In this RedMonk conversation, Wesley Faulkner, developer relations professional, discusses the newly formed Developer Relations Foundation with Kate Holterhoff, senior analyst at RedMonk. Wesley emphasizes the need to elevate the professional practice of developer relations that the Developer Relations Foundation, part of the nonprofit Linux Foundation, aims to meet. The conversation touches on the challenges of defining Developer Relations, the importance of global perspectives, and the challenges inherent in any attempts to formalize this profession.

Links

• LinkedIn: Wesley Faulkner
• Twitter/X: @Wesley83
• Wesley83.com
• dev-rel.org
• Discord: Developer Relations Foundation
• GitHub: DevRel Foundation

Transcript

Kate Holterhoff (00:12)
Hello and welcome to this RedMonk Conversation. My name is Kate Holterhoff, Senior Analyst at RedMonk, and with me today is Wesley Faulkner, Developer Relations Leader and co-host of the Radical Respect Podcast and Community Pulse Podcast.

Wesley has been in tech for a minute and is alumni of companies that include AWS, SingleStore, MongoDB, IBM, Atlassian, and Dell. He is also a volunteer with the Developer Relations Foundation under the Linux Foundation, which is the impetus for our conversation today. Wesley, thanks so much for joining me on the MonkCast.

Wesley Faulkner (00:44)
Thanks for having me on. I’m really excited for this conversation. Being able to have the opportunity to talk about my passions is my passion. So thank you for giving me the space and the stage to express my feelings.

Kate Holterhoff (00:58)
For sure. Well, you are such a seasoned veteran of the podcast sphere. It’s an honor to have you on here. Let’s just begin with some of your background. I mentioned your extensive experience in the tech industry, but left out your job titles on purpose, because we’re going to be really honing in on developer relations here. And I always think it’s interesting to discuss folks’ journey into that sphere. So can you talk a little bit more about how you came to developer relations and why it is so meaningful to you?

Wesley Faulkner (01:23)
So Developer Relations is my fourth career. So when you said a minute, it is kind of like a really…

Kate Holterhoff (01:26)
haha

Wesley Faulkner (01:31)
like compressed timeline of where things are right now. But it’s actually like two and a half decades of professional experience. Before I was in developer relations, I was in marketing, mostly tech marketing. So working with companies like you mentioned, like Atlassian, but several other startups as well to help them with honing their message when they’re reaching their consumers. And this is both B2B marketing and B2C marketing. And before that, I was a product development engineer for AMD. I worked on bringing development of OEM software to the partners and that involved like working with internal organizations like our driver team, like our CPU team, like our GPU team and external contractors like external developers, external contractors to make sure that we bring this all in a cohesive develop delivery so that it has the same marketing, the same look and feel, and looks like it’s from the same company. And also making sure that the standards are also the same. And then before that, I worked for Dell for many, many years for many different roles. The last of which is I was an emergency brake fix technician for their Dell fiber channel storage, also Dell AMC at the time. So if NASDAQ went down, Honeywell went down, I would fly out there and fix it. So any critical high pressure situations,

I’ve probably been in them in those rooms in those situations and that role really really I think gave me a formative base to be able to do what I do and how I got into developer relations is that a friend of mine was creating a new role called a developer relations advocate in their department and they knew of my Marketing and my technical experience and they said we think you would be great for this and so that’s kind of what got me started on my journey and that was a little over six years ago

Kate Holterhoff (03:25)
I appreciate you laying out that it wasn’t just you something that you knew you wanted to do immediately but was sort of an evolution of your roles and and maybe drew from all of your strengths. Two decades is not a small amount of time so the field is lucky to have someone like you who has that sort of breadth of background and I think we see that a lot with developer relations where it’s folks who have seen things seen how organizations run from the inside out and you know have something to contribute in that way.

Wesley Faulkner (03:51)
Yeah, with developer relations, with several other tech roles, especially when I speak to people who are just graduating and entering into the real world, they say, how’d you get into it? And it’s for a vast majority. It’s a lot of things where people didn’t just plan to get into developer relations. They fell into it or fell or pulled into it because developer relations as a profession wasn’t popularized.

for very long. And so if someone’s in developer relations, most likely they got it because it was not necessarily something part of their five or 10 year plan, but something that kind of presented itself the opportunity to enter the field. And so I and many others in developer relations are of that ilk.

