10TH ANNUAL SURVEY REPORT
State of DevRel
Report 2023
ADMINISTERED BY
Age
The largest cluster of age groups is 35 to 44 (36.4%).
When viewed over a five year range, the ‘average’ age of respondents is trending up, with over 65% of this year’s respondents being above 35 years old, as compared with just above 50% in 2018.
Q2. WHAT IS YOUR AGE?
When compared to Stack Overflow’s 2023 Survey of the general developer population, DevRel has fewer respondents between 18-35 years old, 34.8% vs 57.3%.
Gender Identity
Those identifying as female increased from 27.9% to 32.1%, with a corresponding drop off in male-identifying respondents from 65.6% to 62.5%.
DevRel has a much higher representation of female identifying respondents, at 32.1%, compared to just 5.1% in the general developer population as per the Stack Overflow '22 Developers Survey.
GENDER IDENTITY OVER TIME.
While the percentage of female respondents fluctuates in some years, there is an uptrend over the past 5 years from 20.5% in 2018 to 32.1% in 2023.
Q3. TO WHICH GENDER IDENTITY DO YOU MOST IDENTIFY?
Underrepresented Communities
43.2% of respondents belong to underrepresented communities. Of those, 23.2% of respondents identify as neurodivergent, similar to the general developer population as per Stack Overflow’s 2023 Developer Survey. The LGBTQ+ community is 9.5%, BIPOC is 7.9% and those with a Physical Disability is 2.6%.
Q4. DO YOU BELONG TO ANY OF THESE UNDERREPRESENTED COMMUNITIES?
Employment
Similar to previous years, most of our respondents (93.5%) work for Companies.
Perhaps owing to the economic and employment changes, especially in the Technology sector, 15.1% of respondents indicated they were Laid Off during the past year (the first time we asked this question).
Those who are Independent or Freelancers increased by 3.2%, to 10.2%.
A smaller portion work for other types of organizations, including 10.2% who are Independent or Freelancers, 3.8% who work in Not-for-profit, Government or Academia, and 1.9% for Agencies or Consulting companies. Parental or Medical leave was taken by 2.7%.
Q1. DURING THE PAST 12 MONTHS, WHERE DID YOU WORK AS A DEVELOPER RELATIONS PROFESSIONAL? (CHOOSE ALL THAT APPLY)
Years in DevRel
Similar to 2022, 2-5 years of DevRel experience (39.9%) remained the largest cluster. Those with 6-10 years of DevRel experience (29.5%) are up from last year’s 23.7%. Those with 11-15 years of DevRel experience have grown from 7% to almost 11%, while those with 21+ years of DevRel experience have doubled to 3.8%.
100% of respondents from Latin America, China and India have 0-5 years of DevRel experience.
In contrast, California and the Bay Area had over 50% of respondents with 6-15 years of DevRel experience and over 20% of respondents with 16+ years of DevRel experience.
Q5. HOW MANY YEARS OF EXPERIENCE DO YOU HAVE IN DEVELOPER RELATIONS?
The Years in DevRel correlate with the higher average age observed, and indicate that DevRel professionals are older and becoming a more experienced cohort. It appears that those with lower levels of experience are not being replaced at the same rate.
Technical Education
This year, a majority of respondents (77%) have some form of technical education or training. Of those, 61% have a degree from a higher education institution, 9% had technical certifications, and 7% had coding bootcamp experience.
23% indicated having none of the above, further suggesting that DevRel has a largely technical makeup but there is room for people from varying backgrounds.
Q11. DO YOU HAVE FORMAL TECHNICAL EDUCATION RELATED TO TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING, OR COMPUTER SCIENCE?
Learning Resources
Learning how to be a DevRel professional continues to happen primarily through informal methods.
“On the job” remains the largest source of learning. Interestingly, the category increased from 62.3% in 2022 to 86.6% in 2023, but had a high of 95% in 2018, aligning with COVID years.
Peers (63.7%) and Blogs (51.4%) were the next two most chosen learning resources.
Q12. WHICH RESOURCES HAVE BEEN MOST EFFECTIVE IN HELPING YOU LEARN TO BE A DEVELOPER RELATIONS PROFESSIONAL? (CHOOSE YOUR TOP 3)?
Job Activities
What do DevRel practioners do? As with last year, Content Development was the top job activity for DevRel in 2023.
This year we expanded the range of Content Development to better track the varying types. Now the results show Content Development related to Education leads at 55%, followed by Content Development - Technical, such as documentation, at 50%.
In line with 2022, Advocacy was in the Top 3, with over 46% saying it was one of their primary job activities.
