What Is DevRel With Marc Backes  ## Metadata - Author: [[The Code and Coffee Show]] - Full Title: What Is DevRel With Marc Backes - Category: #articles - Document Note: --- tags: - #DevRel - #CommunityEngagement - #OpenSourceAdvocacy Author: Marc Backes (guest), Host: Code & Coffee Show Source: YouTube – Code and Coffee Show Reference: [[s01e11] What is DevRel with Marc Backes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P49ftgsC-I) date created: 2025-08-22 19:15 --- # Title: Understanding DevRel with Marc Backes – Communication, Community, and Coffee ## Table of Contents: - [📝 Summary](#-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes) - [📖 References](#-references) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#️-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) - [❓ Questions](#-questions) - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) - [💡 Implications](#-implications) - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) - [🌍 DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Belonging) Assessment](#-deib-diversity-equity-inclusion-belonging-assessment) - [✅ Logical Validity](#-logical-validity) - [🔍 DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis) - [🔍 SEO Evaluation](#-seo-evaluation) - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) --- ## 📝 Summary: Marc Backes, DevRel lead at *We Are Developers*, outlines what **Developer Relations (DevRel)** is, why it matters, and how it functions as a bridge between companies and developers. He stresses that DevRel is **not just marketing** but about building trust, advocacy, community, and feedback loops. The discussion covers: - Coffee rituals as metaphors for **ritual, consistency, and personalization** in DevRel. - The balance between **technical credibility** and **communication skills**. - Friction with marketing, measurement challenges, and misconceptions around “DevSales.” - Paths into DevRel, skills needed, and how DevRel influences conferences, documentation, and developer experience. --- ## 📖 Main Content: Backes frames DevRel as a role that: - Translates **company goals into developer-friendly messaging**. - Channels **developer feedback back to companies**. - Requires **community presence, credibility, and communication skills**. - Is increasingly essential as developers resist traditional marketing. Key tensions: - Marketing teams often misapply DevRel → treating it as sales. - Measuring DevRel success is difficult → “trust” is the true currency. - Team size and placement (within marketing or standalone) varies by company stage. DevRel careers often emerge “by accident,” through community visibility and invitations. Core skills: communication, empathy, technical literacy, and resilience in balancing expectations. --- ### 🗒️ Notes - [00:21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P49ftgsC-I&t=21): Coffee ritual = personal identity → parallel to DevRel ritual of engagement. - [07:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P49ftgsC-I&t=473): DevRel definition differs per company; should balance messaging and feedback. - [10:21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P49ftgsC-I&t=621): Developers avoid sales-y pitches → DevRel’s role is authentic translation. - [15:07](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P49ftgsC-I&t=907): Organizing 10k+ attendee conference; challenge of CFP selection (1200→300). - [17:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P49ftgsC-I&t=1043): DevRel translates technical needs for marketing; docs = passive DevRel. - [24:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P49ftgsC-I&t=1455): Communication skill differentiates DevRel from typical developers. - [28:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P49ftgsC-I&t=1712): Team sizes vary by maturity—startups may over-hire DevRel prematurely. - [30:43](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P49ftgsC-I&t=1843): DevRel should be a **peer team** to marketing, not subordinate. - [37:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P49ftgsC-I&t=2236): Measurement problem—impact is real but indirect. - [41:29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P49ftgsC-I&t=2489): Trust = currency of DevRel. “DevSales” risks undermining credibility. - [47:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P49ftgsC-I&t=2860): Entry point = visibility, consistency, community presence. - [49:49](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P49ftgsC-I&t=2989): Skills = communication + baseline technical literacy. - [54:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P49ftgsC-I&t=3242): Frustration → being undervalued by marketing; lack of coding time. --- ## 📖 References: - Marc Backes (guest), Code & Coffee Show host - [Jeremy Woods on DevRel trust & podcast](#) - Docs examples: Astro, Vue.js --- ## 🗣️ Paraphrase: 1. Original: “Trust is the most important currency for DevRel.” → Rephrased: The foundation of Developer Relations is credibility; without it, influence collapses. 2. Original: “You can’t measure DevRel in clicks or followers.” → Rephrased: DevRel impact is indirect and relational, not reducible to typical marketing metrics. --- ## 📰 Newsletter: ☕ **DevRel: Coffee, Code, and Community** Marc Backes joined the *Code & Coffee Show* to unpack **what Developer Relations really means**. Spoiler: it’s not sales. DevRel is about building **trust, empathy, and feedback loops** between companies and developers. Highlights: - Docs are *passive DevRel* (good docs = instant community credibility). - Trust is the true ROI—DevRel measured in **relationships, not retweets**. - Communication skills matter as much as code—especially for introverted teams. If you’ve ever wondered why DevRel exists or why your docs matter, this is your episode. 