DevRel is the abbreviation for Developer relations. This is a role employed by organizations to bridge the gap between organizations and the developers who use the product. The sole aim of DevRel is to put the organization’s product out there and they do it through various means like creating contents, building community and improving developers experience while using the product.

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DevRel origins

Devrel has existed since the early 80s, even though the role wasn’t something formal with lots of responsibilities like we currently have.

  • 80s: The main focus of DevRel in the 80s was about product evanglism. Companies like Apple needed developers to build on their platforms, they had to increase awareness.

  • 90s: With the rise of Windows operating system and programming languages like Java. DevRel was focused on providing telephone technical support and documentation for developers.

  • 2000s: This was the era of web and open-source boom. Devrel became focused into community and knowledge sharing

  • 2010s: Community management was taken to a bigger level by having online communities, meetups, forums, organizing hackathons.

  • 2020 - present: With the rise of AI and automation, DevRel has been a combination of everything listed above and doing them better. Communities moved to Discord, slack for more community interactions. Also creating interactive documentation and we currently have Ai documentation assistants, chatbot for Docs and so on to improve the developers experience

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Developer Relations (DevRel)

Developer Relations is the discipline of building two-way, mutually-beneficial relationships between companies that create developer-facing technology (APIs, SDKs, frameworks, platforms) and the developers who use—or might use—it. Modern DevRel blends elements of product, engineering, marketing, community, and education to help developers succeed while helping the business reach its goals.

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Origins

EraMilestoneWhy It Mattered
Early 1980sApple creates the Software Evangelist program. Mike Boich & later Guy Kawasaki recruit developers for the Macintosh.Widely credited as the first modern DevRel effort.
1997Microsoft Developer Relations Group launches to court ISVs and track Windows app growth.Shows DevRel at enterprise scale and cements the practice in mainstream tech.
Mid-2000sWeb 2.0/API-first companies (Twilio, SendGrid, Stripe, etc.) brand themselves “developer-first.”DevRel evolves from lone evangelists to multifunction teams (docs, DX, community).
2015 → presentDedicated events (DevRelCon), books (The Business Value of Developer Relations), and annual surveys appear.DevRel becomes a recognised career path with its own metrics and frameworks.