Kate Holterhoff (04:36)
So you are obviously the ideal person to have on the show to talk to us about this new foundation. the press release for the Developer Relations Foundation dropped mid-month in September 2024. And I know I was very interested in this sort of new initiative. And I’m excited to hear that folks like you are.

deeply involved in it. So can you lay out what the Developer Relations Foundation is intending to accomplish? What is its mission, and why was it founded?

Wesley Faulkner (05:09)
So the Intent to form was released at the Open Source Summit just this past September. I’ve been on the steering committee since June of this year. The formation of the DevRel Foundation started at the beginning of the year, even before that. So it predates my involvement. The thought was that DevRel as a profession

doesn’t have a formalized definition, doesn’t have a set of standards, doesn’t have a lot of things that codify it into saying this is the outline and this is the structure of what DevRel really is. Mentioning going back about the formalization of the profession, I was part of the DevRel survey that went out two years ago last year. It was last year actually. And one of the things that we reported on is that 50 % of the people who are in developer relations

have been in it for less than two years, meaning that there’s a lot of new people now, new ideas and some of those ideas of what developer relations is has been formed by the end result or the products of other people who are in DevRel, meaning that they see the…

great things that people who represent their companies, who represent a product and represent other developers and how they’ve been able to move things forward. They’ve also heard and seen job descriptions of people who are in C-Suite’s startup founders, people who are CTOs, CIOs even of companies saying like, this is what I want for my developer relations department. Meaning translation.

They’ve seen the work product, but not the work that it takes to get to that end product.

So all of that is kind of in their minds. Maybe happens magically or it happens by other people, which is in real life is not the case. Or same with people who are writing job descriptions. They were like, we want these results, but don’t understand all the resources, all the planning and the structure and all the the the REL and DevRel is the relationships that are needed in order to really gain the trust of the community. So

Over time we see that DevRel as a profession hasn’t necessarily been shaped by people.

who actually know the ins and outs of how to run a successful developer relations organization. Of course, I don’t mean to discount all of the tutorials, the videos, the blog posts that say, here’s a successful KPI strategy or go-to-market strategy or how to run a good demo or a good hackathon. Those are out there, but those are individual voices and the DevRel Foundation is helping to kind of unite those, bring those all in,

give them that platform to say, this is something that not only that you feel is the right thing to do, but we want to endorse as the right way of going forward. So in short, we’re building a structure that all the great work that people who are already doing developer relation work.

that has a scaffolding for them to attach to and a platform to amplify those voices, to give a structure and also to give a megaphone to people who are doing it the most effective way and the most impactful way that helps companies and helps developers kind of level up.

Kate Holterhoff (08:46)
All right, and what sort of service or I guess you say scaffolding, what is that scaffolding gonna actually look like?

Wesley Faulkner (08:54)
So we just released a phased plan of integrating all of the knowledge.

and concerns that we’ve heard from people who are in the DevRel profession. So we were at developer relations con or DevRelCon this year. We do open meetings every week to invite people in to be able to express their feelings and also to let them know of our progress. And we have a survey in which we allow people to put in their demographic information and their own concerns. And the phase plan shows

how we’re taking all of that, putting it and presenting it to the whole world of developer relations and allowing people to kind of vote with their time, the items that they feel that they’re passionate about that they want to champion.

So we are closing the survey, which is one of those avenues on October 4th. And the first initial list will be published where we’re saying here all of the concerns here, all the major objectives that we want as a group to tackle. What we’re looking for our leaders to step up and say, yeah, I either have a knowledge of that specific issue.

I have a passion for that specific theme or I have some specific expertise that I think that I can help champion this forward. And so we’ll go through and do initial pass and get leaders to champion those. We’re calling the managers. So they’ll manage those specific themes. And then there’ll be an enrollment period where the people who don’t want to be as

committed in terms of their time, but they still want to contribute. And so they will be able to join each one of those groups to help with their charter, which is their code of conduct and their mission statement of how they’re saying that they want people to be involved and what their end result and objective will be when they complete their tenure of leading and championing this specific theme or issue. So

What we are providing is that structure, like I said before, but also the project management, the accountability, and being able to give the support between everyone else who signed up and say they’re interested and make sure that those people have access to those groups as well.