Developer Experience is a new Top 10 entrant in 2023, with over a third (37.8%) of respondents choosing it as a top activity.
Q13. WHICH OF THESE ACTIVITIES DO YOU SPEND THE MOST TIME ON AT YOUR MORE RECENT DEVREL ROLE? (CHOOSE YOUR TOP 5)?
Top Activity By Role Level
When we look at Job Activity by role, we can see that creating Developer Education is a significant function.
Individual Contributors at all levels picked Content Development - Education (including workshops, videos, tutorials, etc.) as the top activity where they spend the most time.
As individuals take on senior and management roles, strategy, planning and managing their programs and teams is where most time is spent.
Q13. WHICH OF THESE ACTIVITIES DO YOU SPEND THE MOST TIME ON AT YOUR MORE RECENT DEVREL ROLE?
Remote Work
93% of respondents indicated working remotely a majority of the time, similar to 2022 but up from 73% in 2021.
This may indicate that remote work post-Covid is here to stay in DevRel.
Q13. WHAT PERCENTAGE OF YOUR TIME DO YOU WORK REMOTELY IN YOUR MOST RECENT DEVREL ROLE? (NOT INCLUDING REGULAR TRAVEL FOR WORK)?
In this 2023 DevRel report and in line with the Common Room 2023 Compensation report, respondents indicate challenges and angst with respect and credibility for the role of DevRel, awareness of the practices and other similiar sentiments. Would less remote work allow individuals to engage in important company discussions to elevate those challenges?
Seniority
While the overall makeup remains largely similar, new categories introduced this year include Vice President, Director and Manager, which comprise over 36% of respondents. Adding C-level to this group, 37.7% of respondents are at Manager level or above.
The Senior level - Individual Contributor remains the most represented category at 30.6%, while Entry level - Individual Contributor remains similar at 6.6%.
Q6. WHAT LEVEL IS YOUR MOST RECENT DEVREL ROLE CONSIDERED IN YOUR ORGANIZATION?
Top Job Titles Prior to DevRel
Respondents largely indicated having technical backgrounds prior to entering DevRel, with 57.9% of previous roles in Engineering (41.6%) or Development (16.3%), the top 2 categories.
Some interesting and unique backgrounds prior to DevRel include Principle Cloud Economist, Senior Reporter, and Livestream Host, indicating there is room in DevRel for people of varying backgrounds.
Q7. WHAT WAS YOUR JOB TITLE IMMEDIATELY PRIOR TO HAVING A DEVREL ROLE?
Current Job Titles
Of the current job titles, Developer Advocates at various levels, were by far the most frequent at 42.8%.
But DevRel is not just the purview of Advocates. As DevRel gains more scope in roles, we see 43% of roles include 'Developer Relations' in the title.
Q8. WHAT IS YOUR MOST RECENT DEVELOPER RELATIONS JOB TITLE?
DEMOGRAPHICS
THE PEOPLE /
EXPERIENCE
THE PEOPLE /
ROLES
THE PEOPLE /
The People
The People of Developer Relations are increasingly diverse in terms of age, experience, job titles, roles, and where they are based. The majority have some form of technical education or training.
Aditya
Oberai
Ivan
Burazin
James
Parton
Tessa
Kriesel
Katie
Miller
Swapnil
M Mane
Kamran
Ayub
Jonathan
LeBlanc
Marcos
Placona
Wesley
Faulkner
Sangeeta
Gupta
Stacey S Kruczek
Lorna
Mitchell
Dana
Fujikawa
Working Group & Team
Thanks to all of the people who contributed to this report. They reviewed the survey, provided critical analysis, asked why this and why not that, added new questions, crunched the numbers, edited the report, promoted the survey, and designed the final result.
About This Report
Welcome to our 10th Annual State of Developer Relations report. It's our most extensive yet.
To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the report, we made some changes. First, the report is fully online and interactive for the first time. This is thanks to WIX Studio, who approached us with an idea to elevate the report. We hope you are as impressed as we are!
Second, for the first time, we have sponsors, namely WIX Studio, Common Room, Slack, and Orbit. Collaborating with them allows us to continue producing this report for the benefit of the Developer Relations community.
If you have a developer product or service, a Developer-Led growth motion is the strategic choice. Developers influence at least two-thirds of the decision to buy your product. Can you afford to neglect two-thirds of your market? Use this report to benchmark your activities and identify ways to strengthen and grow your Developer Program.
Everyone will zero in on data points important to them. It might be about the People, the Companies, the Program, the Strategies and Challenges, or about the Practice of DevRel itself. We look forward to hearing your insights.