🎥 [Watch here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P49ftgsC-I). --- ## ✅ Action Items: - Position DevRel as **peer to marketing**, not subordinate. - Use WordPress as a model → docs, onboarding, contributor relations. - Develop **metrics beyond vanity** (trust indicators, contributor retention). - Frame OSPO work around **trust currency** → aligns with WordPress community needs. - Leverage DevRel models for sustainable **open-source advocacy** in The WPCC. --- ## 🧪 Hypotheses: - H1: Developers engage longer with communities that emphasize trust over marketing. - H2: Good docs reduce onboarding friction more effectively than any campaign. - H3: Developer conferences with strong DevRel teams attract higher-quality CFPs. ### 📊 Methodology: - Longitudinal tracking of contributor retention vs. trust signals. - Comparative A/B testing of doc quality vs. conversion. - Ethnographic study of CFP selection + community fairness perception. ### ❓ Questions: - How can DevRel trust be quantified beyond anecdotal evidence? - Should DevRel always report into marketing, or is OSPO better aligned? - How do small startups avoid “over-hiring” DevRel? ### 🔮 Future Research: - Cross-project DevRel benchmarks (OSS vs SaaS). - Explore **DevRel role in neurodiverse communities**. - Develop **trust index metrics** for OSPO dashboards. ### 💡 Implications: - Could reshape **open-source governance models**. - Provide frameworks for WordPress onboarding/trust metrics. - Influence OSPO adoption at enterprise scale. --- ## 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment: - **Visual**: Limited (video format helps; could add diagrams). - **Aural**: Strong (podcast format, conversational tone). - **Verbal**: Solid metaphors (coffee rituals, DevRel vs marketing). - **Kinesthetic**: Weak (no interactive practice). - **Logical**: Good frameworks (roles, structure, trust). - **Social**: Strong (community, conferences). - **Solitary**: Present (reflection on personal paths). - **Naturalistic**: Absent (no environmental analogies). Readability: ~9th grade level (accessible to most professionals). --- ## 📊 Accessibility Assessment: - Transcript ✅ (improves accessibility). - No alt-text for visuals mentioned → add descriptive captions. - Navigation easy (timestamps provided). - Fonts/contrast unknown. Recommend ensuring **WCAG compliance**. --- ## 🌍 DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Belonging) Assessment: - **Cultural relevance**: Western-centric (Europe/NA developer culture). - **Inclusive language**: Neutral and pro - Summary: The Code and Coffee Show discusses the importance of code and coffee to developers. The episode focuses on devrel (developer relations), with special guest Mark, a dev lead at WeAreDevelopers, who explains that devrel involves communication between companies and developers. This includes messaging and feedback from both sides, as well as specific roles like developer advocacy, technical writing, and developer experience. The hosts also discuss their favorite coffee methods and types. The show is sponsored by Kinsta, an application hosting company. - URL: https://youtube.com/watch?v=-P49ftgsC-I&feature=share hello everyone to yet another episode ofthe code and coffee show during thisshow we are talking about the two mostimportant things in life of everydeveloper so it's about code and ofcourse about coffee that flows in our veins and today will be a really greatepisode because I know that Mark is alsoa huge coffee fanatic so this coffeetalk will be really great but uh todayin general we will talk about davrelleveryone is talking about Deborah but Ihave a feeling that there are manycompanies that even have huge devilteams doesn't fully understand whatdevils are doing and that's why we are having Mark who isa real specialist in this time becauseMark is a devil lead at we aredevelopers developers where he is thelink between the company and thedevelopers he ensures that allengagements and events with thecommunity are well thought out he isalso a full stack web developerenthusiastic about the view nukes nodeand all kind of Technologies and I thinkAstro 2 right yes exactly recently recently and of course we also have tomention that you are almost a fullyqualified pilot rightuh not yet I'm in my training I'm almostI'm almost finished with my uhtheoretical training so in two weeks Ihave my theoretical exam the final onebecause there were several ones the lastone I did is to be accepted even in liketo be endorsed for the theoretical exam the real one and now it's that's it butthen I'm still missing a lot of practicebut that will eventually come startlearning how to drive a car you justneed to practice enough to get it rightyeah I really can't wait the firstconference on which you were you youwill fly on your own yeah me too me tooI really wonder which one will it beyeah let's start talking a bit aboutcoffee what is your favorite typeso my favorite type is I'm betweenum a pour over with the origami or the good oldum Aeropresslike both I really enjoyyeah I mean first of all I always lovethe design of the origami itself oh yesit's so beautiful yeah simple andI was even thinking about buying myselfone but it was like I'm kind of missingthe space but yeah they are so beautifulandumyou are more of the fruity type person or this chocolate nuttyI'm more into chocolate nutty type and II would say my favorite thing about thecoffee is probably not even drinking itit's preparing it it's like my morningritual like preparing the this is when Ido the the pour over right because it'sall original you take out the things youyou grind your coffee you pour it likeyou I do this how is it called these um kubomi divot where it's like a spiral sojust to sort of optimize the the waterflow some say it doesn't bring anythingsomething or some people say yes it doesfor me it's more for of the feeling ofthe the piece you get with just doingthat it's like nice and beautiful andthen you do the pour over you wait youdo the pour over you waitit's like my favorite part of of thecoffee when I when I do an uh a uh an Aeropress however I it's reallyit brings out more theum The Taste the taste of the coffee howit's meant you can feel it more likeprecise I do the the recipe of JamesHoffman you you know James Hoffman ofcourse the coffee Guru or the YouTubecoffee God so to say uh yeahyeah and I I totally agree with youabout the ritual part because it is it is amazing this is also something that Ido because I always say go for my firstcoffee about about 11 12 something likethis and this is like this half an hourfor me so I can prepare everything grindthe coffee and as you said the ritual ofof the pour over yeah it's it'ssomething really really magical so sohopefully fully agree with you and uh Isee you have a coffee with you what is itwell this is some uh this is now anerror press because it's also faster tomake than the pour over and it's from acompany it's called Fjord from Germanyand I or I ordered I always orderactually I I almost never ordered thesame coffees I ordered in differentcoffee roasteries throughout Europe sothis is one that saidumcinnamon apple Christmas cake something like that so it's umit's like very balanced very smooth uhthing and with the Aeropress it's like aairplane it never failsby the way the Aeropressum what I love about that one I meanit's likehow old like 2006 rightand umyou can do so many things with it youcan do everything with it you can do anespresso you can do a french press youcan do all sorts of different things you can do tea in it so it's soversatile that's why I love it and Ihave like this espresso machine