Kate Holterhoff (11:24)
That makes sense. So this is an organization for DevRel workers, right? So this isn’t like the CTO who’s overseeing maybe the DevRel of their organization. This is by and for DevRel folks.

Wesley Faulkner (11:39)
We’re trying not to be super locked in on semantics in terms of job title. We are open to people who feel they’re both DevRel practitioners, the people who align with the spirit of DevRel, and also people who feel themselves as DevRel professionals, like they have that title and they consider this is what they do day to day. But someone who makes YouTube videos with tutorials,

Just out of their passion. I’m not sure if they should not be invited same with CTOs and CIOs Who feel that they highly align themselves to the spirit of DevRel? one of the things that we are working on is trying to understand if there is a contour of where we’re outlining where DevRel ends and where it begins and That is one of the groups that will champion that cause because there are tons of edge cases

And sadly, we are very English, native speaking, North America centric, sort of organization. And what we don’t want to do is have that bias or that lens be the only focal point that we see this in. And so part of that first part of getting all the voices in is allowing people to be able to bring their perspective and their first views in as well. And so

We don’t want to put a heavy hand at the beginning of the process. And we do want it to play out so that when one of these groups saying like, we consider this DevRel, we don’t consider this developer relations or people who should be involved or people who need to be involved, we will let the community make that decision. We don’t want to preempt that discussion early.

so that we kind of like tell people what they should know instead of letting them have a way to express that and saying, this is what it actually is.

Kate Holterhoff (13:34)
Ultimately, do you hope to create definitions and best practices? I’m thinking of like the OSI where they’re holders of like, this is what we consider to be open source. Are you hoping to say this is what we consider DevRel and all of these voices are included, we’re going to be very inclusive with the membership, but at the same time, this is DevRel, this is not DevRel.

Wesley Faulkner (13:57)
mean, personally, as a member of the steering committee, I have my own hopes, as the other members do. And our goal is to make sure that we, as practitioners in developer relations, have the tools to be able to do our jobs effectively.

and to make sure that when we use a moniker that we all know what that definition is and we all know what we are meaning. So if creating standardized terms is a way to move in that direction, I personally would love to see that.

There are a lot of issues out there with the profession that we want to tackle. I’m not sure if it’s a chicken or egg situation, but we do need to start working through some of the language we use because language is how we communicate. And if I want to put across an idea and make sure that you’re understanding what I’m saying, having a common language does really, really help. But language also can be.

exclusionary and needlessly so. We are in tech and I’m sure we are. We’ve come across a TLDA like a three-letter acronym or some sort of technical term that we all just like, why is that even a term when we all know what that means?

I think overdoing that process in the end, can be a hindrance. And so it needs to be something that’s treated with sensitivity. I do want to be able to have a common language, but I also don’t want to be gatekeeping and exclusionary. So that’s a delicate balance that I hope that we can achieve. That is a hope of mine, but it is not going to be easy. And it also is probably not going to be permanent.

this is something that grows and the process is made to evolve with the times. so hopefully whatever we come up with or whatever that is determined, we do also have the understanding that it is and probably a now statements that needs to be changed as we move forward.

Kate Holterhoff (15:50)
Yeah, I don’t envy you in walking that razor’s edge because If I do have a crystal ball on this one, I think it is going to be extremely challenging to make sure that everybody’s happy at the end of the day with this because developer relations is just by its nature so squishy. It includes so many parts of the organization. And I think that’s historically where a lot of the problems have come from is that nobody’s quite sure where it belongs and what it means. you know, folks end up overworked and burned out because of that. So I think that this is a very needed initiative but at the same time, it is gonna be extremely challenging. So Wesley, you have your work cut out for you.

Wesley Faulkner (16:29)
Yes, DevRel just also morphs because different verticals have different ways that developer relations work. Like internal developer relations looks very different than external developer relations.

We have a highly regulated industry like finance that looks very different than other developer relations organizations and groups. We have also those who are in like education, making sure that the predominantly that people get the training and get set up for the future. That looks very different than a service or even hardware. All of this looks different. So yes, it’s very complicated and pulling this into one umbrella is going to be a feat, but it also shows the real need for the DevRel Foundation.