Many challenges were felt by the DevRel community this year, especially in light of the economic downturn. However, overall, we see positive growth in a practice that is maturing as shown by the breadth of roles and Developer Relations job titles and the growing alignment to company metrics. But there is still work to do to elevate the credibility and recognition of this practice. As a group of individuals, aligned on the benefits of community, we should be able to come together to agree on shared practices and measurement.
We are grateful to everyone that made this survey possible - Our Working Group, Team, Channel supporters, Sponsors, and to our survey respondents - your participation helps make the entire DevRel community more cohesive. Let's go and provide impact together!
CAROLINE LEWKO
The Annual DevRel Survey and the subsequent State of Developer Relations report is administered by DevRel.Agency and continues to be stewarded by Caroline Lewko.
Outcomes and insights from previous surveys can be found here.
Comments or inquiries can be directed to hello@devrel.agency
Summary of the 2023 Survey Data
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SM Estimated Time to Complete (Preview Stage) - 23 Minutes
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Actual Completion Rate - 82%
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Actual Time to Complete - 14 Minutes
This survey was live between ( July 7 to August 1, 2023)
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Total Respondents - 186
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Total Questions - 51
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SM Estimated Completion Rate (Preview Stage) - 71%
Salaries & Compensation
$175,000 is the median base salary, and $167,088 is the average base salary. Base salaries ranged from $10K to $400K.
Compared to 2022, both median and average base salaries increased by over 10%.
$200,121 is the median total compensation, including bonuses and perks, a rise from the median in ‘22 of approximately $180K.
$58,006 is the average value of bonuses, RSUs and perks, representing a 34.7% increase from the base salary.
Standard Deviation of total compensation sits at $138,040, twice the standard deviation of base salary, indicating that most respondents do not earn a significant bonus. The maximum increase in base salary when including bonuses, stock options and RSUs is 158% and minimum bonus is just over 1%.
27.2% of respondents reported receiving no bonus or it was not applicable to them. Only 115 respondents reported increased salaries including bonuses and RSUs, out of 158 respondents for Base Salary.
Q9. WHAT IS YOUR MOST CURRENT ANNUAL BASE SALARY IN USD BEFORE TAXES, BONUSES, STOCK OPTIONS, AND OTHER PERKS?
Q10. WHAT IS YOUR MOST CURRENT ANNUAL COMPENSATION PACKAGE IN USD BEFORE TAXES BUT INCLUDING STOCK OPTIONS, RSUS, OTHER FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS, OR PERKS?
Gender Identity vs. Base Salary (USD)
Average and median base salaries were higher for female than male respondents, and highest for non-binary respondents likely due to smaller sample size and location.
Q9. WHAT IS YOUR MOST CURRENT ANNUAL BASE SALARY IN USD BEFORE TAXES, BONUSES, STOCK OPTIONS, AND OTHER PERKS?
Total Compensation Over Time
Average total compensation hovered around $125K in 3 of the last 6 years. More recently, from 2021 to 2023, average total compensation spiked from $160K in 2021 to over $225K in 2023.
Note: All amounts are in USD. 2018-2020 data are estimated from the most frequent salary ranges.
Q10. WHAT IS YOUR MOST CURRENT ANNUAL COMPENSATION PACKAGE IN USD BEFORE TAXES BUT INCLUDING STOCK OPTIONS, RSUS, OTHER FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS, OR PERKS?
Where DevRel People Live vs. Company Headquarters vs. Average Base Salary
The percentage of companies headquartered in the US is up from 2022 at ~ 69%. Similarly, the US companies specifically headquartered in Silicon Valley increased from 31.3% to 36%.
Despite the US and Silicon Valley hosting a large percentage of companies, the people of DevRel are underrepresented in these areas in comparison, with only 51.4% in the US and 10.6% in Silicon Valley.
Silicon Valley is the only region with significantly more companies than people.
Q10. WHAT IS YOUR MOST CURRENT ANNUAL COMPENSATION PACKAGE IN USD BEFORE TAXES BUT INCLUDING STOCK OPTIONS, RSUS, OTHER FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS, OR PERKS?
SALARIES & COMPENSATION
Salaries
& Compensation
Developer Relations is a comprehensive, and cross functional role, and we see that DevRel professionals are mostly being compensated for the skillset required. Compensation for Developer Relations practioners continues to rise.
Company Size
The percentage of respondents from small companies
(< 201 employees) leaped up from 31.7% to 53.1%.
