog , and if you have any thoughts feel free to connect on Twitter .

This is a post from DevRelX. DevRelX was a community-driven platform by SlashData dedicated to advancing Developer Relations (DevRel), Developer Marketing, and Developer Experience professionals. It provided research, insights, and resources through initiatives like the Future Developer Summit & the DevRelX Summit, the DevRelX Podcast, and a book. DevRelX created a vibrant space for learning, connection, and discussion within the global DevRel community, until the community was sunset in 2023 as SlashData shifted its focs to wide Technology Research. At DevRelX our mission is to empower the more Developer Relations practitioners to understand developers and make educated decisions based on data to create the best experience for their developer communities. To get there, we bring you an all-around view of the developer population, who they are and what are their needs. This time, we are taking a closer look at developer happiness ! ☀️ Does happiness lead to productivity? Join our community and share your thoughts with us! It might sound intuitive already, but we are obsessed with data. So, we looked into it. And by “we” I mean SlashData and Sentry joined forces to analyse the feedback taken from survey respondents who are professional developers who write software on a regular basis. To make our filtering even more accurate, it mainly involved experienced developers with at least 10 years of software development experience, as they were required to have a live application. This intentional filtering ensures that the average developer surveyed possesses extensive knowledge and can provide valuable insights into the software development process. Are happier developers more productive? Firstly we wanted to identify what makes developers happy and we found: 1. Company size and colleague count don’t significantly impact happiness levels. 2. Whether you’re an experienced coder or new to the field, everyone’s happiness is similar. 3. Delving into infrastructure tasks brings more joy! Devs spending 10 extra hours a week on these issues experience a 3% happiness boost. 4. Managers or those with ‘chief’ titles tend to be 6% happier than their peers . These insights shed light on what contributes to developer satisfaction in the workplace. Understanding these factors can help foster a more positive and productive environment for all developers. We developed a unique productivity metric by combining three crucial measurements, focusing on how quickly developers complete programming tasks and deploy code to production. Here’s what our productivity metric considers: Time from code committed to code in production. Time taken to recover from an unexpected outage. Frequency of code deployment to production. Interestingly, we observed that developers in larger companies tend to take slightly more time to complete tasks compared to their counterparts in smaller organizations. This information provides valuable insights into the dynamics of developer productivity across various company sizes. What hinders and boosts productivity? When it comes to barriers, larger companies might experience a slight dip in productivity, with every 500 additional employees contributing to a 1% drop. Internal processes and bureaucracy can be culprits, but fear not – we’ll share tips to optimize workflow! Communication is another key player; if it’s smooth sailing, devs thrive, but if not, productivity could plummet by a whopping 48% . However, only 10% of developers face this issue. By combining frequency and time metrics, we unveil a cool productivity score measured in hours, allowing us to understand the overall productivity landscape. The best part? Happy developers are productive developers! Being 10% happier means completing tasks 10% faster, and each year of experience in software development boosts productivity by 6%. Let’s take a closer look at developers’ workloads and what they wish for versus reality! The biggest difference lies in dealing with internal messaging, processes, and infrastructure issues. Developers express the desire to allocate 19% and 17% less of their time to these time-consuming tasks. It’s clear that efficient communication and workflow tools are essential for smooth business operations. We analyzed their productivity and found that developers spend the most time on software development, followed by project management. They spend about 31% and 16% of their week on these tasks. Interestingly, developers want to keep doing these tasks as they’re crucial components of their ideal week too. Oh, and here’s a nugget; the more time they spend coding, the happier they are! Software development Let’s dive into how developers spend their time on software development! Writing code is the most time-consuming activity for 29% of developers, with a whopping 69% spending a lot of their overall time on it. The conceptual design phase also takes up significant time, but it’s an enjoyable activity for 60% of developers . However, debugging or fixing code is another time-consuming task, with 67% of devs dedicating a lot of time to it. But here’s the catch – only 51% actually enjoy it. Debugging can be a real workflow challenge and hurt productivity. What do they feel about their tasks? Fixing bugs and improving software performance bring joy to 65% of developers. They take particular pride in improving software/app performance (21%) and debugging code (12%). Writing good code is a big source of pride for 27% of developers, and a total of 69% find pride in this task. What about the challenges? The top two challenges are cleaning up legacy code (33% of developers) and running into untested code (32%). Interestingly, cleaning up legacy code was more common in larger teams, where devs work with a 12% bigger team. But don’t worry, larger teams have more resources for testing, so running into untested code isn’t as big of a challenge for them. Now, onto the root causes of issues. A whopping 37% of devs say a rushed timeline is the biggest problem they face. Among programmers and software developers, 45% identify rushed timelines as a key challenge, 14 percentage points more than CEOs and managers (31%). Let’s explore the challenges faced by developers in different roles. We’ll break it down by the prominent positions, such as management/chiefs, programmers/software developers, architects, and IT workers. Surprisingly, shifting and unclear priorities are among the top three obstacles across all roles, but they’re especially prominent for programmers/software developers and managers/chiefs. Another common challenge for everyone, but particularly for architects, is too many meetings. Interestingly, many of the top challenges reported in all roles are process-related. This emphasizes the importance for companies to implement good policies and procedures to optimize workflow and boost developer productivity. Want to join peers on a mission to better understand and support developer and software creator communities? Check the latest developer trends , join the DevRelX Community and subscribe to our bi-weekly newsletter .