If we are going to try to unify this, we can’t have a company own it. We can’t have even some of the most impassioned individuals to try to do it on their own. The umbrella group of the Linux Foundation really helps with being a center to kind of be a home for having these discussions and deliberations and one that’s not super invested with any specific vertical.

Kate Holterhoff (17:45)
Yeah, I’d love to talk more about the Linux Foundation’s role in here because it strikes me as a very different type of mandate from other foundations in the Linux Foundation’s portfolio, which typically, focus more on housing open source projects and they, offer governance and organized certification programs, which is something that’s near and dear to my heart. So, you know, the education aspect here. So why is the formation of the foundation an appropriate response to the occupational challenges faced in the profession? And how did you choose the Linux Foundation to be part of that.

Wesley Faulkner (18:17)
So that predates me, the Linux Foundation, that was a work of finding a home. And I think there is a lot of criticism with going with the Linux Foundation and some of those I understand. But also on the other side of the coin, I’m not sure if there’s any other organization that would be more ideal than the Linux Foundation. Their validity in the space and their ability to lend that to us is a huge advantage.

If you’re not familiar with git if you’re not familiar with Linux, then you’re probably not familiar with the Linux foundation But if you are a developer And you don’t know those terms then

Maybe we should have another conversation about where you are and your prospects for the future. But I know that ever since I’ve worked for tools and development, the Linux Foundation has shown themselves as being a good partner, a good overseer, a good parent, a good sibling.

all of those things as to other open source projects and programs. So it may not be a cookie cutter as an exact fit of the things that the Linux Foundation has supported in the past.

But I think it still holds true of being able to set open standards, to be able to have a community of participation and a investment in making sure that the underpinnings of the technological profession, whether being a practitioner or being a provider, is taken care of. And so from that aspect, I see it as a really great source and…

you know, from being part of the steering committee for this limited part of time since June, I can say that it’s been nothing but greatness, really great access to different partners, different supporters, being able to take advantage of some of the infrastructure that they are able to give to the program and help with some organizational structure, some, like lending their expertise from other foundations has been invaluable to us. So in practice, it’s

been really, really great. And once again, we are unfunded project. So we we kind of control our destiny. And so not having the funds to be able to hire professional services and having access to that expertise otherwise, I don’t know if we would be set up for success unless we were under the Linux Foundation.

Kate Holterhoff (20:44)
Right, and I think it demonstrates that the Linux Foundation is willing to be a little… open to new initiatives in their own right, that they’re thinking beyond just like we’re a warehouse for open source, right, that we actually are able to have these sort of, I guess, political and more organizational role maybe that we’re interested in how developer organizations run rather than just this particular little component of it. So I think it makes sense, but it does suggest that there’s an evolution within that organization as well, which I guess maybe we can keep an eye on and see if they choose to kind of grow that aspect of it.

I don’t know, it’s almost like an extension of governance. Like it’s about like how the people are actually represented. And I think it demonstrates an interest in how developers thrive. because all developers, it seems like, especially at smaller organizations are doing some components of DevRel. Like they’re getting the word out. They’re demonstrating that their, technology is not terrible to use. And, you know, hey, look, kick the tires. You know, let me tell you about what we’re doing here. I’m gonna go to this conference and talk. I mean, that’s all within the remit of DevRel, even if that’s not the job title. So it is capacious in ways that I think maybe the Linux Foundation.

can offer. I think the thing that’s on my mind is, so I’m thinking of like Sean Wang has written about some of the issues with developer relations, and a lot of it seems to be higher up in an organization than things that developers can control. Where we think about like difficulty of measuring impact. How will the Developer Relations Foundation

Wesley Faulkner (22:03)
Yes.

Kate Holterhoff (22:14)
give DevRel workers teeth to actually do their job and be paid well and have job security and not have undue labor put on their backs because folks in the C-suite don’t understand what it is that they actually do.

Wesley Faulkner (22:24)
Mm-hmm.

Kate Holterhoff (22:29)
Have you thought at all about making sure that you move beyond just best practices to actually helping these developers enforce and push what they need into action?