Conversely, those from large companies (1001+ employees) are down from 45.3% last year to 31% this year.
Medium sized companies (201-1000 employees) are also down from last year, at 15.8% compared to 22.2%.
Q16. APPROXIMATELY, HOW MANY FULL-TIME EMPLOYEES WORK FOR YOUR COMPANY OR ORGANIZATION IN YOUR MOST RECENT DEVREL ROLE?
Industries & Business Models
Software as a Service or SAAS is the top vertical for over a third of respondents (38.3%), while Developer Tools was chosen by over 30%.
Cloud Infrastructure, a new category, came in 4th with 18.3%.
The majority of DevRel organizations are in technical verticals, which may be a reason that the majority of respondents' reporting havingTechnical Education and Technical Experience prior to DevRel.
Q18. WHICH OF THESE VERTICALS BEST REPRESENTS YOUR COMPANY OR ORGANIZATION?
Company Type - Developer Focus
An encouraging indicator of growth of the DevRel model is the steady increase in Developer First companies since 2020, almost doubling from 32.2% in 2020 to nearly 62% in 2023.
Q19. ARE DEVELOPERS THE PRIMARY USER OF YOUR COMPANY'S PRODUCT OR SERVICE?
Developer First (Dev 1st): A company’s primary customers are developers, in a Developer-Led Growth Strategy or B2D.
Developer Plus (Dev +): A company’s primary customers are a B2B or B2C motion, but also have products for developers as a secondary strategy.
Company Type - Developer First vs. Developer Plus
Respondents from Developer First companies most frequently had a larger developer community size (5K-10K) than Developer Plus companies (1K-5K).
While the developer program Age was similar (1-2 years), more Developer First companies reported to Marketing (35%), while Developer Plus companies reported to Product at a higher rate (31.3%).
Over twice as many Developer First companies report to the CEO (19.4%), as opposed to 7.8% for Developer Plus companies.
Q19. ARE DEVELOPERS THE PRIMARY USER OF YOUR COMPANY'S PRODUCT OR SERVICE?
THE COMPANIES
The Companies of
Developer Relations
A B2D or Business to Developer approach is where companies have developers as users of its product or service. We see both Developer First and Developer Plus in this model.
Scope of Developer Relations in a Company
A third (33%) of respondents indicated they have more than one team providing DevRel activities within their organization.
16.9% of Small companies (< 200 employees), 38.5% of Medium companies (201 - 1000 employees), and 56.5% of Large companies (> 1000 employees) have more than one team in their company dedicated to DevRel.
Q20. DOES YOUR COMPANY OR ORGANIZATION HAVE MORE THAN ONE TEAM PROVIDING DEVREL ACTIVITIES?
7.7% of teams only work with their internal developers, and 29.8% of teams work with external and internal developers.
Q21. WHICH TYPE OF DEVELOPERS DOES YOUR DEVELOPER PROGRAM SUPPORT? (CHOOSE ALL THAT APPLY.)
Scope of Developer Relations by Company Size
Small (< 201) and Medium (201-1000) companies most frequently have 2-5 employees in their DevRel teams, under 5000 people in their developer communities, and report to Marketing, while Large (1001+) companies most often have 11-25 employees in their DevRel teams, report to Product and boast over 2 million members in their developer communities.
DevRel teams in Small companies seemed more resilient to the economic turbulence of the past year with no change (29.6%) in annual budget and hiring more team members (38.2%). In contrast, over 50% of Medium and Large companies saw their annual budgets decrease. DevRel teams in Large companies lost staff due to layoffs (43.4%), while those in Medium companies most frequently stayed the same (38.5%).
On the flipside, larger companies had a more clear career path for DevRel. Only 20.5% of respondents from Small companies felt there was a defined career path for DevRel, while 34.6% from Medium and 54.7% from Large companies felt the same.
Q21. WHICH TYPE OF DEVELOPERS DOES YOUR DEVELOPER PROGRAM SUPPORT? (CHOOSE ALL THAT APPLY)
Reporting Structure
Almost a third (31%) of respondents indicated that their team reports to Marketing, a steady trend since we started these surveys.
23.2% indicated that they report to the C-level (CEO and CTO offices), similar to 2022.
Q22. WHICH DEPARTMENT(S) DOES YOUR DEVREL TEAM FORMALLY REPORT TO?
Program Age
DevRel programs that are Less than 1 year dropped from 29.3% in 2022 to 17.3%.
6 - 10 year old programs increased from 13.6% to 18.5%.
Programs with 16+ years remain similar to other years' results.
