Developer Evangelists  ## Metadata - Author: [[The GitLab Handbook]] - Full Title: Developer Evangelists - Category: #articles - Document Note: --- tags: - #developer-evangelism - #devrel - #opensource Author: The GitLab Handbook Source: GitLab Handbook (Website) Reference: https://handbook.gitlab.com/job-families/marketing/developer-evangelist/ date created: 2025-08-22 00:00 --- # Title: Developer Evangelists — Roles, Responsibilities, and Programs at GitLab ## Table of Contents: - [📚 Overview](#-overview) - [🧭 Mission and Scope](#-mission-and-scope) - [🧩 Core Responsibilities (Developer Evangelist)](#-core-responsibilities-developer-evangelist) - [🧗 Senior and Staff Responsibilities](#-senior-and-staff-responsibilities) - [🎛️ Program Manager (Developer Evangelism)](#️-program-manager-developer-evangelism) - [👥 Manager, Developer Evangelism](#-manager-developer-evangelism) - [📈 Performance Indicators](#-performance-indicators) - [🤝 Community Engagement Specialty](#-community-engagement-specialty) - [🏛️ About GitLab and Values](#️-about-gitlab-and-values) - [📝 Summary](#-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#-️-notes) - [📖 References](#-references) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items (Aligned to Your Role and Goals)](#-action-items-aligned-to-your-role-and-goals) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) - [❓ Questions](#-questions) - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) - [💡 Implications](#-implications) - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) - [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#-deib-assessment) - [✅ Logical validity](#-logical-validity) - [🔍 DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis) - [🔍 SEO Evaluation](#-seo-evaluation) - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) ### References: - GitLab Handbook — Developer Evangelists: https://handbook.gitlab.com/job-families/marketing/developer-evangelist/ - GitLab Culture page, Remote manifesto, and guides are referenced in the “About GitLab” section of the page. ## 📝 Summary: GitLab’s Developer Evangelism function grows and supports the GitLab community by creating and amplifying technical content, fostering developer love, and participating deeply in open source. The role spectrum spans Developer Evangelist, Senior, Staff, Program Manager, and Manager, each with increasingly strategic responsibilities: content leadership, cross-functional influence, community response management, KPI design and reporting, and thought leadership across DevSecOps and cloud native ecosystems. Clear requirements emphasize open source contributions, public speaking, social presence, storytelling, and alignment with GitLab’s values of transparency, collaboration, and inclusion. Performance is measured through community contributors, web visitors, and total impressions. ## 📖 Main Content: GitLab positions Developer Evangelists as hands-on practitioners who write code, build demos, educate through talks/blogs/videos, and represent GitLab across communities and media. As seniority increases, expectations expand to open source leadership (TAGs/maintainers), high-scale event speaking, and executive collaboration to drive thought leadership. The Program Manager role operationalizes evangelism (CFPs, speaker training, metrics instrumentation), while the Manager role builds the function, mentors team members, designs KPIs, and aligns evangelism goals with company-level OKRs. A specialized “Community Engagement” track coordinates responses on public forums (Hacker News, Stack Overflow, GitLab Forum), crafting FAQs and guiding internal teams during sensitive product/business changes. KPIs prioritize measurable community impact (contributors/month), discoverability (unique visitors), and reach (impressions). The entire function embodies GitLab’s open-source-first values and remote-first culture. Direct anchor-style “timestamps” to sections: - Overview and Mission (0–5%): “supports and grows GitLab’s community” and “drive… developer love and open source participation” (0–5%) - Core Responsibilities (5–15%): role outputs and media engagement (5–10%) - Requirements (10–20%): open source experience, talks, social presence, travel (10–15%) - Senior/Staff Responsibilities and Requirements (15–30%): thought leadership, influencer thresholds, keynote experience (19–29%) - Program Manager Mission and Responsibilities (28–40%): speaker bureau, CFPs, training, metrics (28–38%) - Manager Objectives/Responsibilities/Requirements (47–66%): build function, KPIs, hiring plan, DevOps knowledge (47–62%) - Performance Indicators (71–76%): contributors, visitors, impressions (71–73%) - Community Engagement Specialty (76–86%): forums strategy, FAQs, response processes (76–84%) - About GitLab and Values (90–100%): mission, values, remote-first (90–100%) Note: The links above reference approximate positions; see the live page: https://handbook.gitlab.com/job-families/marketing/developer-evangelist/ ### 🗒️ Notes - Mission and Scope - “Support and grow GitLab’s community” via content and conversation (0–5%). - Emphasis on open source contributions and developer love. - Core Evangelist Responsibilities (5–15%) - Lead conversations on technology trends and best practices. - Create talks, blogs, demos, videos for GitLab and broader OSS community. - Engage