This is a post from DevRelX. DevRelX was a community-driven platform by SlashData dedicated to advancing Developer Relations (DevRel), Developer Marketing, and Developer Experience professionals. It provided research, insights, and resources through initiatives like the Future Developer Summit & the DevRelX Summit, the DevRelX Podcast, and a book. DevRelX created a vibrant space for learning, connection, and discussion within the global DevRel community, until the community was sunset in 2023 as SlashData shifted its focs to wide Technology Research. Back in May, we got together with the DevRelX Community to look into and discuss the latest Developer Program Leaders survey results. The session was joined by our research analysts and a panel of Developer Program Leaders Forum experts. Together we deep-dived into how Developer Relations practitioners prioritise their resources and activities, and justify the value of their developer program, offering everyone in the community an insight into how they compare against the industry’s practices, especially in times of uncertainty. Since not all audience questions were addressed during our recent Developer Program Leaders Forum session, we are back for a spotlight series with our Forum experts! In today’s spotlight is Yuri Santana, Developer Relations Advocate at Supabase, who answers your questions, and shares tips and takeaways from the 10th Developer Program Leaders survey. Continue reading below to hear more from Yuri's insights, watch the full session on-demand recording and get access to the results at devrelx.com/dpl-survey . The Biggest Challenges for Developer Relations One of the things that caught my eye was the current challenges for DevRel practitioners. We can see that the big 3 are growing the community, attracting new users and keeping current community members engaged in the community. Why is this? We can all agree that single communities are the fundamental building blocks of the tech community. It has a direct impact on the perception and interaction you have with individuals and can probably change the future of your product. The most effective and successful communities require making a self-sustainable environment where little supervision from the managers (or mods) is necessary. The point is not to bring members blindly into the community, but to make it easy for them to build relationships with each other and breathe life into the community with their interactions. By doing so, your community will not only grow in members who are looking to actively participate in a community but also in the amount of useful feedback, connections, ambassador programs and more that can come from it. How can we get over this hurdle? Make the team members engage with the community . You first need to lead by example. The members in your community will follow the lead of the team members who are interacting, organising events, answering questions and more. Foment that of what you want to see more of. By doing so, you will reward the behaviours you want to see in your community. A common example is someone who made GitHub issues or PRs helping your product, you might want to give them a shout-out on the general channel of the community or send some swag to show appreciation. To learn more about how to increase engagement within your community you can check out the article I made for DevRelX on the topic. What is your best advice in reaching devs and team leaders? Where are they and what do they want to see? The best advice is to find where they are. Make the exercise of finding out which developer personas your product is targeting and join them where they are, whether that is Reddit, Twitter, YouTube, Discord, Slack or any other social media account. Always keep in mind: Who are the decision-makers? Who will be implementing it? Developers are very hands-on when trying out a new product, find a way to ease the pain points your product is trying to solve, and explain the solutions and how they can use them to get there. This can be done with code examples or quick starter guides. Let them know there is available support if needed, why is it better than X, if it’s free to try out or if you can self-host. Is it easy to implement? How much does it cost? Is the community positive? How much money can this save us compared to X? Show the real evidence of the impact your product has and how it satisfies the needs in the market. In many orgs DevRel focuses on educating and enabling the masses - how do DevRel goals and tactics change when your target audience is 500 developers vs. 500k? We can understand why products with a 500 or less audience have as a priority the discovery, learning and building stages of the developer journey. There is a need to get the product out there and get users to spread the word. There’s a lot of emphasis on community engagement, organic growth and the implementation of the tool. With time, the focus will shift to scaling users or ways of conversion if necessary. There’s a lot of immediate interaction with the users, the feedback helps polish the documentation available for developers, ways to simplify the learning curve or adoption into an already set process, a blog with the latest releases and more. Products with more than 500k members, good discoverability and adoption from the community will focus more on ways to scale users, partner programs, sponsors, and more. It will also be more focused on things being built with the product. This will reinforce the idea that the product can solve the developer’s needs and it will give material to showcase to possible new users. In this phase, feedback is necessary on the learning stages to craft a better version of quick starter guides, code samples, tutorials, etc. Focus is also kept