Comparing the trend of the previous 5 years, between programs that have 10+ years versus companies that have 1-2 years, reveals a sharp drop off in older companies since 2021, from 20.8% to only 8.4% currently.
Q23. HOW OLD IS YOUR CURRENT DEVELOPER PROGRAM? (YEARS)?
Does this indicate that newer programs are being developed at a faster rate? If so, it's an encouraging sign for DevRel as a practice. What do you think?
Comparing the trend of the previous 5 years, between programs that have 10+ years versus companies that have 1-2 years, reveals a sharp drop off in older companies since 2021, from 20.8% to only 8.4% currently.
Program/Team Size
2-5 employees remains the largest grouping of team size at (39.3%), similar to 2022, indicating that many DevRel teams are relatively small.
Within this grouping, 27.3% of respondents have multiple DevRel teams in their company.
47% of programs with 2-5 employees are 1-2 years old, and over half of them (50.8%) support 2-5 products.
Q24. HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE IN YOUR ORGANIZATION'S DEVREL TEAM INCLUDING FULL-TIME AND CONTRACT ROLES?
The number of products supported, as well as community size, increases with the size of the team.
Hiring & Layoffs
A similar number of teams hired more members (34%) as those that lost staff to layoffs (32%).
A third of teams (30%) remained the same, which indicates some relative stability in DevRel as a growing discipline despite exposure to a recently volatile Tech industry.
This is a new question introduced in 2023.
Q25. OVER THE PAST YEAR DID YOUR DEVREL TEAM:
-
LOSE STAFF DUE TO LAYOFFS
-
STAYED THE SAME
-
WE HIRED MORE TEAM MEMBERS
-
NA
Program Budget
Compared to 2022, programs with a budget under $100K increased from 28.3% to 36.7%, while those with a budget over $1M reduced from 9.2% to 6%.
40.4% of respondents indicated having no formal budget including, 14.5% with No set budget and 25.9% who are Not sure about their budget.
Individual contributors make up a majority (81%) of respondents that are Not sure about their budget, while Managers comprise 11.9%.
Small (0-200 employees), Medium (201-1000) and Large (1000+) companies have similar median budget ranges ($100K-$500K).
The most common budget range is highest for Large companies, at $100K - $500K. The most common budget range for Medium companies at Under $10K was smaller than that for Small companies at $10-$50K.
Q30. WHAT IS THE ANNUAL BUDGET OF YOUR DEVELOPER PROGRAM, NOT INCLUDING STAFF SALARIES?
Program Budget Changes
Over a third, or 37%, of teams saw their budgets decreased. Almost a quarter, or 23%, reported no change, while only 16% saw budgets increase.
24% of respondents do not know the status of their budget or it is not applicable to them.
Q31. OVER THE PAST 12 MONTHS, DID YOUR DEVREL BUDGET:
-
INCREASE
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NO CHANGE
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DECREASE
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NA
Headcounts
Respondents aren't nearly as optimistic about growing headcounts as they were last year, with only 37% saying they expect to Grow headcount versus almost 65% last year.
7% of respondents now expect their headcount to Shrink as compared with 3.5% last year.
However, a much larger 40% believe that headcount will Remain the same, as opposed to only 22.7% last year.
Overall, there is a marked drop in optimism around hiring and retention in the next 12 months.
Q33. IN THE NEXT 12 MONTHS, DO YOU EXPECT YOUR DEVELOPER PROGRAM HEADCOUNT TO:
-
GROW
-
SHRINK
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REMAIN THE SAME
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NO IDEA
-
N/A
Developer Community
Communities with 1000-5000 developers is up to 16.3% from 13% in 2022.
Those with 5001 to 10000 developers is also up from 9.6% in 2022 to 12.65%.
Overall, there is a large range of developer community sizes, from less than 100 to over 2 million.
The median size of Developer Community is 7,500.
Q26. HOW LARGE IS YOUR DEVELOPER COMMUNITY? (USE YOUR DEFINITION/MEASUREMENT OF COMMUNITY.)
Who is a Community Member?
Developer community members (those on Stack Overflow, GitHub, etc.) continue to be the largest cluster (72.9%) of who is considered a Community Member.
Most of the categories remain constant over time. However, Social Media followers fell from 50% in 2022 to 40%, Forum Users jumped from 50% in 2022 to 62%, and Ambassadors or Champions went up from 40.4% in 2022 to 53%.
Q27. WHO DO YOU CONSIDER TO BE PART OF YOUR DEVELOPER COMMUNITY? (CHOOSE ALL THAT APPLY)
Defining Active Developer Community
35.1% is the average percentage of community that respondents consider active.