like itcosts 1300 euros and stuff I almostnever do coffee in it I I use myaeropressed piece of plastic that's likeworth 20 eurosyeah and I also love Aeropress for ittouristic uh for the touristic reasons Ican always pack it in my bag and justyeah yeah sorry whatever I like yeah because when I go to some conferenceconference I can be sure that the coffeethere will be horrible so I have to beprepared yeah to have something on myown usually it is horribleum yeah sometimes it's not but itusually isyeah but as you said it's eitherhorrible or just not horrible but stillit's never great like actually on my wayback from Polandwhen was that Saturday I made this layover in Austria in Vienna and therein some airport shop in some AirportRestaurant I had like the most balancedcoffee ever I was so surprised I waslike yeah this is going to be like ahalf-assed coffee good enough to notthrow away but it was so so good so Ialways try to get a coffee in publicbecause you never know when you getsurprised oh yeah and especially that asyou mentioned the airport coffees are alsothere are there are quite similarcategories than the conference one inmost yes yeah yeah as you said maybemaybe this was in a paper cup so papercup is usually by default right shetastes by default but no this I was sosurprised I forgot to wrote that towrite down the name but I think theVienna Airport is not that big that theyhave so many restaurants so when I do alevel over again I will go and see if it's if it's again the same because itdepends on so many things right theBarista the grind size the humidity thetemperature whatever so who knows maybethis was just a lucky shot or theyreally have a battery so that knows whatthey're doingvery very interesting yeah so maybe nexttime and I will also be in Vienna I willgive it a try maybe I will also findthis uh this lucky coffee placeum so yeah um before we will jump intothe main topic so develop um running show like this won't pay foritself luckily I have a great sponsorand it's Kinston so the next 20 secondsare are on themkinsta's application hosting simplifiesthe work of modern web developers withjust a few steps to get your app up andrunning with performance backed by thefastest Google C2 machines Kinston hasbuilt a development platform designed toget your applications in front of usersas quick as possible test kinsta's application hosting for yourself atkinsta.com the first twenty dollars areon usand we are back thank you Kingston uh soyeah let's start with the most generalquestion about this is the thing that Iexpected most companies should learnwe know that it's for developerrelations but what does it mean yes so this is like probably the most loadedquestion we will talk about todaybecause I think devrel means somethingelse for every companythis is where the issues start but Iwill tell you what I think it is andwhat it should be so as you saidcorrectly developer relations soeverything that goes from the company toa developer so some sort of messaging itshould go through a devrel which means they can wrap the message in a way thatnot that the developer understandsper se because like I mean they're notstupid it's not that they don'tunderstand like regular marketing butit'suh you're laughing developers are sortof allergic to a certain type ofmessaging and it's very interesting thatit's almost only developers that arelike sort of very repelled by this like very markety pitchy stuff and it's avery interesting situation to observebecause you go to some other conferenceof whatever other like marketing stuffyou have and there people do this sortof stuff all the time and when you justcomea little bit close to a developer withthat they run as fast as they can rightso here the job of the developerrelations is towrap the message in a way that it's uh it's comfortable for the developers thatthey don't say like okay yeah this isthis is right it's alsoimportant to know that it's not likejust marketing for developers which insome way is but it's it's more than thatlike because you're supposed to relatewith the developer you're supposed toreally understand what is what they wantuh what is what is interesting for themsolike I told you it's one getting the message across from the company to thedeveloper but it's but it's equally asimportant if not more the other wayaround so if you have for example aplatform and there it has an uh an APIthat is open for developers to to playwith right and there is a an issue withit or there's some developer that saysoh how how about wewe would add this feature or somethinglike it would be really cool to have itit's super important to also go that direction from the developer to thecompanylike that you have someone that isreally in the middle of all thedevelopers like really talking with themas a developer you should be a developeras Deborah because you you're going totalk with developers about coding stuffand then talking with them just justactually just talking about them uh withthem about cool stuff right and thisstuff comes up it's like oh I used yourplatform I saw a small issue there Imean it's not a big deal blah blah blahand then you are like you'll write it down mentally and the next thing you dois you take it to your team you youraise this issue like hey there aredevelopers talking about our platformand their stuff we can do better rightand it's also so yeah that's basicallywhat it is basically just communicationin a veryumhow do you say that emerged ways so youare very the person that is doing thiscommunication is a part of the communitythat should be the best way to put it so in this way they are like very naturallyconnected to developers they have a veryeasy way to bring their messaging to thedevelopers and most importantly bringlike feedback to the platform explainalso developers how it works what it isused for being very like casual about itand non non-salesy not in anon-marketing wayso yeah that's in a nutshell for medevrel which then goes into a little bit of different roles like one if like it'slike like that would be the umbrellaterm like devrel developer relations forme that's like the big term for a littlebit of different things whichum include like developer Advocate whichis like really they would go to thecommunities and like sort of advocateit's like oh I see you're trying to dothis why don't you try our platform or why don't you try this platform I made ademo with this blah blah blah uh thenyou also have technical uh writers whichI think is another role as or anothertask at least of devrel where you wouldjust write content technical contentthat is to explain how it works and thatsort of stuff make demos make tutorialsto make the the entry barrier as low aspossible so if