Goodebye Forever Probably: Why I’m leaving developer relations | Hacker News Reader

Goodebye Forever Probably: Why I’m leaving developer relations

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29 pointssixhobbits21 comments

Man, I’m out of touch.

I grew up when tech was us nerds making things.

Value was in building things and solving problems. Not in vague connection, curated vulnerability, or coordinating other coordinators.

Nah, that work was always there, silently happening in the background, you just weren't aware of it going on. Various hacker conventions and publications like lwn.net provide intangible value. They haven't gotten anyone yacht money, but they've facilitated more than any of us will ever know.

Don't worry, it's still that too.

Except the nerds have become managers of an idiot savant.

A lot of DevRel seems to fail/get a poor reputation because the individual seems more focused on making themselves the center of attention/launching their influencer career versus actually trying to help others use their product.

This seems more true the more prestigious the company you work for is, as you get free prestige without having gone through the grind to get in as a SWE/Researcher.

  On birds, nature, and being carefree
  The good parts of DevRel
  The difficult parts of DevRel
    Arbitrary measures of success
    Fighting to be valued and justify my existence
    On being the face of a company
  AI is killing developer education
  What’s next for me

It took me quite a bit of time to realise this wasn't modern poetry, but the TOC.

Has anyone ever heard of this person? Why did this get posted?

I was wondering the same thing

there seems to be a lot of burnout from folks who have been in tech for a decent stretch, not just devrel. AI is an accelerant but not the only reason. probably the "power swap" as well as money has stopped pouring into hiring and jobs are more scare now and for the first time in, ever (?), employers have more leverage.

Headline typo

How come theres no x-relations in other jobs?

You never hear about Nurse Relations or Mechanic Relations.

I always thought of developer relations as essentially a tech-sales role. Isn't that ultimately what its trying to do, "educate" people to use your product?

It depends but generally its a marketing focused role with an inherent sales pitch - helping you to solve problems with their software means you buy more of their thing and get their brand out there.

Seeing a lot of it collapse into "solution engineering" (tech focused sales) or "forward deployed engineers" which basically are all different versions of the same idea with less marketing focus.

This definitely exists in the medical sector but it’s in the sales org. Plus I’m sure they have people who come over to show how to operate the MRI machine you bought

This is an excellent question and the answer is maybe not too surprising. Where mechanics buy their own tools and nurses have little tool purchasing power, developers produce machinery that is costly to change and if they struggle to use something (activation risk) then we can't get that lock-in to stick. DevRel isn't for the individuals, it is for influencing the aggregate so they get their companies stuck with the solution.

Tons of traditional companies have x-relations employees, they're just not titled as such. Attending trade shows, developing distributor relationships, constructing and distributing demo materials, building local/state/federal government support networks, driving the branded truck around town — all of these are very common in non-tech industries and are basically analogous to DevRel engineer responsibilities.

It's also an enormous and heavily specialized market, so where an aerospace company might need only a small staff of people who speak aeroese to vendors and clients, if you're selling developer tools you probably need a bunch just for coverage of all the different venues you operate in.

Boeing and other aerospace companies have teams of several hundreds that do this work.

I'm sure. Boeing is also a world-historically huge company. This person worked at Nordcraft.

I have been to all sorts of trade shows and there are as many x-relations as there are trades. Maybe more. Now, can I interest you in our latest rotary evaporator?

How much do you hear about nursing? Do you browse nursingnews.healthcombinator.com on a daily basis just getting updates about the industry? Because that function exists in that industry. Clinical educator, clinical implementation specialist, clinical informatics nurse, clinical nurse consultant, clinical training specialist, professional practice specialist. There's a person doing that role in that industry, just because you haven't heard of it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

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