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World Congress 2024 • Aug 20, 2024

Developer Advocacy in accelerated times

Chris Heilmann

Is your DevRel strategy just marketing in disguise? Discover how bridging the communication gap between engineers and executives saves companies millions in turnover costs.

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#1 about 1 min

Origins of the developer advocate role

How the developer advocate position was created to translate between technical staff and company management.

#2 about 2 min

Bridging communication gaps with internal developer relations

Using developer advocates internally to optimize product documentation and communicate engineering frustrations to leadership.

#3 about 1 min

Mentoring engineers to become company spokespersons

Encouraging technical experts to speak publicly and represent the company rather than relying on non-technical presenters.

#4 about 1 min

Developer retention challenges and career progression

Addressing the broken promotion cycles that force engineers to change companies to advance their careers.

#5 about 2 min

External developer relations and capturing market demand

Gathering outside developer needs to inform product APIs and enabling external contributions through open source.

#6 about 1 min

Business benefits of a developer relations department

Improving talent retention, product maintainability, and market fit by maintaining a dedicated developer relations team.

#7 about 2 min

The pitfall of hiring external influencers for developer relations

Why hiring loud social media personalities fails compared to nurturing developer advocates from within the engineering team.

#8 about 1 min

Aligning HR job descriptions with actual engineering roles

Fixing the disconnect between recruiting teams that post unrealistic job requirements and the actual technical work.

#9 about 1 min

Providing structured career paths and meaningful employee perks

Offering realistic career safety and avoiding long-term pension perks for short-term engineering contracts.

#10 about 1 min

Measuring developer value and preventing fear of missing out

Defining engineering worth beyond lines of code and ensuring developers feel connected to modern industry trends.

#11 about 2 min

Promoting internal knowledge sharing and event participation

Sending developers to conferences and requiring internal presentations to distribute knowledge and build negotiation skills.

#12 about 1 min

Fostering public speaking skills with lightning talks

Hosting low-pressure technical meetings where engineers present code fixes to gain early speaking experience.

#13 about 2 min

Building public track records through open source repositories

Allowing engineers and interns to contribute to open source documentation and code to build their resumes.

#14 about 2 min

Sourcing quality technical inspiration using RSS feeds

Avoiding social media engagement bait by curating specialized technical content through reliable RSS readers.

#15 about 4 min

Curating newsletters and resources for engineering teams

Creating internal newsletters that share industry news, new tools, and job market trends to keep teams informed.

#16 about 3 min

Using open source contributions for technical talent acquisition

Evaluating potential hires based on their GitHub pull requests and team interactions rather than random job board applications.

Matching moments

2:55 min

Transitioning from engineering to developer advocacy

Rudi Bauer Rudi Bauer +2 · Cappuccino with HR

1:48 min

Leveraging social media for developer relations and public speaking

Francesco Ciulla Francesco Ciulla · World Congress 2025

4:01 min

Experience requirements and empathy in developer relations

Angie Jones Angie Jones +3 · World Congress 2024

5:56 min

Evolution and purpose of developer relations

Christian Heilmann Christian Heilmann +2 · Cappuccino with HR

1:07 min

Transitioning into developer relations to blend coding and community

Nacho Iacovino · World Congress 2021

2:33 min

Reframing developer relations and advocacy as an educational process

Andrew MacLean Andrew MacLean +1 · World Congress 2024

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