there's like somedeveloper that wants to get started with your application OU platform you justgive them the tutorial and you're likelook this is this is like something wecame up with if you have some morequestions so it should be super supereasy to get started rightuh one other would probably be adeveloper experience which is moretowards reallyum how it is to use the product ingeneral like it should be theit should just be one command and you basically already set up and then you dotwo three configurations Max and thenyou're like all set and you can playaround right like ready to have theexperience of the developerlike be as painless as possibleespecially if it if it's like a complexthing it should still be like very veryeasy to follow but then there's also uhtherefore for example what I do it's notI wouldn't say it's traditional severalbecause I'm very involved in this conference that we are organizing everyyear so this is not our core but it'sour like what people know us for rightlike we are developers is a recruitmentplatform but we have this huge Flagshipuh conference every year with 10 000developers and like over 300 speakersand so on so now I'm hereumuh like working to make this the best conference that I can which means I I doa whole different lot of things one butmost of them are like related to againto developers so I I talk withdevelopers that I think would be greatgreat speakers I invite them I helppeople that are like oh heyumokay can can you help me also maybe canyou help me with the cfp can you help mewrite my cfp can you help me make itbetter I had people uh write me withthat but alsoum uh rating the the cfps which is likeprobably the biggest the most difficulttask I had to do in this role which is Iget 1200cfps 1200 submissions for excitedspeakers they want to talk and I canonly accept like 300 of them or lessso the issue is there like you have likenot all of them are great but most ofthem are likegood then there are some that are greatand when you have the ones that are like great where you say all of this wouldwork you still have way too many so youhave to decide because between like agreat talk and another great talk whichis like sometimes heartbreaking breakingbecause you're like I I want both ofthese speakers with both of these topicsbut it's just so limited rightso that's like I I think I'm babbling ona little bit too muchno because uh this is kind of a thingabout Deborah that is as you mentionedthis beautiful term of this umbrella and how many terms are are under it but umat the beginning you mentioned uh onevery very interesting thing that I kindof experienceduh in a way how uh I first get high gothired at body CI which was atrickly technical company I mean therewere developers developersdesigners one office manager and developers so it was a strictlytechnical team so in this term when Iworked therewith my devil role I did not have toexplain them how to translate somethingfor developers they really did they theyexactly knew how to do it they didn'tknow how to speak to let's call itnormal people but with developers theydid not have a problem and right nowwhen I when I started working at Atkins now I saw that one of my biggest rolesisn't communicating with the outside butit's translating it's helping marketingum think as a developer I am like thisthe kind of developer guinea pig theyare constantly asking so you as adeveloper do you think that this messageis correctyeah and and and very often uh I'mtrying to catch all those all those phrases that I know uh that would justirritate most of uh most of developersso yeah and this is and I think that onepart that you kind of uh forgot and Ipersonally I think that it's also veryimportant for when it comes to Deborahare the one who are creatingdocumentation oh yes yes that's this isthis is one of the most amazing passivedevrel there is I mean gooddocumentationuh can win like so many hearts of developers yeah I think it's probablysomewhere between the um technicalwriting and the developer experienceright but yeah writing docs it'sdefinitely part of devrel and becauseyou are you're reporting like probablythe most substantial part to yeah to towhen there's like an API or something orlibrary to use of your platform you wantsomeone through that writes great talksbecause if not like talk people talk a lot about dogs people are like yeah Iwanted to try this platform and the dogswere not great and then I just didn't doanything anymore but when you hear likeoh I'm using this tool usually it'sfollowed by oh and the dogs are greatlike for example asteroids the dogs arejust phenomenal with Astro with VJs theyare phenomenalso it's something like really to thatstands out you're correct I forgot thatoneyeah and while we are talking about the definition of devrel uh let's go with akind of a tricky questionumhow did you explain what are you doingto your parents because I know that forme trying to explain what I'm currentlydoing to my parents and really my dad isa quite of a technical personit was so complicatedyes it is it is really not easyespeciallyum like before being devrel at we aredevelopers I was Deborah for view storefront where I had a much moreum traditional uh devrel role which wasreally like make videos about thethe product and so on write some likeinteract on Twitter and that really waslike I tried to be like okay so I'm likethe communicator between the developersand the company and they didn't get itso I was like okay I make videos forthat and also that is like hard to understand what does it mean you makevideos and then I was just like yeah II was just yeah I I code like uh demosand stuff and that was sort of okay andhere in my new role it's I also just sayI helped organize the conference whichisuh like technically true but not reallywhat I do but it's easier to understandbecause if you come like oh yeah I record these videos these are fordevelopers because you can't do likereally marketing like that means nothingto people when you tell people that arenot in this that you do videos it's likewhat what's what's how can I imaginethis and it's likepretty hard uh explainingyeah yeah like I said in my on my end Iwas just explained that it's kind ofmarketing but not fully and just don'task me any further I'm happy where I work that's it yeah and then it's likebut but you're not a marketing youdidn't study marketing so how do you domarketing if you don't know aboutmarketing right then people have thatquestion what's different right betweena marketer and a deferralyeah and this kind of goes to and to todo another question becauseum and this was kind of brought latelyon Twitter uh that one of the most uh distinctive things for devrels when wecompare them with typical