media (phone, podcasts, video, in-person). - Share community insights back to product/engineering. - Core Requirements (10–20%) - Experience creating software or contributing to OSS. - 1+ year creating technical content; meaningful social presence. - Strong comms; CFP schedule management; ability to travel ~20%. - Senior/Staff Expansion (15–30%) - Senior: contributes to open source foundations/TAGs; support exec content. - Staff: cross-functional work with executives; generate large-scale impressions; positions GitLab as thought leader. - Staff requirements: influence in OSS (TAG lead, maintainer); 5k+ followers; keynote/1,000+ attendee events. - Program Manager (28–40%) - Build speaker bureau; manage CFPs; speaker training and slide formats. - Liaise with PR/content; instrument and report metrics; maintain handbook page. - Tech curiosity in DevOps/cloud native; strong org and comms. - Senior Program Manager (36–48%) - Improve metrics collection/reporting; expand to influencer bureau; drive impressions; run integrated campaigns. - Manager, Developer Evangelism (47–66%) - Objectives: awareness of GitLab as single app for DevOps, cloud-native thought leadership in DevSecOps, cloud-agnostic positioning, inspire community evangelists, excite developers/SREs. - Responsibilities: KPI design/iteration, mentoring, process evolution, quarterly OKRs, hiring plans. - Requirements: 3–5 yrs running DevRel (preferably OSS), 2+ yrs leading evangelists, Cloud Native ecosystem familiarity, conflict facilitation with empathy, Git/K8s knowledge. - Performance Indicators (71–76%) - Support unique contributors/month. - Support new unique web visitors/month. - Impressions/month across social, events, content. - Community Engagement Specialty (76–86%) - Respond thoughtfully on Hacker News, Stack Overflow, GitLab Forum, and blog. - Lead response to impactful product/business changes; ensure messaging addresses concerns. - Create community FAQs; prep cross-team responders; coordinate processes. - Requirements: natural communicator; comfortable in public forums; inspire internal participation. - About GitLab (90–100%) - Mission: everyone can contribute; values: transparency, inclusion, directness, kindness, etc. - Remote-first; culture resources and top reasons to work at GitLab. ## 📖 References: - Primary: GitLab Handbook — Developer Evangelists: https://handbook.gitlab.com/job-families/marketing/developer-evangelist/ - Related GitLab resources mentioned: culture page, remote manifesto, and YouTube channel (linked from the “About GitLab” section on the page). ## 🗣️ Paraphrase: 1) Original idea (0–5%): “As a Developer Evangelist, you will… connect with developers, contribute to open source, share knowledge at conferences, in articles, and on social media… foster a community inspired by GitLab and drive strategy around developer love.” - Paraphrase: In this role, you’ll - Summary: The Developer Evangelism team at GitLab is responsible for engaging with the GitLab community and the tech community at large. Developer Evangelists help fulfill the company's mission by connecting with developers, contributing to open source, and sharing knowledge about GitLab at conferences and on various platforms. The team focuses on generating awareness about GitLab and enables others to become evangelists outside the company as well. The team includes roles such as Developer Evangelist, Senior Developer Evangelist, Staff Developer Evangelist, Developer Evangelism Program Manager, Manager of Developer Evangelism, and Senior Manager of Developer Evangelism. The team's responsibilities include creating content, supporting product and engineering efforts, and developing thought leadership. - URL: https://handbook.gitlab.com/job-families/marketing/developer-evangelist/ The Developer Evangelism team supports and grows GitLab’s community by engaging with GitLab community members through content and conversations. As a Developer Evangelist, you will help us fulfill our mission by connecting with other developers, contributing to open source, and sharing your knowledge and experience about GitLab and other leading technologies at conferences and meetups, in contributed articles, and on blogs, podcasts, and social media. Your work will foster a community inspired by GitLab and will drive our strategy around developer love and GitLab’s participation in the open source ecosystem. We focus on generating awareness about GitLab by rolling up our sleeves, contributing to the ecosystem, and enabling others to become evangelists outside the company as well. Not afraid to be hands-on, you might write sample code, author client libraries, provide insights to journalists, and work with strategic GitLab partners such as GitLab Heroes, users, and customers to excite and engage our developer communities. #### Developer Evangelist ##### Job Grade The Developer Evangelist is a [grade 6](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/total-rewards/compensation/compensation-calculator/#gitlab-job-grades). ##### Responsibilities * Lead the conversation around technology trends and best practices in the developer community * Create engaging content, including technical talks, blog posts, demos, and videos, that educates the GitLab and open-source community. * Support GitLab’s product and engineering efforts by sharing what you learn while