Sideko spoke with HubSpot’s SJ Morris to learn about the challenges of developer relations at developer plus companies.

When a job title contains the word “relations”, it means that things often go spectacularly wrong. Public relations people sweep into action when the founders of their crypto exchange get incarcerated in Bali, fake their own deaths, or both. Similarly, investor relations people kick into high gear when their CEO gets indicted for over 300 crimes by the DOJ, and so on.

Now, developer relations people are on the spot when, for instance, an API fails so severely that it garners the attention of company leadership. SJ Morris, who leads HubSpot’s Developer Community, recalled this debacle at a company she previously worked for (which we shall not name). She was hired to build a developer community, as she recalls, “out of thin air”, as there was no budget or platform to build from. Despite SJ’s attempts to convince management to invest in DevRel proactively, the only thing that made the company eventually change course was a disaster—because the best time to go to Lowe’s and buy a fire extinguisher is when your kitchen is already on fire.

SJ’s story underscores a complex landscape: that, in the broad world of relations, not all jobs are prioritized equally. See, from a corporate perspective, investor relations are justified because they deal with investors—who command money. Similarly, public relations are justified because they deal with media—who command attention. Now, what about developer relations? What’s the impetus there? It really depends on which corporate exec you ask. Some view devs as central to their business and prioritize relations with them accordingly. Others may see them as the people “coding away in a corner,” or who sometimes help them print PDFs.

It gets even trickier when you consider that some companies are developer-first (which sell directly to devs) while others are developer-plus (which don’t sell directly to devs but still have APIs and stuff). For developer-first companies, developer relations are pretty much, well, just relations—they are fundamental to day-to-day operations. However, for developer-plus companies the “existential challenge” of devrel, as SJ points out, “is justifying your reason for existence, whereas it’s almost a given at a company like Github or ... Twilio.”

SJ knows the developer-plus landscape well, with over 14 years of DevRel experience under her belt.  “I've worked at companies like Shopify, Mailchimp, and now HubSpot.  These companies all sort of live, breathe, and worship at the altar of the customer.” Because of this, SJ adds, “devrel can often get lost in the value proposition.”

This is, in part, what has made SJ so resourceful as a devrel professional. Her specialty, she says, is “building community.” In the context of devrel, that means anticipating where and when developers are going to reach out for help—because, in most cases, official support channels and documentation can’t always answer every developer need.  “Usually I would say, very gut, like 70% to 80% of the time we can help solve [developers’] problems through peers or through devrel taking a look and looping in the right person.”

Community building in devrel can take on many forms, but the overall goal is to provide platforms for developers to support one another—and feel supported themselves. Here’s how SJ sees it: “[developers] click around, and they see: Oh, we have a Youtube channel. Oh, we have a blog. Oh, we have a developer slack. Oh, we have all this other stuff going on. So maybe they'll just know in the back of their minds that ... HubSpot is clearly trying to build relationships with developers.”

SJ has taken this mission a bit further: “Last year we launched a mentorship program for developers ... tasked with some HubSpot work.” The goal, she notes, is to help these developers get “trained and ready to go” before they proverbially “step on the gas.” But, to do more devrel outreach at a level this sophisticated, SJ admits that “it’s going to take an internal shift” at developer plus companies where “the right folks are made aware of the nuances of technical challenges.”

And that shift may already be taking place. Developer affairs are becoming central to core business strategy—with devs evolving from behind-the-scenes technicians to strategic decision makers.  This not only raises the stakes of DevRel, but arguably changes the scope of the job as well. “One of the things that I think actually shoots us in the foot,” SJ notes,  “is literally being called ‘developer relations’.” After analyzing traffic on platforms HubSpot provides ostensibly for devrel purposes, SJ found that just 30% of the audience actually had “developer” or “engineer” in their title.

“I strongly believe that DevRel does not represent just developers. It represents our technical audience at HubSpot as a whole,” SJ adds. And that technical audience is growing day by day, because the work that developers do—and the tools that power them—have never been more central to mainstream business discourse. Hell, even finance people like Jamie Dimon are out here talking to shareholders about APIs.

We ended our conversation with SJ on an interesting point: Does it even make sense to call it developer relations anymore?, to which SJ responded: “The last thing we need is to call ourselves something else that the industry doesn't understand.” What may change, SJ thinks, is “the definition of who’s a developer.”

And AI is only making that definition more complicated, because it has enabled more people to write code without being "developers" in the traditional sense. This may, in part, explain why so many people engaging with developer platforms today don’t even have "engineer" in their job title. What remains to be seen is, as AI continues to push the boundaries of who can develop, will the scope of “developer relations” evolve in tandem?