developers isthe fact that they can communicate withothers because we know that developersare known for being introvert and thereis this saying that let's I studied Isomething related to it just to not haveto talk with others and devrels arewell developers who learned how tocommunicate with others yeah I think that's true yeah yeah Ithinkum like you mentioned that this uh thisidea of developers that don't know howto communicate well enough I think it'strue but there is a significant Trend tomore like that they they do knowbut yeah as for the time being it'sstill like a developer that really knowshow to communicatelike well not only internally but also really like do videos talk in publicit's yeah as you said it's generally ortypical like traditionally a role thatis very like a little bit more forintroverted people because like you arelike justat your computer you do your stuff andyou're not not really like forced tointeract with many people like you'renot likesome sort of project manager where youhave to deal with a lot of people likeyou you are in your stand-up meetings you you put maybe your opinion about thesolution that you're implementing butthat's about it and for some people thisis like as far as it goes but yeah asyou say when the developer that knowshow to communicate extremely well Ithink that's very valuable for for acompany to have and then also of courseputting put them in as a position wherethey can uh like if they want of coursewhere they can um use use that skillsfor for the benefit of the company yeah yeah I meanum I won't lie at some point I felt thatI won't grow as a as a developer anymorebecause I felt that I kind of hit thewall and suddenly I learned that thefact thatI can talk with others it's a skill it'sa skill and it's quite valuable so I waslike it isyeah it is a skill to not neglectbecause there's still like even thoughthe tendency is going a little like better but it's still like veryprominent that developers are notamazing communicators in many of thecasesyeah and uh no but let's talk more aboutthe business side of the world so weknow that um yeah Deborah is kind oftrendy everyone want to have a leveldepartmentuh but let's be honest when a companyshould hire Deborah devils and when theyshouldn't I thinkum companies that are need like insightsfrom developers are well suited with adevil of some sort it can have manydifferent shapes but it would bebeneficial to havesomeone like I like there are very fewcases where I would say you don't needone like if you really justpurely marketing something like if youhave a product that is not targeted the Developers for example but as soon atleast this is my opinion right as soonas you have something that is targetedat developers you wanta developer that is part of thecommunity that can tell you whatdevelopers want because you can do twothings right you can do a wholemarketing research a survey you can sendit to your social media you can boostthat post with someone that is an experton how to reach people on social media and so on and then you evaluate thoseresults and then you see what they wantor you can have one person that isreally good at communicating withdevelopers they relate with developersthey connect also on a human level andthen those developers will just tellthem we'll tell them hey yeah I try touse your platform this like an issuethere or it would be cool if this wouldbe different and then you are right atthe source so you are evading all of the marketing strategies to sort of find outwhat people want you just they will justtell youso I think it'sas long as you need to relate to adeveloper or to not even like sells I Ihate that like selling like to adeveloper like because it's not what wedo right wewe help the sales process in some waybut we are not selling it as Deborah or at least that's not the idea we shouldnot be just selling stuff to developersbut like to like sort of enabledevelopers to use the platform show themhow great it is and help the company atthe end like improve upon it right so Ithink it's almost always beneficialhaving a deferral if you have a productsomehow targeting your uh your targetingdevelopers unless your team is alreadytoo small then it might not be it itmight just be overhead uh at some point like if you have like one developerone marketing person and one deferralit's a little bit overshooting the wholething like but yeahyeah and what and What proportion do youthink it's it's right I mean for examplehow many Devils do you have at uh we areDeveloperswell we have now likepeople that fall in the devrel category maybe like three or fourit because yeah there are some that arenot like technically in the devrel teambut they still do several stuff likeCommunity Management they it's sort ofthey don't have like their world titlebut it's for me it's part of Deborah soI would say like three or fourso not too much we can say I mean notnot yeah I I heard about uh really quitesmall companies having several departmentsthat have like 20 people so I was kindof shockedyep well it probably depends on at whichstage the company is right if you havelike if we like let's take the example II know of a little bit storyblockI know they have an amazing developerteam I don't know how many deaths theyhave right but I know they have an armyof developer Advocates and devrels I wastalking about them I can tell you because uh yeah at JS world I learnedthat they have such a huge devil teamand I was quite surprisedyeah I think well thank Godin like a big chunk of investment rightand they they want to like really pushthe growthand there I think it really makes senseto have a whole Army of devrels likedoing your communication for you becausethe productit's it's not done because the productis never done but the product is mature so in that case even having lessdevelopers than developer advocate inthis case would make sense so I think itreally depends on on where your companyis as well but if you're just startingoff we have two developers and 10devrelsI would say that doesn't make sense butit always really depends on yourstrategy on your marketing strategy aswell on your growth strategyyeah yeah I I fully understand and um where would you place devrel more on thedeveloper side on the marketing sidebecause I can tell you that officially Iam a marketer and I still don't know howto feel about this yeah I well I have uhlike a few different uh approaches tothis one that'svery often made is we put deferral intomarketingthenthere's a little bit of a problem veryoften because it's not very wellunderstood of everyone in marketing what devrel is and they sort of try to likeunderstand it but they misuse it in someways and then they like I I had theexperience