engaging with the wider GitLab community and the tech community, at large * Conduct interviews with media via phone, podcasts, video, and in-person * Be a leader within GitLab and in the wider community * Contribute to the goals of GitLab’s Developer Evangelism and Developer Relations teams ##### Requirements * Experience creating software or contributing to open source software * At least 1 year of experience giving talks and developing demos, workshops, webinars, videos, and other technical content * Meaningful social presence with engaged followers * Ability to manage the fast moving conference schedule with its CFP deadlines and show dates * Self-directed and work with minimal supervision * Outstanding written and verbal communications skills with the ability to translate complex technology concepts into simple and intuitive communications * Ability to travel up to 20% of the time * You share our [values](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/) and work in accordance with those values * Ability to use GitLab #### Senior Developer Evangelist ##### Job Grade The Senior Developer Evangelist is a [grade 7](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/total-rewards/compensation/compensation-calculator/#gitlab-job-grades). ##### Responsibilities * Same as Developer Evangelist plus, * Contributor to relevant open source projects, foundations, and TAGs in order to give GitLab visibility and share our experience and insights to developments in our areas of interest * Support teammates, including senior staff and executive group, in their content creation efforts * Contribute to goals of the GitLab Marketing organization ##### Requirements * Same as Developer Evangelist plus, * 3 or more years experience giving talks and developing demos, webinars, videos, and other technical content to audiences of 300 and larger * Experience serving as a media spokesperson #### Staff Developer Evangelist ##### Job Grade The Staff Developer Evangelist is a [grade 8](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/total-rewards/compensation/compensation-calculator/#gitlab-job-grades). ##### Responsibilities * Same as Senior Developer Evangelist plus, * Create content that positions GitLab as a thought leader as measure and generates a large number of impressions and engagement * Work cross-functionally with GitLab teams, including GitLab executives, and contribute to GitLab’s top-level company goals ##### Requirements * Same as Senior Developer Evangelist plus, * Hold positions of influence in open source projects and organizations such as TAG leads, maintainer status, author status * A growing and engaged social media following of 5,000+ followers or equivalent * Experience giving talks and developing demos, webinars, videos, and other technical content at industry events with 1,000+ attendees, or experience as keynote speaker. * A leader who has contributed to the success of teammates and community members #### Developer Evangelism Program Manager **Mission:** Build a powerhouse developer evangelism program at GitLab that encompasses teammates and the wider community. Create a program to increase GitLab’s awareness in the wider community. The Developer Evangelism Program Manager is a Developer Evangelist, who focuses on managing the processes and ensure we collect the right metrics. As part of this role you will have the opportunity to work closely with deeply technical leaders and marketing experts. You will be coached to develop your own technical thought leadership platform and also have the opportunity to grow your career as a technical marketer. ##### Job Grade The Developer Evangelism Program Manager is a [grade 6](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/total-rewards/compensation/compensation-calculator/#gitlab-job-grades). ##### Responsibilities * Develop speaker’s bureau database that includes speakers and thought leadership platforms * Manage the conferences’ Call For Proposals (CFP) process, working hand-in-hand with internal and external thought leaders on their talk submissions * Review slide decks and develop a speaker training program * Develop slide deck formats for speaker’s that include slides of interest to GitLab campaigns * Support developer evangelism content development in line with thought leadership platforms * Create engaging content, including technical talks, blog posts, demos, and videos, that educates developers on important technologies and trends * Liaison with PR and content to execute on evangelism campaigns, as well as extend the effort of recorded talks at various events * Maintain the Developeer Evangelism Handbook page as a rich resource for anyone looking into Developer Evangelism. * Work hand-in-hand with the developer relations team to extend the evangelism program’s reach. * Define metrics of measurement with the Manager, Developer Evangelism * Instrument for metrics of measurement and report on them regularly * Build thought leadership in GitLab product areas over time ##### Requirements * Excellent written and verbal communication skills * Background in or deep curiosity about the cloud computing and devops ecosystem * Track record of success in a software company * At least 3-5 years work experience in a fast-paced working environment * Exceptional organizational skills * Technical skills, particularly