Over half of respondents (52.5%) consider those that take action in a repository such as GitHub to be an active part of their Developer Community.
The remaining top 5 activities that define active are:
Knowledge sharing on Reddit / Stack Overflow, Content creation including blogs and videos, Product ssage, and Discord / Slack / Community Chat posts.
Q28. WHAT PERCENTAGE OF YOUR COMMUNITY WOULD YOU CONSIDER ACTIVE? (USE YOUR DEFINITION/MEASUREMENT OF ACTIVE.)
Q29. HOW DO YOU DEFINE 'ACTIVE' COMMUNITY MEMBERS? CHOOSE YOUR TOP 3.
Products Supported by DevRel Programs
As with 2022, most DevRel teams support between 2 and 5 products (36%).
2.4% of programs support over 100 products, while almost 8% support a single product.
This year's cohort knows more about their product offerings, with only 4.3% responding that they don't know vs over 10% last year.
Q32. HOW MANY DISTINCT PRODUCTS DOES YOUR DEVREL PROGRAM SUPPORT ? (I.E., TOOLING, PLATFORMS, SDKS, HDKS, APIS, ETC. THAT EACH HAVE THEIR OWN NAME AND REQUIRE DOCUMENTATION, SUPPORT, MARKETING ETC.)
Career Path
Quite similar to last several year, about a third (34%) of respondents felt that there is a defined career path in DevRel at their organization.
Over half (54%) feel that there isn't.
Q34. IS THERE A DEFINED CAREER PATH FOR DEVREL IN YOUR ORGANIZATION?
PROGRAMS
Developer Relations programs exist in different forms, and vary in their reporting structure. Some companies have more than more than one team delivering DevRel functions.
The Programs
of Developer Relations
Purpose of Program
Similar to 2022, over 85% of respondents said that Driving Awareness and Adoption of products is the main purpose of their program.
Educating and supporting developers remains high at 79.9%.
Those who chose To Drive Sales and grow our pipeline increased from 28.3% in 2022 to 35.7% .
Overall, the top 5 choices remained consistent from last year.
Q35. WHAT IS THE MAIN PURPOSE OF YOUR DEVELOPER PROGRAM? (CHOOSE ALL THAT APPLY)
As DevRel programs mature, attaching to their company's sales in some way, becomes an accepted imperative.
Top Challenges
Content creation, in particular, Technical content creation (44.8%) is the top challenge. Attracting new developers (41.6%), and Engaging / retaining developers (39%), remain in the top 3 challenges faced by most programs.
Limitations with product(s) is up to 31.8% from 18.6% last year, a significant increase.
Insufficient budget has doubled from last year's last year's 15.8%, another possible reflection of the difficult economic situation of the past year. This is also in line with our findings that more programs have less than $100K budget while fewer programs have over $1M compared with 2022.
Q36. WHAT ARE THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES FOR YOUR DEVELOPER PROGRAM? (SHARE YOUR TOP 5)
Top Outreach Tactics
The overall trend is very similar to 2022. Content Marketing, such as blog posts and case studies, remains the most effective tactic for Outreach to new developers at 55.3%.
Partnerships, for reasons such as technology/ integration, support or channels, took over from Social Media to enter the top 5 this year, increasing from 16% to 22%.
Notably, Webinars are up from 10% in 2022 to 16% this year, while Direct outreach decreaed by almost half.
Q37. WHICH OF THESE TACTICS HAVE BEEN MOST EFFECTIVE FOR YOUR OUTREACH TO NEW DEVELOPERS? (CHOOSE YOUR TOP 3)
Effective Online Channels for Community Communication
Twitter is dethroned from 2022, down from 65% to 39%.
Company website takes over the top spot and with an increase from 45% to 50.7%. It's followed by GitHub (44.5%) and LinkedIn (43.2%),
YouTube, which has climbed over the last several years, remains in the top 5, with 40.4% choosing it as their most effective channel. Followed closely behind by Slack at 39%.
Notably, Discord shows a steady uptrend since 2020, growing from just 8% then to 22.6% now.
A new entrant this year is Mastodon, mentioned by 3.4% of respondents as an effective online channel.
Q38. WHICH OF THESE ONLINE CHANNELS HAVE BEEN THE MOST EFFECTIVE IN REACHING AND COMMUNICATING WITH YOUR DEVELOPER COMMUNITY? (CHOOSE YOUR TOP 5)
Most Valuable Tools
Popular forum and messaging tool, Slack (16.7%), retained the top spot as the most valuable tool to manage DevRel programs and communities in 2023. GitHub remained in second position with over 9% of all mentions.
