It doesn't seem possible that we have been tracking the progress of Developer Relations as a profession for a decade, but here we are!
2023 marks the 10th anniversary of the State of Developer Relations Report, which has grown to become an essential reference for practitioners, stakeholders, and observers alike.
Interested in sponsorship? The team is entering the planning stage for this year's survey and is keen to speak with companies that support the need for independent, industry wide, data that exclusively covers the practice of Developer Relations. For the first time, we are opening up the Survey and Report to sponsorship to help us craft the best report and have the best outreach possible.
Can you help promote the survey? We would love to hear from Developer Relations Programs and Communities who can help promote the survey. We all, as an industry, will benefit from better representation and stronger data if we successfully increase the number of respondents on a year-to-year basis.
Please get in touch to discuss how you can get involved, and we will keep everyone updated with progress as we get closer to the launch of the survey.
We will open the survey in mid-June.
For now, to whet the appetite for the 2023 report, please find below highlights of last year's findings. To download the full 2022 report, visit: stateofdeveloperrelations.com
DevRel is Diverse & Branching out
27% identify as female. Compared to the latest StackOverflow survey, which has 5.2% identifying as female - our results are significant. And, there is salary parity among all groups!
19.1% are neurodiverse, giving us pause to think about how we communicate and educate DevRel and those developers we serve.
25% of companies have more than one developer program
38.4% support internal and external devs
DevRel is also diverse in the wide range of Job Titles from various levels of Developer Advocate to DevRel engineers, Community Managers, Content Marketers, DX Managers, Program Managers, Product Managers, Software engineers, and Technical writers, all fall under the DevRel umbrella. See our blog post, Developer Advocacy doesn't equal Developer Relations for more on that topic.
DevRel is spreading around the globe & Salaries are rising
Silicon Valley still has the highest number of companies that practice DevRel headquartered there at 31.3%, but only 7.9% of the people who practice DevRel.
The median base salary is $148K USD, and the median total compensation is $180K USD, up from $163k in 2021.
Content is a continued Story
57.1% say content marketing is the most effective tactic
41.8% say continuous content creation is the biggest challenge, and many manage external contributors.
Driving awareness is the main purpose of DevRel at 85.3%
There is so much more, so check out the report if you want to learn about:
How many products do programs support?
What is the size of annual budgets?
Is there a defined career path?
Does Leadership support DevRel?
Which online channels are most effective?
How often do teams review friction logs?
Who directs the team’s work?
What type of companies practice DevRel?
What’s the definition of community?
How many DevRel practitioners work remotely?
How do DevRel people spend their time? What % hold the title of Developer Advocate vs Evangelist?
Do you have to have a technical degree to be in DevRel?
What resources are effective to be in DevRel?
Thanks and gratitude
Much thanks to everyone involved, and those who took the time to fill in the 2022 survey.
The Report is administered by DevRel.Agency and supported by a Working Group that provided critical analysis, asked why this and why not that, added new questions, crunched the numbers, edited the report, and promoted the survey.
You can download a copy of the 2022 State of Developer Relations report here.