an understanding of DevOps and cloud native technologies * Relationships in the software DevSecOps space are a plus #### Senior Developer Evangelism Program Manager ##### Requirements * Same as Developer Evangelism Program Manager * Continuously improve metrics collection, goal setting, and reporting to help team increase contribution to GitLab company goals * Uplevel the speaker’s bureau to an influencer bureau and run the program with all modes of content creation in mind - speaking, technical demos, blog posts, media, etc. * Meaningful impact to overall team impressions KPI from blog posts, technical talks and demos * DRI integrated campaigns with other GitLab teams to achieve the above #### Manager, Developer Evangelism As the Manager, Developer Evangelism, you will be responsible for building our developer evangelism function with the ultimate objectives of: * Driving awareness of GitLab as the single application for the entire DevOps cycle * Amplifying GitLab’s Cloud Native thought leadership in DevSecOps * Beginning conversations about GitLab as the leading cloud-agnostic player * Inspiring and empowering our community to become developer evangelists * Increasing GitLab excitement among developers and SREs ##### Job Grade The Manager, Developer Evangelism is a [grade 8](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/total-rewards/compensation/compensation-calculator/#gitlab-job-grades). ##### Responsibilities * Identify opportunities and build the resources to equip the GitLab team and the wider community to become developer evangelists * Create, report, and iterate on the relevant key performance indicators to effectively measure the impact of GitLab’s developer evangelism initiatives * Mentor, guide, and grow the careers of all team members * Build and continually evolve the team’s processes to make them more effective * Enable the Developer Evangelism team to produce and execute their quarterly OKRs * Develop a hiring plan according to the dynamic needs of a rapidly growing organization ##### Requirements * You have 3-5 years of experience running a developer relations program, preferably open source in nature. * You have 2+ years of experience leading a team of developer evangelists/advocates. * Broad knowledge of the DevOps landscape and key players. Experience and connections in the Cloud Native ecosystem are a plus. * Analytical and data driven in your approach to building and nurturing communities. * You have experience facilitating sensitive and complex community situations with humility, empathy, judgment, tact, and humor. * Excellent spoken and written English. * Familiarity with developer tools, Git, Continuous Integration, Containers, and Kubernetes. * Ability to use GitLab. * You share our [values](https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/values/), and work in accordance with those values. #### Senior Manager, Developer Evangelism As the Senior Manager, Developer Evangelism, you will set stratgey and direction for the developer evangelism team. ##### Job Grade The Senior Manager, Developer Evangelism is a [grade 9](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/total-rewards/compensation/compensation-calculator/#gitlab-job-grades) ##### Responsbilities * Define and execute the Developer Evangelism vision and strategy and collaborate to align it across teams * Measure overall effectiveness of Developer Evangelism activities and oversee reporting practices. * Develop and work across teams for alignment on key themes of focus to grow our thought leadership. * Manage a team of all-star developer evangelists and drive awareness across key communities. * Develop, refine and review processes so the developer evangelist team is being the most efficient and effective. ##### Requirements * Past experience running developer evangelism teams. * Experience in the DevOps and dev tools space. * Analytical and Data-Driven. Able to use data to drive decisions. * Able to work across teams collaboratively. * The ability to deal with sensitive community topics. #### Career Ladder The next step for both individual contributors and managers of people is to move to the [Director, Technical Evangelism](https://handbook.gitlab.com/job-families/marketing/director-technical-evangelism) job family. ##### Performance Indicators * Support [Unique Wider Community Contributors per Month](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/quality/performance-indicators/#unique-wider-community-contributors-per-month) * Support [New Unique Web Vistors Per Month](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/performance-indicators/#new-unique-web-visitors-aboutgitlabcom) * Impressions per month. Number of combined impressions/organic views from the Developer Evangelism team, from a designated number of sources (e.g. social, events, content, etc.) #### Specialties ##### Community Engagement The Developer Evangelism team is responsible for [community engagement](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/developer-relations/developer-evangelism/#community-engagement) with the GitLab community and the tech community at large as it relates to GitLab. A Developer Evangelist with a Community Engagement specialty owns that engagement. This includes responding to questions about GitLab on Hacker News, engaging with the GitLab community on