I think the article does a good job describing what devrel looks like at companies that are smart about selling to the new “tech business world” which is desperate for a way to measure the technical credibility of potential vendors.
But what’s more interesting from someone who knows devrel because I’ve worked in it for 7 years, is that at a more general level it’s just a communication layer that a business can have with an audience or a persona(in this case developers), that is growing ever more important. Whether you’re a platform (google Apple) and need more devs making stuff within your ecosystem, or you’re not selling to developers but you need technical integrations by third parties to enhance The value prop of your product, or you’re ACTUALLY selling directly to developers and trying to expand their mental model of what is possible with the low code tooling available today and why they can and should trust it.
It’s a wide and interesting world in which almost every company is becoming a software company, and almost none of these companies have any idea how to communicate with developers or what they care about.
You’re right that devrel is like a pre-sales role somewhat, but we all know developers are the hardest group to sell to in history, who else could more easily go find a free open source solution or just make it themselves?? You have to be able to communicate about the pros and cons of technology in an honest and coherent way, and that is what Devrel is all about to me.