on the discovery portion of the journey with events, social media, blogs, newsletters and case studies. The focus will ultimately be determined by the current needs of the product and how it will help achieve the goals set by the company. How do you get started in DevRel? By accident, I thought, but looking back, it was the natural progression of the path I was taking. I was very publicly looking for an engineering job while I was creating content about my self-taught journey and sharing what I was learning with the community when a company reached out because they liked the work I was doing, the content I was putting out and the way I interacted with the community. I’ve always been very active in the Tech Twitter community, so that’s how they found me. I ultimately helped them grow their community, work on documentation and manage their social media channels (Twitter, Discord, YouTube, LinkedIn). This helped me be a bit of an all-round DevRel, gaining lots of experience on the different branches and making me realise that DevRel is the perfect combination of content creation and programming. I’m forever grateful for the risk they took by offering me my first tech role. What success metrics apply in today's climate? The success metrics will vary from company to company. They will be determined by the current needs of the company and how it will help achieve the goals set by it. Some common success metrics we see are KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), those that can be traced back to a certain number of new users or sales and that can be replicated with the same if not better results. It’s important that before tracking any metrics there’s an alignment between what the DevRel team thinks and what the management team thinks. This will make it easier to deliver the results they want and for DevRels to move towards that clear previously set goal. Usually, our roles are not clearly defined, how to have clarity if the management refuses to define the role? Try identifying some pain points they’re hiring you to help them with, they’re hiring you to work on the product. To increase awareness? To manage the community? From there, identify which branch of DevRel your responsibilities fall into; DevEd, DevEx, Developer Marketing, Developer Success or if they are a mix of all of the above. This will also help you know with which departments you’ll be interacting and help you be on the same page as them with your DevRel efforts. It’s crucial to have a clear line of communication with management, so after you have understood your responsibilities in this role and where it falls under the DevRel umbrella, reach out with your findings and also help them understand the different variants of DevRels since it’s still fairly new. Kudos to Yuri for such insightful answers! You can rewatch the full session and get access to the latest Developer Program Leader survey results at devrelx.com/dpl-survey . To be part of peer discussions like this one, get notified about the next survey and access more industry data, join the DevRelX Community !

This is a post from DevRelX. DevRelX was a community-driven platform by SlashData dedicated to advancing Developer Relations (DevRel), Developer Marketing, and Developer Experience professionals. It provided research, insights, and resources through initiatives like the Future Developer Summit & the DevRelX Summit, the DevRelX Podcast, and a book. DevRelX created a vibrant space for learning, connection, and discussion within the global DevRel community, until the community was sunset in 2023 as SlashData shifted its focs to wide Technology Research. CFP is now closed, and we have already confirmed the first round of speakers and their sessions! Here is all you need to know about joining DevRelX Summit 2023 ! 📅 Date & Place: Oct 25-26 | Online 🎟️ Admission: Register | Free 🤖 Theme: Driving Impact in the Age of AI DevRelX 2023 Lineup We will get together to explore how AI is shaping the future of developer ecosystems and the ways in which DevRel professionals can harness its potential to create meaningful and impactful experiences. Here are some of the key sessions we will have in store for you! Panel Discussions ⭐ “What it means to be a developer in the Everything GPT era?” Hosted by Katherine Miller , Marketing Leader and Consultant and joined by: Sean Falconer , Head of Marketing & DevRel at Skyflow Leandro Margulis , VP of Product at Prove Rizel Scarlett , Staff Developer Advocate at TBD. ⭐ “One developer program, multiple audiences: How to think about content curation that matters to them?” Hosted by Ray Stephenson , Sr. Director, Developer Relations at Cisco and joined by: Tessa Kriesel , Head of Platform DevRel, Snap Inc. Kevin Blanco , Senior DevRel Advocate at Appsmith Esther Agbaje , Developer Advocate at Directus ⭐ “2.0 of your DevRel team - How DevRel teams can use AI today?” Hosted by Ash Ryan Arnwine , Director of Developer Relations at Nylas and joined by: Jon Gottfried , Co-Founder, Major League Hacking Joyce Lin , Director of Developer Relations, Postman Kerri Shots , Principal API PM, Adobe Lightning Talks Let’s unleash human intelligence to make the most out of AI and push the known boundaries. Join us as we share insights, and meet industry leaders who shape the future of DevRel in the era of AI! "Building learning communities that scale with developers" 🎙️ Lisa Tagliaferri , Senior Director, Developer Education at Chainguard “What I learned by building an AI-powered chatbot for our documentation site” 🎙️ Todd Kerpelman , Developer Plaidvocate at Plaid "Conferences and Communities: How to take the most out the them?" 