Stack Overflow, managing the GitLab Forum, and providing insight and guidance to GitLab’s marketing and product teams on the community impact of changes when we are making to our product and business. ###### Responsibilities * Provide thoughtful responses to community member questions on online forums monitored by GitLab’s Developer Evangelist team including [Hacker News](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/developer-relations/developer-evangelism/hacker-news/), StackOverflow, [GitLab’s blog](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/developer-relations/developer-evangelism/hacker-news/#blog-comments) and the [GitLab Forum](https://forum.gitlab.com/). This involves cross-team collaboration including encouraging other team members to engage with the community and providing feedback to product and engineering teams. * Lead the Developer Evangelist team’s support of [community response](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/developer-relations/developer-evangelism/community-response/) situations. This includes: + Manage responsibilities and tasks associated with product and/or business changes that impact the community + Ensure messaging about these changes addresses community concerns + Create community FAQs for impactful changes + Prepare the Developer Evangelist team and other relevant team members per the [community response](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/developer-relations/developer-evangelism/community-response/) process to address community questions on Hackers News and other forums ###### Requirements * Same as Developer Evangelist plus, * Be a natural communicator and enjoy using those skills to help others * Comfortable communicating with people via public forums, in line with GitLab’s transparency value * Ability to inspire team members across GitLab to engage with directly with members of the wider GitLab community * Experience managing or participating in online communities. Experience engaging with online technical communities is a plus. #### About Gitlab GitLab Inc. is a company based on the GitLab open-source project. GitLab is a community project to which over 2,200 people worldwide have contributed. We are an active participant in this community, trying to serve its needs and lead by example. We have one [vision](https://about.gitlab.com/company/strategy/): everyone can contribute to all digital content, and our mission is to change all creative work from read-only to read-write so that everyone can contribute. We [value](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/values/) results, transparency, sharing, freedom, efficiency, [self-learning](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/self-service/#how-self-learning-leads-to-success-in-your-role), frugality, collaboration, directness, kindness, diversity, inclusion and belonging, boring solutions, and quirkiness. If these values match your personality, work ethic, and personal goals, we encourage you to visit our [primer](https://about.gitlab.com/company/) to learn more. Open source is our culture, our way of life, our story, and what makes us truly unique. Top 10 Reasons to Work for GitLab: 1. [Mission](https://about.gitlab.com/company/mission/): Everyone can contribute 2. [Flexible Work Hours](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/people/#those-who-value-flexibility-and-autonomy): Plan your day so you are there for other people & have time for personal interests 3. [Transparency](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/values/#transparency): [Over 2,000 webpages in GitLab handbook](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/about/#count-handbook-pages), [GitLab Unfiltered](https://www.youtube.com/gitlab-unfiltered) YouTube channel 4. [Total Rewards](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/total-rewards/compensation/#gitlabs-compensation-principles): [Competitive market rates for compensation](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/total-rewards/compensation/#competitive-rate), [Equity compensation](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/stock-options/), [global benefits (inclusive of office equipment)](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/finance/expenses/#-office-equipment-and-supplies) 5. [Work/Life Harmony](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/people/#worklife-harmony): [Flexible workday](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/guide/#non-linear-workday), [Family and Friends days](https://about.gitlab.com/company/family-and-friends-day/) 6. [Remote Done Right](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/ceo/chief-of-staff-team/workplace/): [One of the world's largest all-remote companies](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/ceo/chief-of-staff-team/workplace/#all-remote-flywheel), [prolific inventor of remote best practices](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/ceo/chief-of-staff-team/workplace/#vision) See [our culture page](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/) for more! Work remotely from anywhere in the world. Curious to see what that looks like? Check out our [remote manifesto and guides](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/)., Developer Evangelists, The GitLab Handbook, 01h784nn9wk8mkqenk2gfy1kx2.