in a previous company wheremarketing was a little bit too strongonto okay marketing marketing and I tryto convince them no like Deborah itworks in a different way we are notselling thisin this traditional wayso this bridge of like um like what devrel is and what itshould befor marketingumit's natural because marketing is a veryold profession devil is very new so ifyou put it as part of marketing like Ican almost guarantee you there is goingto be some friction unless it's verywell communicated and the person thatbuilds this devil team and they shouldbe in very uh good contact withmarketing and really teach the company what is devrel and why do we need itrightso I have this otherexample of of a company I know I don'tknow if I can mention itum I just won't it's I know they haveum marketing as part of devrel which isinteresting so it's a relatively youngcompany but they have okay this isdevrel they do their devil stuffdifferent stuff right and then part ofthat like a sub part of devra is marketing so in this way devrelinfluences what marketing doesokay interesting as well because you doneed a B2B marketing and it can't beinfluenced too much by devrel becausethe devil will be focused on no thislike we shouldn't be selling this way orwe shouldn't be marketing this waybecause it's too marketing people don'twant it but still B2B marketing needs tobe done this way so that's also not a great solution so I think it needs to bein an in an ideal world it's justseparate at the same levellike there is marketing and there isdevrel and they should be heavilycommunicating with each other they'llboth departments and like really lookwhere is thewhere's the separation here how where dowe start devrel and where do we stop uhtraditional marketing and make sure that traditional marketing doesn't bleed overto developers too muchin a way thatum like just develop a relationship likeit's always you can always see as adeveloper oh yeah they have this B2Bmarketing as well but you almost neverreally pay attention to it you just payattention to it when you have a devreltalking with youwhich is exactly still it's still a verystrange phenomenon that I haven't seenanywhere elseso yeah but to be honest I can imagine many companies uh especially thoseyounger ones that are mostly focused onyeah on developers let's even look atthe Marcel let's look at Netflix yeahbecause they are mostly communicatingwith with developers by default and fromthis this is growing uh growing furtherand and I could imagine and when youalso mentioned this example of uhof devrel being inside of marketing um I must say that uh I'm I was reallyreally surprised by howhow is this happening at Kingstonbecause we totally changed the way howwe work because at first we werebecauseit's still kind of first WordPresshosting company and this means that ourTarget in this case this target personait doesn't have to be a developer it can be just an owner because it's easy to dosomething no code low code on WordPresson the other hand when we startedworking on our application and databasehosting this is something totallytotally developer related so thecommunication is totally different andthis switch that was and it is it isdifficult for marketing and yeah we arekind of learning from each other becauseI don't know a thing about marketing Imean I've already learned something because we are learning each other andthey're also learning from me how tocommunicate with developers so I thinkthat when the time will passit will get only better and better but Iwas really surprised that we haven't hadthis problem of what you mentioned thatthe marketing will try to kind of eatthe devrel yeah which would be possibleyeah it has to do with the communicationbeforehand and how much the different teams understandum I think the main issue is when umwith the communication that goes outsideso when devrel does communication it'svery like playful very casual and then atraditional Market that would be oh myGod this looks so so unserious if wehave business customers this isn't agood lookwhich they average but also the deathrate is right so what's correct nowso that's like the issue where like there needs to be compromise and I can'ttell you an optimal way to do it and Iknow at a view storefront at the endthey decided to have one uh B2B Channeland one defro channel two differentTwitter accounts to do two differentways of marketing so this is a greatSolutions in my in my eyes if you havethe resources to do it of course exactlyyeah because it it's true I I remembervery often that I started somediscussions with clients which started by sending each other uh gifs overTwitter and for some reason it startedlater on some business deal I know itsounds silly and I can imagine that manypeople from from marketing could be justpulling out their hair listening how youcan communicate with ourmaybe future partner by sending giftsyeah yeah yeahI just did it yeah like I hope thisemail finds you well blah blah blah blah blah it's like yeah yeah and and we justdid a series of give exchange and yeahit worked and it worked very often so uhso yeah this is this is reallyum really a thing and umuh tell me uhwhat do you think because um there isone more problem with devrel and I canunderstand howespecially how marketing have can haveproblems with it how to measure it how to measure devrelthat's a a big issue because there is nolikethere's no real way to act to accuratelymeasure it I mean you can measure thesales through a certainlikelink or whatever you can measure thefollowers on Twitter which is not a realmetric if you ask me but still somecompanies use that to have some sort ofgrasp but yeah as you say the issue is um something you do as a deferralit's often just being present being nicebeing helpful but that that doesn'tnecessarily convert immediately tosomething like like you like what you dois youum you convince someone or you showsomeone that you as a as a devil forthis company you are engaged you try tohelp and that sticks in the mind ofpeople so next time when they think about like something for example afriend comes to them oh hey I'm lookingfor a new service that does this andthat they're like oh I I heard aboutthis company right and then they checkit out they like it or they even referoh yeah I know someone that works therethey refer to the devrel and then youyou have like a potentialcustomer there but it's like how do youwant to measure thisum passive like effect right likebecause you just you just present in the mind of people you can't really measureit in a in an accurate way becauselike also for example just speaking at aconference I I was at code Europe withyou I gave you talk uh it had nothing todo with my work but it I was