🎙️ Jonathan Vila , Developer Advocate at Sonar "Fear of being replaced? Key to a winning partnership with Generative AI" 🎙️ Meredith Hassett , Developer Advocate at Canva "Future-Proofing Your Career: The Low-Code and AI Way" 🎙️ Paulo Tavares , Director, Developer Relations at OutSystems Stay tuned as the full agenda will be announced soon! Want to join us as an Event Partner? Get in touch ! If you’re looking to elevate your brand, network with industry leaders, and support the growth of the DevRel communities, join us as an event partner! This is a unique opportunity for organizations to showcase their products, services, and thought leadership to a highly influential audience. Are you looking for: Networking Thought leadership opportunities Recruiting talent Showcasing what makes you stand out Or engaging with the DevRel community? ​​ Then don't miss this chance to elevate your brand, network with industry leaders, and support the growth of the DevRel communities. We look forward to partnering with you to make the DevRelX Summit 2023 a success!

This is a post from DevRelX. DevRelX was a community-driven platform by SlashData dedicated to advancing Developer Relations (DevRel), Developer Marketing, and Developer Experience professionals. It provided research, insights, and resources through initiatives like the Future Developer Summit & the DevRelX Summit, the DevRelX Podcast, and a book. DevRelX created a vibrant space for learning, connection, and discussion within the global DevRel community, until the community was sunset in 2023 as SlashData shifted its focs to wide Technology Research. Welcome to your new journey as a Developer Advocate at XYZ company! This guide is here to help you learn the key things to remember, making a great impression on your manager, directors, and team. Note: This guide is for when you've decided to join the company and have signed the contract. Before Day 01 Whether coming from a different company, shifting from another role like software engineering, or stepping into your first job, taking a week off before day 01 is beneficial for your health. Take this time to relax with family, go on a trip, or enjoy activities that refresh your mind. This break will help you start your new job with fresh energy and enthusiasm. Getting Familiar You're stepping into a new world with a new position, new responsibilities, a new team, and a new environment. It's natural to need some time to adjust and let your brain get used to the new setting and role. The first few weeks are about learning and getting comfortable in your new environment. Progress might feel slow, but that's a part of the onboarding journey. Things will pick up speed as you start understanding more. Now is the time to learn and absorb, not to rush into planning strategies or defining roadmaps. Meet with your team members, especially your manager or the person you'll report to. Understand the expectations and learn what the company hopes to achieve with your role. Based on these expectations - you will be planning your strategies. For example, if you’re the first one in the DevRel team and you’re reporting directly to the CEO, the following are the expectations of the stakeholders: Actively engage with the online and offline developer community to build a positive brand image. Create regular content on Social media (i.e., Twitter and LinkedIn) Host annual XConf in collaboration with other tech companies Gather and share informative content such as tutorials, blogs, and videos to educate and assist developers Gather feedback from the developer community to internal teams to help improve production and services. Once you understand the expectations, you can use them later to measure success by comparing your progress with those expectations; we will discuss that later. Planning your strategy Now that you have a grasp on the company’s expectations and you’re learning the new skills you need to acquire, it’s time to plan your strategy. Begin by setting short-term and long-term goals aligned with your company’s objectives. This will help you narrow down. Short team goals: Establish a regular schedule for engaging with the developer community both online and offline. Start creating and sharing content on social media to build a presence. Long-term goals: Organize the annual XConf and other collaborative events to foster partnerships. Develop a feedback loop to continuously improve the company’s products and services based on community feedback. Feedback loop creating At this point, you’re still new to the company, and you have to learn new things. One thing that is quite helpful is establishing a mechanism for collecting and acting on feedback internally and externally. Internally Start with asking for feedback on social posts and video content from the team. Ask for improvements and suggestions. You will be able to get feedback on this, like the content tone, which can be improved before publishing content. Ensure to include your manager or the person you directly report to. This will ensure both of you are aligned in terms of work. Externally A second feedback can be taken from people outside the company - this is like a beta access. You’re sharing content outside the company but with a few people. Please think of this as you’re writing a book, and you need people to review it, so you reach out to some friends and industry experts and ask them to give you a read to your book before you make it public and available to everyone. This type of feedback doesn’t tell you about the content tone and alignment with the company, but it can give you an idea of how an outsider will digest the content. Creating Systems As you start taking responsibility, start documenting it to make it easy for others to understand what’s happening, especially your manager. Moreover, begin creating processes or systems to help you repeat the tasks. For example, for