Mentions of community tools such as Orbit (7.1%) and Common Room (5.4%) are also up from 2022, and in the Top 4 of most valuable tools.
Discord (4.6%) gained 3 spots this year, which correlates with it's increased use for Outreach.
Twitter dropped from 3rd to 12th place with only 1.7% mentions as opposed to 4.5% in 2022.
Q39. NAME THE FIVE MOST VALUABLE TOOLS OR APPLICATIONS YOU USE TO MANAGE YOUR PROGRAM AND COMMUNITY.
Developer Experience (DX)
This question was posed to gauge how actively developer programs worked to improve Developer Experience, a key component of Developer Relations.
Developer Journey Maps and friction logs are valuable tools to understanding and addressing the pain points in a developer's experience.
Twice as many respondents as last year (44%) answered that they "Never" audit their developer experience or review developer journey maps.
Only 1% said "Monthly" as opposed to about 12.4% last year.
Q40. HOW OFTEN DOES YOUR DEVELOPER PROGRAM CONDUCT DEVELOPER EXPERIENCE AUDITS AND REVIEW DEVELOPER JOURNEY MAPS OF YOUR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES?
The definition of Developer Experience or DX has not been solidified in the world of Developer Relations. Additionally, there are also references to 'external' DevRel, referring to that practiced in Developer Relations, where developers are users and customers of a product vs 'internal' DevRel referring to supporting developers as employees within a company.
Documentation
81% of respondents rated their company's resources for creating and maintaining documentation at 3 or above (at least average) .
8.5% feel that their company’s resources for documentation are poor and insufficient. However, a larger 13.4% feel that their company's efforts are excellent, an encouraging sign that more organizations are taking documentation seriously.
This new question, asked for the first time in 2023, will be interesting to track over time since documentation is central to DevRel programs.
Q41. MOST DEVELOPER RESEARCH POINTS TO DOCUMENTATION BEING THE MOST SIGNIFICANT FACTOR FOR DEVELOPERS DECIDING TO USE A TOOL. ON A SCALE OF 1 TO 5, 5 BEING EXCELLENT AND 1 BEING POOR, DOES YOUR COMPANY PUT ENOUGH RESOURCES INTO CREATING AND MAINTAINING YOUR DOCUMENTATION?
Tools used for Documentation
Another new question this year, GitHub Pages / JekyII was the most used documentation tool (15.4%), followed closely by Homegrown custom CMS (12.4%).
“Other” included tools such as API Matic, Drupal and Paligo. Overall, a very wide variety of tools are used for documentation, with no significant leader.
Q42. WHICH TOOL(S) DOES YOUR PROGRAM USE FOR ITS DOCUMENTATION?
Program Success - Metrics
Similar to 2022, Active Users remains the top metric with similar numbers (45.1%) compared to last year.
Content engagement, a new metric replacing “Content Read” from 2022, is the 2nd highest selected metric at 39.6%.
Overall, Content creation and Engagement, Developer Satisfaction as measured by Net Promoter Score (22.2%), and Site visits (15.3%) made up the top 5.
Notably, the percentage of respondents that don't measure their program has dropped from 14.1% to 9%.
Q43. HOW DO YOU MEASURE THE OVERALL SUCCESS OF YOUR PROGRAM? (CHOOSE YOUR TOP 3)
Effects of the Global Economic Climate
There is increased pressure on DevRel practioners.
When asked about how the global economic climate was affecting them and their programs, a very high 41% indicate that they are experiencing Burnout.
Over 35% of responses indicate that people in DevRel are getting their budget cut, are under more pressure to show metrics to corporate (34.2%), feel vulnerable about their job stability (36.2%) and are experiencing shifting responsibilities (36.2%).
A bright spot is that 17.4% of responses indicate DevRel is receiving renewed attention from stakeholders.
Only about 5.4% of responses indicate that their program is hiring. A similar number expect budget to increase regardless of economic outlook.
Q44. HOW IS THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC CLIMATE AFFECTING YOU AND YOUR DEVELOPER PROGRAM? SELECT ALL THAT APPLY.
STRATEGIES
Strategies, Activities
and Challenges.
Developer Relations is is about helping developers become successful with your product or service. That support comes in many forms from awareness and adoption to education and supporting the developers' experience.
Survey Length
The 2023 Annual Developer Relations Survey was extensive thanksfully, none of the respondents felt that the survey was too short or much too short.
A vast majority (76%) of respondents felt that the survey was about the right length, which is encouraging and implies high engagement for an in-depth survey with over 50 questions.