stillpresent in the community they are theywere they were probably a helpful I hopethere were people that were like oh thisis pretty cool I will look up this guyand then like what is this we are thefinal person they're not like oh coollike they have a car in France oh I'm free that day bang I buy a ticket and Iindirectly made a sale without eventalking about it and I think that's likethe general idea of it but as you sayit's hard to measure you can't reallylikemarketing will have an issue with thisbecause marketing measure everythingthey measureevery click every visit every everythingbut this sort of like subconscious liketalking with people just being presentit's not really measurable like probably there are strategies to do it but if youask me none of this is really accurateyeah I totally agree and I also totallyagree with uh with the power of publicspeaking because the effect that theycan do the fact that you can go on astage and say your name and then say Iwork at you know okay so we aredevelopers in Microsoft yeah we work atkinstaand somewhere I will say yeah you canfollow me on Twitter or whatever and yeah and yeah it it starts someone willin worst case just start startsfollowing you and if they follow youit's already kind of done because youare sending some messages over socialmedia and at some point it will be ohthis is interesting let me check it outand Yeah and this kind of leads to toanother thing because uh yes I mean itwas today because it was after midnightI was recording a podcast with Jeremy woods and we also are we're talkingabout Deborah andum the fact thatthe most important thing that devil haveis is there trust this is the mostimportant uh thing that we can buildand this is also about the part aboutthis devrel versus Dev cellhow we have to be careful becausethe fact that people trust us is our most important currency rightyeahyeah so there I'm I'm very much againstthe deaf cell thingum at least for like like devrel becauseit really undermines the whole idea ofdevrel becauselike I meanat least for me it's like we are not inthe business to sell something tosomeone that doesn't want it wegenerally just want toshow that we have something cool going on in my case we have this coolconference and I just want to makepeople aware of it I don't want anyoneto buy a ticket that they don't reallywant to go theresoso this deaf cell thing they might havea place sort of but then it's again moremarketing than anything else and then Iwouldlike I wouldn't even say deaf sell Iwould just say it's marketing and it'snot reallybecause in my in my eyes it's like really selling on to people almost beingevangelists also evangelists you wouldsay it'sdevrel butdepending how you do it it's really moremarketing than anything else but that'smy opinionum I don't knowyeah yeah I mean I only once had had thechance to listen to some presentation ofadobeevangelist and they were talking aboutsome technology that they already killed so no so yeah heit it it wasn't the best uh use of mytime and umhow to start your adventure as a levelbecause many people probably are uh arelistening because from the outside beinga devil is cool right because uh it'snot that heavy work you can go fromconference to conference you can giveall those talks write an article fromtime to timeit can't get any better so how to start yeah so how to start is basically or formost people that I met that are indevrel it'slike not a coincidence but sort of anaccident you just get there bysomeone uh contacting you so what thebest way to do this and this is actuallysomething that someone told me before Iwas Deborah I interviewed them aboutexactly the same thing what is developand they told me this that just be active in the community justdo stuff be present right that's likethe main thing be present do whateveryou want like do a podcast like you douh write technical stuff be atconferences speaking because you standout or and you get noticed people noticeyou even though they don't write you ohyeah I saw your talk it was awesome blahblah blahmore people than you you know or morepeople than you realize notice you and they are like oh this guy is awesome andit would be so cool to have him on ourteam and then eventually when they'veseen enough of you they are like oh likelet's just write write them and maybethey want to join us that's exactly whathappened to me how I got into devrelwhich is I was like working as adeveloper I did like some like I call ityeah podcast like video like interviewsand stuff and video like paneldiscussions and then out of the blue the CTO at that time ofum obviously contacted me oh yeah hey Ilove your work this and that like hey Isee you're going to London in October byany chance are you attending uh vgsLondon and I was like yes as a matter offact I do I I'm part of the umhow do you say of the program committeethere and he was like oh this is greatand we will meet because I havesomething I want to talk to you aboutand then we get into talking hepresented like that they need a devrel like the first ever in fact at themomentand presented their case and we got intotalking and a few months later I startedworking with themso it in in most cases it comes likenaturally but of course you can alsoalways apply like some people say youshould never apply and they alwaysshould come to you which like it's sosaturated of talented people that youcan't make people notice you just bybeing there you can also just fly and say like hey yeah I would love to workwith your company look I have thispodcast I I did this and this and thisand that I did this public speakingstuff so yeah soin summarize just be be present in inwhatever way you feel comfortable if youfeel comfortable doing podcasts dopodcasts if you want to do publicspeaking at conferences do that if youare more comfortable riding darks ortechnical articles or stuff to do thatyou don't have to be on camera it'salways a little bit more favorable if you areon camera or you have like some soundbites where you are interviewing peopleit's always a little bit better butsometimes it's not even needed for therole so just having like articles aswell is it's a it's a strong start justbe consistent and just be present helpothers and yeah then you're already goodyeah I can tell that my adventurestarted in a similar way it was thisaccident I was just I was just talking about body quiteoften and at some point and you like towork for us and I was like I don't knowI didn't because it I would have tospeak with people right yeah but in theend yeah it turned out that this is oneof my talents and yeah and this is thisalso I thinkif someone wants to become a devrel whattalents should that person have because uhyeah being a devil requires