posting content on social platforms, there should be a platform where everyone can view the upcoming posts and a specific time for every post if anyone wants to provide feedback. Everything should be planned and go through a process before you make it public. Creating that process is a time-consuming task, and you have to experiment with something, but once you have a basic system, you will see things speed up. Moreover, start with a fundamental process and go from there; don’t overcomplicate things. Note: You may not always need to create a system. There might be a process that’s being followed already. If that’s the case - look for improvements. Otherwise, create one from scratch. Measuring success At this point - you have to start looking at the success to see if the work you’re putting in is creating an impact and you’re getting closer to the goals. One of the standard practices companies follow is using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure success. The KPs are measurable values demonstrating how effectively a company or individual achieves vital business objectives. You can define the KPIs when you start working on the content. If your company doesn’t follow the KPIs practice, you can write your quarterly KPIs and try to achieve this. Example KPIs are: Publish at least ten insightful blog articles to educate the developer community. Grow the Twitter community to 10,000 followers through engaging and relevant content. Produce at least ten in-depth video tutorials and a minimum of 25 bite-sized video snippets to assist and educate developers. At the end of the quarter, you can review this list and compare it with your work to measure the success. It’s possible and expected that by the end of the quarter, you will achieve 2 out of 3 KPIs; if that’s the case, you can move the unfinished KPIs to the next quarter. When writing your KPIs, balance realistic goals and going too easy. Write KPIs you think you can achieve, but ensure they are not too simple or easy. For example, publishing one blog article is a too easy task for a quarter. Conclusion As you delve deeper into your role, remember the essence of a Developer Advocate lies in fostering a symbiotic relationship between the developer community and the company. Your continuous efforts in engaging with the district, enhancing your skills, and measuring your success against well-defined KPIs will propel you forward and contribute significantly to XYZ company's vision.

This is a post from DevRelX. DevRelX was a community-driven platform by SlashData dedicated to advancing Developer Relations (DevRel), Developer Marketing, and Developer Experience professionals. It provided research, insights, and resources through initiatives like the Future Developer Summit & the DevRelX Summit, the DevRelX Podcast, and a book. DevRelX created a vibrant space for learning, connection, and discussion within the global DevRel community, until the community was sunset in 2023 as SlashData shifted its focs to wide Technology Research. It ’s impossible to ignore the hype around AI right now, and all of us working in Developer Relations have been grappling with the right ways to leverage it. This year’s DevRelX Summit was largely focused on AI, and one of the panels I found most interesting was the one on How DevRel Teams Can Use AI . Moderated by Ash Ryan Arnwine from Nylas , the panel featured insights from Kerri Shotts of Adobe , Jon Gottfried of Major League Hacking , and Joyce Lin of Postman . In this post, I want to dive into their thought-provoking conversation and explore some of the ways DevRel teams are currently using AI to enhance their work and products. Whether you're a developer, a member of a DevRel team, or simply intrigued by the intersection of AI and software development, this discussion offers valuable perspectives on harnessing AI's potential today and envisioning its role in the future of DevRel. How DevRel Team Are Using AI Today The first topic the panelists dug into was how DevRel teams are most impacted by AI today. Because all the panelists are building products and extensions specifically for developers (i.e., developer tools), all of them have been exploring using AI to enhance their products. From direct integrations that enable auto-complete to custom-trained models that help developers explore documentation, AI is becoming part of almost every developer tools’ product portfolio. On the other hand, the panel also discussed ways that they’re using AI to help their developer relations teams do their jobs more efficiently. While there are limitations to large language models (something I’ve noted before ), they can supplement the work that DevRel teams are doing in some interesting ways. Let’s dive into some of the discussion on both of these AI use cases for DevRel teams. Question 1: How are you seeing DevRel teams use AI already? The first point brought up by Jon Gottfried at Major League Hacking is that AI is changing the way developers write and debug their code: “One of the things we’ve seen is AI replacing some aspects of pair programming and one-on-one support. We see a lot of developers posing questions to Chat GPT, which is interesting.” One of the biggest limitations to this use case is that AI models might not be correct. Often, the training data is out of date or because there is little information available on the topic, the model may just make up answers rather than admit that it’s not certain. While inaccurate answers might be okay for more experienced developers who know to question the model and interweave their own knowledge, giving less experienced developers incorrect but confident answers to their questions is downright dangerous at times. Kerri Shotts of Adobe pointed out that if the AI can’t give