🌱 Growing in Developer Relations

Being a developer advocate is a lot of fun. You may even consider it your "dream job." Yet no one tells you just how much stuff there is to do. At any given time, you could be:

• Writing a blog post
• Answering questions on X/Twitter, Slack, Discord, or various Discourse forums
• Making videos or streaming
• Figuring out how to integrate your product with X language or Y framework
• Building and improving community programs
• Collaborating with other companies on content
• Building a talk
• Applying to events
• Giving a talk (whether in person or online)
• Appearing on a podcast
• Working with other teams in the company (like the SDK team or product marketing teams) to provide developer feedback and improve the product

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I'm getting dizzy just thinking about it! 😵‍💫

When I was a developer advocate, I felt like someone could wake me up in the middle of the night and my first response would be to start typing at an invisible computer or presenting to an invisible audience.

Dev advocacy is busy. Worse, you're often isolated -- either because you're the only dev advocate, or you're a solo DevRel leader, or because you're the only person working in your technical specialty.

At the same time, DevRel is notoriously difficult to measure. How do you know whether the work you're doing is making a meaningful impact on your company and your community? How should you prioritize all of those different possible activities? Equally important, how do you know when to say no?

Too much potential work, too many competing priorities, isolation, and ambiguous success metrics? That's the perfect recipe for burnout.

As I've grown as a DevRel manager and director, I've realize how little instructional content there is about how to be a great developer advocate. Sure, there are many great resources about what Developer Relations is, how to get into it (I did write a book about it, after all), and how to build community, but very few good sources of information about how to be good at the job and how to grow your career in developer advocacy.

🌱 Introducing Growing in Developer Relations

Enter my new course Growing in Developer Relations. It's the sequel to my book Getting Started in Developer Relations, and it answers the question: "How can I go beyond technical content and speaking to become a high impact DevRel leader?" Whether you want to stick to being an individual contributor or start moving towards management, this course will teach you:

• How to navigate the evolving landscape of Developer Relations
• How to make the leap from solid executor to strategic leader (whether as an IC or a manager)
• The keys to growing your career in Developer Relations
• How to determine the most effective metrics for your work to demonstrate your impact -- and get it seen by the leaders in your company that matter
• How to prioritize and plan your DevRel work
• How build systems to keep you making consistent progress while preventing burnout

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This course will consist of multiple modules of high-value videos, as well as worksheets and templates to help you implement the material. I'm also considering making this a cohort-based course with a private community -- let me know if this is interesting to you.

This is the course I wish I had both as a developer advocate and as a new DevRel manager.

Nice to meet you!

I'm Sam Julien. I started my career in financial services, sales, and marketing, then became a full stack developer working in C# and JavaScript. From there, I became a content engineer at Auth0, starting a journey that would lead me to becoming a developer advocate, a DevRel manager, and eventually a Director of Developer Advocacy. I've worked every corner of Developer Relations, from creating content and speaking to building teams, leading organizations, overseeing developer channels and programs, managing budgets, and more. I also wrote the book Getting Started in Developer Relations, which has allowed me to get to know and learn from current and future developer advocates all over the world. I love helping people at every level navigatehttps://twitter.com/samjulien the complex and exciting field of Developer Relations.

What's Next

Right now, this course is currently in development. The course outline is pretty close to complete, and then I'll start producing the videos and accompanying assets. I'll be sharing my #BuildInPublic journey on X/Twitter and LinkedIn, so follow along if you want to see my process.

In the meantime, sign up for the waitlist below. You'll get updates on the course progress, sneak peeks, and the opportunity to be the first to go through it and give feedback. In the meantime, I'll send you a 5-day email course to help you maximize your impact and prevent burnout. You'll learn:

• The key contributing factors to burnout in DevRel
• How to understand, determine, and prioritize your key metrics
• How to say no to projects that don't move the needle on your key metrics
• How to ship consistently in order to connect the dots between awareness, engagement, and adoption
• How to build a feedback loop while reporting on your progress

I'm also considering making this a cohort-based course with a private community. If that interests you, let me know when you sign up.

I'm looking forward to going on this adventure with you! 🎉