Q49. HOW DID YOU FEEL ABOUT THE LENGTH OF THIS SURVEY?
Survey Difficulty
A majority (54%) of respondents found the survey easy or very easy to complete, while another 40% felt neutral.
Only 6% thought the survey was difficult or very difficult, a low number for an extensive international survey about a specific industry.
Q50. HOW EASY OR DIFFICULT WAS THIS SURVEY TO COMPLETE?
Comments for the Developer Relations Community or about this Survey
"The Developer Relations community is incredibly supportive. It's a great space for learning and growth."
"DevRel is often misunderstood within organizations, which can hinder our effectiveness."
"More focus is needed on smaller communities; not everyone is a part of the big tech stack."
"This survey is a fantastic initiative to understand the DevRel landscape better."
“The tools and resources available to us have never been better. It's a great time to be in DevRel..”
"There's still a lack of clear metrics to measure the impact of Developer Relations."
"I appreciate the focus on community building; it's the core of what makes DevRel special."
Q50. ANY OTHER COMMENTS FOR THE DEVELOPER RELATIONS COMMUNITY OR ABOUT THIS SURVEY? DON'T BE SHY :-)
Comments for the Developer Relations Community or about this Survey - Sentiment
36% of comments are positive, frequently express gratitude for the survey and community-building efforts, and highlight the value of these initiatives.
23% negative comments point to issues like poor management and lack of role clarity, suggesting areas that need attention.
41% neutral comments often contain suggestions or questions, showing that respondents are engaged and seek specific changes.
The range of comments reflects diverse experiences and opinions, indicating the multifaceted nature of roles and experiences in DevRel.
Q50. ANY OTHER COMMENTS FOR THE DEVELOPER RELATIONS COMMUNITY OR ABOUT THIS SURVEY? DON'T BE SHY :-)
SURVEY STATISTICS
Survey Statistics
Thanks to all the respondents who took the time to complete the survey, our most extensive to date.
Activities That Are Part of DevRel
Respondents were asked which of these activities they believe are part of Developer Relations.
Community (93.8%), Advocacy (93.8%), and Developer Experience (90.4%) are seen as the core pillars of Developer Relations according to respondents, followed closely by Education (82.2%), Evangelism (78.1%), and Documentation (74.7%).
DevRel is carving out a space distinct from marketing and product in an organization, despite reporting to those areas.
Q45. WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING ACTIVITIES DO YOU BELIEVE ARE PART OF DEVELOPER RELATIONS? SELECT ALL THAT APPLY.
Activities That Are Not Part of DevRel
A vast majority (88.7%) of respondents believe that Sales activities are not part of DevRel.
Almost a mirror image chart from the one above.
Q46. WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING ACTIVITIES DO YOU BELIEVE ARE NOT PART OF DEVELOPER RELATIONS? SELECT ALL THAT APPLY.
Challenges for Developer Relations
Measurement (67.3%) was the top challenge for the practice of DevRel, an often debated topic and perhaps correlated to the challenge of Awareness of the impact the role of DevRel brings to an organization at number two (59.2%).
Burnout/ Mental Health Issues (40.1%) round out top 3 challenges faced by DevRel practioners.
Additional challenges include Lack of common definitions (38.1%), Respect and credibility for the role (36.1%), and Lack of career paths (29.3%).
At this point, Working with generative AI, is not seen as much of a challenge.
Q47. WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE ARE THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES FOR THE PRACTICE OF DEVELOPER RELATIONS? CHOOSE 3.
Recognition & Credibility for Developer Relations
By far the most suggested way to work together as a DevRel community is to have Better shared practices and measurement with other functions in an organization (62.5%).
Evangelize DevRel inside our own organizations (39.6%) is also seen as a top method to improve credibility and recognition.
Agreeing to a common set of terms (36.8%) and metrics was another top options selected by over a third of respondents.
Only 2.1% feel that DevRel is fine the way it is.
Together with the results from Q47 about Challenges, indications point to a need for more structure and a set of standards within the practice of Developer Relations and it's role in organizations.
Q48. HOW DO WE WORK TOGETHER AS A DEVELOPER RELATIONS COMMUNITY TO BUILD CREDIBILITY AND RECOGNITION FOR OUR PRACTICE OUTSIDE OF OUR DEVREL CIRCLES? CHOOSE THREE.
PRACTICE
The Practice of
Developer Relations.
For the first time, we asked practitioners what they thought of Developer Relations, the practice.
10TH DEVREL SURVEY REPORT