accurate answers, users have to be familiar enough with the API docs that they know how to parse information for correctness. Obviously, this is frustrating. With this use case in mind, DevRel teams are tuning or training models on their docs to ensure that the answers users get from AI chatbots are as accurate and up-to-date as possible. This helps overcome the correctness problem, but it still doesn’t make AI a perfect tool. Another important factor Kerri pointed out is that the context matters. A person typing a question into Chat GPT may expect different answers from a developer writing code into their IDE or terminal. By building AI into specific product experiences, you can give the model more context than by relying on purely general models. Finally, Ash pointed out that AI is also being used as a discovery tool by developers, and that DevRels (especially those with KPIs around growth) should be aware of this. He noted that a developer came to Nylas through a Chat GPT recommendation, and that while this is good, it’s also not a channel they have much control over yet. Question 2: How are you seeing developers use AI in conjunction with your API? With his unique experience running hackathons, Jon noted that he sees a lot of developers using AI to figure out how they can use a particular tool or leverage its full capabilities. This really resonated with me. I always hated spending hours reading through a tool’s entire documentation site just to figure out what it was really capable of, but a well-trained model could act as instant support for developers in that situation. This frees up DevRels from having to answer all these questions manually and it means users can get real-time support without expensive full-time staff on call at all hours. Ash pointed out that building custom models used to be the only way to accomplish this, but now GPT-based tools can be built using OpenAI’s API, making the cost to develop and maintain custom models much lower. Joyce’s perspective was also interesting as Postman is one of the most widely used API management tools out there. While they have AI-based documentation tools, she pointed out that in general, the AI tools available to developers are more mature than those made for DevRel use cases: “I would love for it to be able to help me write a conference talk faster, but the human aspect is still not quite there.” This mirrors my experience too. Last year, I tried out several of the top AI writing tools , and found that none of them could really replace a few years of personal experience when it comes to technical depth. This response served as a nice segue into the next question… Question 3: How are you using AI models to specifically help DevRels do their jobs? Right off the bat, everyone agreed that AI isn’t coming to replace DevRels anytime soon. Ash and Kerri pointed out that you have to use your own experience and judgement to filter out the information LLMs generate, and you should still double check everything it gives you back. Joyce added that cutting edge or niche topics are especially problematic for off-the-shelf AI models because LLMs can only draw from existing content. Because keeping documentation and blog posts up-to-date is a huge challenge for DevRel teams with older products, this makes the current state of generative AI minimally useful for many. That said, it might help you find things you might be missing or get started on something new. The “blank slate” problem was brought up a couple times in this discussion, and that’s where I’ve found generative AI to be most helpful too. I wrote the first draft of the introductory paragraph for this blog post using ChatGPT, and then revised it heavily to make it sound more like my writing. Despite writing thousands of blog posts in my career, I still leverage AI sometimes to help me get a new document started. Question 4: How are you leveraging AI for onboarding? As use cases were discussed, Ash brought up one especially tricky problem that they’re working on at Nylas: new user onboarding. In theory, AI could build bespoke onboarding flows based on the developer’s experience level, use case, company size, stack, etc. In practice, giving AI enough of this information to be useful makes this hard to do. Kerri pointed out that skill level matters a lot in onboarding and in giving answers to common questions. A newer developer might get an incorrect code sample from AI and have no idea how to start debugging it, while a senior developer might not need as much boiler plate code to work from. The worst case scenario is that AI slows down onboarding or frustrates new users. You could try to gather this information through a form, but you still have to worry about getting the wrong information or burdening users too much early on. Retaining context seems to be part of the solution though. Joyce pointed out that GitHub’s Copilot X retains its knowledge about the user and their interactions with the IDE to help it give more personalized responses. Ash noted that a transferable configuration (like a JSLint file) for any AI coding app would be an interesting solution too. Question 5: What will AI integrations and tools look like in the future? Ash pointed out that throughout this topic, we’ve been talking about AI in the form of chatbots and text autocomplete, but these aren’t the only forms the technology could take. For example, what would it look like to have CLI-based AI tools that returned non-deterministic results based on their understanding of context or the user’s network configuration? Jon added that we’re starting to see it used less transparently in things like dynamically generated content on pages. For example, a tool’s homepage could generate different text based on who’s viewing it or how