Developer Relations Hiring for Startups: Building Your DevRel Function

# Developer Relations Hiring for Startups: Building Your DevRel Function

For developer-focused products, DevRel can be a powerful growth engine. But building an effective DevRel function requires hiring the right people with the right skills at the right time.

What DevRel Actually Does

### Core Functions - Technical content creation (docs, tutorials, blog posts) - Community building and management - Conference speaking and representation - Developer feedback to product team - Technical support and education

### Not DevRel - Pure marketing (though there's overlap) - Customer success (though there's overlap) - Sales (definitely not)

When to Hire DevRel

### Ready for DevRel - Developer product with working beta - Early community forming organically - Developers asking questions somewhere - Need for documentation and education - Founder bandwidth maxed on community

### Not Ready - Pre-product or pre-beta - No developers using the product yet - Product not targeted at developers - Expecting DevRel to generate leads immediately

The First DevRel Hire

### What to Look For - Technical credibility (can code, understands developers) - Communication skills (writing, speaking, video) - Community instincts (genuine desire to help people) - Content creation experience - Authentic passion for developer experience

### Where to Find Them - Technical bloggers and content creators - Conference speakers - Open source contributors - Technical support or solutions engineers - Engineers who love teaching

Types of DevRel Roles

### Developer Advocate Focus: External community, speaking, content Best for: Building awareness and community

### Developer Experience Engineer Focus: Docs, SDKs, sample apps Best for: Improving the product experience

### Community Manager Focus: Forums, Discord, user groups Best for: Scaling community engagement

### DevRel Manager/Lead Focus: Strategy, team building Best for: When you have 3+ DevRel people

Interview Process

### Technical Assessment - Review their existing content - Ask them to explain a technical concept - Discuss their approach to learning new technologies - Test their ability to simplify complexity

### Communication Skills - Written exercise (blog post or tutorial) - Mock presentation or explanation - Community interaction scenarios

### Cultural Fit - Why DevRel vs. engineering or marketing? - How do they measure success? - How do they handle negative feedback?

The Bottom Line

Great DevRel hires are rare—they need to be technical enough for credibility, communicative enough for education, and passionate enough to genuinely care about developers. Take your time finding the right person.