some uh somespecific skillsyes so I would say the most obvious isthat you need to be a good communicatorso you need to be really able to expressyourself you need to be able to like ifyou do something like likewhere you also have to be on videos andthat sort of stuff really be like notafraid of likerecording videos talking in public but yeah you shouldumyou should be able to communicate wellbut you should also have a strongtechnical background not as strong aslike a senior developer but you shouldalways have enough knowledge to be ableto talk with people about stuff whateverwhatever it's they are doing so you haveto stay uh up to date with whatevertechnology it is you are surrounded withlike for example for me it's a littlebit more front-end um or it was when I was at Vista formore front-end stuff and like that sortof things but if yeah I mean if you areif you want to becomedevil for like let's say gaming companyyou should be up to date with all thenewest engines and everything shouldalways just be up to date with that youdon't have to be an expert you don'thave to be good enough to code like anapp from one second to the other likenot that deep but you should be great atcommunicating you should be like that's basically like be ready communicatingand know enough that you can discussthat you get into discussionsthis is probably more which now from thetop of my head I can't think think aboutbut maybe those two things are the mostpredominant yeah I I also agree thatthose look like the most important onesbecauseumwhile I know that there are some peoplewho who say thatumDevils don't have to have this uh strongtechnical background I kind of don't agree with this because yeah I meanapart maybe from those roles that aremore about the community building andeverything uh in those case maybe thistechnical knowledge isn't that requiredyeah but still you always should havesome sort of notion of what's going onright and you have to be able to tolevel with someone that talks aboutsomething a little bit more advanced youdon't need to understand all the detailsbut you have should have a strong understanding of it and yes I would saytechnical knowledge maybe not like superstrong it doesn't have to be extremelystrong but you should have a goodtechnical knowledge I would say likehaving zero technical knowledgecould get your job as several but Ithink it wouldn't be very effective oneI think thatgoing back to one of the first thingthat you mentioned uh that developerswould quickly go through this kind of layer of just like that yeahbecause really developers are reallyhorrible when it comes to this yeah theydevelopers are the worst they are theworst really I like recruiting myselfrighthow I work as a developer for so longbut yeah really we uhwe are super critical to talk abouteverything yeah we we questioneverything I think it's in the nature of like what we do as developers wequestion everything because maybe thisis the bug maybe this is the bug andthen you sort of translate that like umalways crushing everything that have itinto everything so okay so they want tosell me this platformhow long are they on the market whichTechnologies they even used behind thescenes how is it how do the docs looklike will I have issues finding likesomeone that helps me with this and thenvery quickly you're like okay so theydon't know what they're talking aboutnext it's very like developers including myself very harsh withlike anything so it's difficult to sellto developers that's why we need theaverage right because it's it's veryhard to sellonto Developersyeah yeah I I totally agree andumand what can I tell when it comes tocritical developers uh I'm I'm I'm fromPoland and but Polish people arecritical out in their nature so polish developer it's likehorrible horrible thingyeah but uh yeah I think that we reallytalked a lot a lot about uh aboutDeborah and we really touch on the mostuh important things and uh tell me isthere a thing in devrel that annoys youor you would like to change it whatever itselfit's probably always the the things thatI stumbled upon is wheremarketing or in general the companydoesn't understand what devil issupposed to be so then there it's whereit's get frustrated so you know how youwould communicate this and then peopletell you no this is notum professional enough and then you aresort ofnot likeYeah you sort of feel like you you're not hurt right so I think like thisbridge between marketingand devrel which not always but often isan issue I think that's something thatI I wouldn't say like to change itbecause how would you change it rightbut to sort of that that would be like apain point that and that very often alsonot always devrels don't get to code ornot to code as muchas like developers so like it'sbasically like a lot of communication and often not a lot of coding or even inmy case no coding at all which is alittle bit of a bummer because I lovecodingI I'm the lucky one that I at least cancreate a demo world too yeah okay that'sthat's good and yeah and this is thecool part of being a devil that I can gofrom one technology to another and uhand just check it out I don't have to Deep dive into into everything but yeahso umso I think that we've really covered uhcovered a lot of it uh Mark I reallywant to thank you thank you very muchfor uh for for sharing everythinguh yeah I think that you really made alot of interesting points and I reallythink that I will have to share thisvideo uh with uh with with my marketingtoo because of course you really covered uh a lot of those questions that uh thatvery often marketing has about what'sthe difference[Music]so yeah it's it's it's it's really it'sreally important toto know the difference to know how tocoexistand what mistakes not to do because it'salso something uh yeah that we shouldjust avoid so Mark uh thank you thank you so much for uh for for being hereand uh I hope that uh well you have thegreatest great rest of your day andprobably one or two coffees more rightbefore for yourself maybe so thanks aton my check for having me it's beenlike fantastic being here and yeahthanks everyone for watching it's beenlike if if you like this just if ndf yeah I forgot about this if you havemore questions hit me up can we like inthe description later put some sort ofuh the link to my socials if you haveany oh it is it it is already there butI will I willthen if any more questions just justsend me uh mostly on Twitter I'm activeso there if you send me there I'm mostlikely to respondso uh if you have any more questions hitme up and yeah thanks again my check and have an amazing dayhave a great day bye everyone bye, What Is DevRel With Marc Backes, The Code and Coffee Show, 01h2bfgyxjm8zf7f8ry11xeyj9.