they’ve interacted with the site before. He also pointed out that more programmatic use cases will help alleviate some of the back-and-forth currently necessary. He mentioned a use case where he’s building a tool that will look at a code sample and error message, recommend a fix, and then create a GitHub issue with the fix suggestion. Currently, this workflow would be pretty manual, but it could be automated or built into other tools in the future. Kerri pointed to two ways that developer tools will use AI in the future. First, they’ll help guide users to the right solution or point out mistakes proactively. This could be very helpful if you’re new to a tool or working in a new stack. Second, AI could be used to suggest “happy paths” in onboarding, helping new users see what else they can do with the tool or analyze any risky patterns they employ. Conclusion While the AI hype cycle has probably peaked , we’re still in the early days for generative AI technologies. Joyce pointed out that similar to buzzwords like “low code,” chatbots have promised a lot, but we haven’t seen the end of what they can offer. AI has the potential to both open up coding to non-developers as well as help users who “don’t know what to ask” because AI can decipher fuzzy contexts much better than traditional structured queries. Finally, DevRel will undoubtedly find new ways to leverage generative AI as the technology matures. Whether it’s helping us update or generate documentation, create technical tutorials in new programming languages, or respond to users faster and with more correct information, we’re just scratching the surface of AI and developer relations in 2023. About Karl Hughes Karl is a former software engineer and CTO. He’s currently the Founder and CEO of Draft.dev , where his team has helped 150+ developer tools companies create compelling, technical content at scale. You can reach out to him on Twitter/X or via email .

This is a post from DevRelX. DevRelX was a community-driven platform by SlashData dedicated to advancing Developer Relations (DevRel), Developer Marketing, and Developer Experience professionals. It provided research, insights, and resources through initiatives like the Future Developer Summit & the DevRelX Summit, the DevRelX Podcast, and a book. DevRelX created a vibrant space for learning, connection, and discussion within the global DevRel community, until the community was sunset in 2023 as SlashData shifted its focs to wide Technology Research. Development communities like GitHub and StackOverflow are the bedrock of progress for all kinds of developers and their projects. Furthermore, many organisations curate their own communities to enhance developers’ experience with their products. In this post, taken out of SlashData’s public report “ The State of the Developer Nation ”, we’ll learn what developers look for when joining a technology-centric community and which factors encourage them to participate and engage more. What factors do developers consider when joining a technology-centric community? Developers primarily engage with technology-centric communities to learn. More than half (52%) consider the quality of available information to be one of the five most important factors to consider when joining a community. That’s considerably more than the next most popular factor, the availability of courses/training (38%), which, incidentally, also facilitates learning and knowledge-sharing. Developers primarily engage with technology-centric communities to learn – the quality of available information is by far the most important factor Interestingly, we see changes in importance among developers who didn’t select either of these two learning-related factors. In-person events (+6%), member-only benefits (+5%), links to industry (+4%), and online events (+4%) all increased in importance. This suggests that when developers aren’t there to learn, they are more likely to join a community in order to network. However, these factors are still among the least important for this group. A positive culture enables developers to get the most from their community experience Community culture is also important. 35% of developers consider the friendliness of a community when deciding to join, making this the third most important factor. Clearly, curating a welcoming and friendly experience should be a priority for community managers. In fact, it seems that a positive culture is an enabling factor in allowing information-seekers to get the most from their community experience: developers who prioritise the quality of information and having access to expert community members are more likely than average to also think that a positive culture is important. Further down the list, the platform on which the community is based is actually not that important when developers decide to join a technology-centric community. Only 21% of developers selected this option, making it the seventh most important factor, just ahead of recency and frequency of activity. However, as we will see later, the right platform can ignite greater engagement and participation. For now, though, we’ll take a closer look at which factors developers in different generations consider before joining a technology-centric community. As developers age, they become even more focused on the aspects of a community which facilitate learning. The quality of information present rises in importance the most — increasing from 47% amongst the youngest developers to 68% of the oldest. We see a similar – though less intense – story for the availability of courses/training, a friendly and welcoming culture, and expert community members. Once again, a positive culture is an enabler of accessing learning materials, and, as we will see later, also an enabler of increased engagement and participation. 68% of developers aged 45 and up consider the quality of information available when joining a community On the other hand, younger developers have subtly different preferences. They are more likely than the oldest developers to consider mentorship programmes, links to industry/recruiters, and membership benefits as being important factors. These younger developers are focused on the employment and the networking benefits of community membership. Younger developers are more focused than their older peers on the employment and the networking benefits of community membership Importantly, the youngest developers consider mentorship programmes to be more than 2.5 times as important as older developers (26% vs 10%), and mentorship programmes are the fifth most important factor to these developers, likely due to their focus on building their careers. Now, this creates a point of tension – how to attract older and more experienced developers to a community, and then engage them in mentorship programmes to help younger developers? Firstly, ensuring that communities meet older developers’ expectations around learning will go a long way to attracting them in the first place. However, to raise engagement for this group, we see that older developers who value mentorship opportunities are more than twice as likely than those who don’t to say that inviting their peers and friends and the availability of in-person events, contribute to increasing their participation levels. In a nutshell, the type of older developer who values mentorship is already predisposed to the networking benefits of a community. Identifying these older developers should be a priority for any community where demand for mentorships outstrips supply. You can access the full report here. What encourages developers to actively participate in a community? From joining a community to actively participating in it, we see large differences in what makes developers tick. A well-designed community platform – which is far down the list of factors that developers consider when joining a community – sits at the top when we ask about what encourages greater community participation. The time and effort that goes into selecting the right platform might not have immediate returns for growing a community, but it is likely to help to keep developers engaged and active. A well-designed platform is what encourages developers the most to actively participate in a community Participation is a two-way street. 27% of developers say that getting regular updates inspires greater engagement. Here, developers want to see activity from the community managers and founders. Looking at this from another direction: there’s likely nothing less inspiring than joining a community where the leaders aren’t themselves engaged. Indeed, further down the list, 17% of developers say that direct interaction with community leaders helps with their engagement. Strong leadership has benefits beyond day-to-day participation. Having a well-defined purpose for the community encourages more active participation for 26% of developers, and an inclusive and welcoming culture is encouraging for 25%. Interestingly, active moderation is a much less popular driver of engagement – only 15% of developers selected this, but those who did are much more likely than average to engage more in communities with a positive culture. A positive community culture not only encourages people to join but also keeps them engaged. This said, sometimes a heavy moderating hand is necessary – whilst developers might not always appreciate it, the alternative of a negative, exclusive, or toxic community culture is likely worse. Developers who value strong leadership in a community are often less engaged by games, quizzes, and prizes It’s not only good vibes that encourage greater participation; prizes and rewards (26%) appear to be a powerful lever in encouraging greater community involvement, with fun activities close behind (22%). However, developers who are encouraged to participate through factors relating to strong leadership and expertise – positive culture, well-defined purpose, direct interaction with leaders, and having access to recognised experts – are often much less inspired to participate by prizes, activities, and polls and quizzes, whilst the inverse is also true. This points to there being two distinct groups of developers – those who engage ‘seriously’ and those who perhaps take a more whimsical approach to community engagement. For community organisers and contributors, it’s important to understand which mindset a community tends towards: a focus on fun and games in a more serious community may appear to lack authenticity and gravitas, whereas taking a more sober tone may exclude those with a lighter agenda. For developers of all backgrounds and skill levels, communities offer an opportunity not only to learn but also to connect. Different types of developers have different expectations for how they want to interact with their communities, but learning opportunities and a welcoming culture are consistently highly rated. This article is part of the developer insights offered in the State of the Developer Nation 25th Edition . You can access the full report which covers: 1. Language communities - An update 2. Creating A Sense Of Community - How Developers Interact And Engage With Their Peers 3. How Generative AI Will Affect Developers' Work 4. Web3 Unveiled - Exploring The Diverse Landscape Of Web3 Development Projects 5. From Code To Consumer Magic - The Software Developers Behind Our Everyday Electronic Devices 6. What Are People Building In AR/VR? Want to dive deeper into data on developer population, data and segmentation? SlashData has all the answers.