Wesley Faulkner (22:41)
I think that’s the crux of it, that the future of DevRel is not necessarily owned by the people who do DevRel. The future is owned by, if we can’t get hired in a role, then that hurts the profession. If we can’t move the role in the direction where we feel that we are able to do the most impact, then the legitimacy of DevRel can be affected.

if we aren’t able to have the tools and articulate all of the different facets of DevRel to the point where it feels as if a no-brainer to move some of these things forward and to champion specific programs. A lot of the things that I did before I was in developer relations and continue to do after that I entered the profession formally is community work.

and working with communities, working with people who have been able to make their voices heard and amplify those of others who are in the same ilk, just making sure that we keep talking about the things that we want to talk about. And in community, it is kind of not an anomaly to have meetups. It’s not an anomaly to give out swag for events.

It is something that’s almost part of the playbook. Being part of the foundation, means that we’re able to help build up that war chest and that collection of tools and playbooks and understanding that allow us to, when we centralize this knowledge, we’re able to empower developer relations professionals to take that and then legitimize what they do to the C-suite, legitimize their approaches to the C-suite.

to these decision makers, to the people who have more of an influence of how resources are allocated and how much investment is done now and in the future. So if someone who is in developer relations says, I’m gonna go to a conference, I’m not necessarily going to be able to get a thousand hot leads.

but instead I will have seeds of conversations. I will be able to hear feedback from current customers about how we’re showing up in not only in the community, but how our products are solving their issues and their problems and how they’re not and how that is also useful data. And if I’m able to take that data and then gain access to our product development,

and be able to have a way to make sure that those are incorporated and then feed back that information to those original people who had those issues and let them know that they’re valued, they’re being heard and what they say and what they feel matters and to keep those coming and that these representatives of these giant corporations aren’t just…

spitting into the wind, but they are affecting change not only in their own profession, but in the products that they use. And that virtuous cycle is something that developer relations is really great at. Not only making sure that people are successful who use the product, but the companies themselves are successful in creating the products, that they’re successful in selling the products, they’re successful in marketing the products, they’re successful fixing issues, bugs, UI, just developer experience in general.

And that value proposition is not something that’s codified anywhere that someone can say, here’s what we do, and here’s how we do it, and here’s what we need to make sure we’re successful. So I think as we go through this first initial step, it’s important that we bring in all of those critical issues or as many as we can, hand it over to the people who have that passion, create those tools, house those tools.

so that people don’t have to say developer relations is what you think it is. Developer relations like your age is all in your heart. No, we need some formalization and we need something that everyone can point to and say that we trust this not just because the developer relations foundation said it it’s because people who do it have a part in shaping that future.

They have an influence in making sure that we get all the edge cases from all around the world for all the verticals and not be so niche in terms of who we’re targeting or how we’re influencing it, but to bring all the disparate.

thoughts and ideas into a cohesive strategy. And that is going to allow us to kind of control our own destiny as developer relations professionals. Because if we’re all singing with the same voice and the same choir, then everyone will hear us.

Kate Holterhoff (27:53)
That’s inspirational, I like that. You know, one of the things that you said is reminding me of how Arun Gupta, the vice president and general manager of Open Ecosystem at Intel framed the Developer Relations Foundation, and that’s global. He’s framing what you do as a third party neutral and global stage to bring DevRel folks together. And you had mentioned the English language centric nature of DevRel today. How are you hoping this foundation can move DevRel out of anglophone domains? I assume, you know, European and US focused ways of thinking. How are you going to include a global set of voices?

Wesley Faulkner (28:39)
So the survey that I mentioned before, we are capturing location and language information from people who participate. One of the last open meeting we had is that we have several people who stepped up and saying, I will help translate this.

So getting it to those audiences is going to be something that at least getting the message to them. And then the other part is the approach of having people elect which things they want to champion. For instance, cloud computing is pretty big. AI is pretty big. Home labs or offline connectivity or being able to

practice technology apart from being attached to a large organization, I think is something that’s very important to places that have either intermittent connectivity, lack of availability of some of the resources that others of us who are different parts of the world take for granted. That is not necessarily, I think, something that we would have proposed, but making sure that we open up the

ability for people to champion causes that aren’t necessarily our top priorities, but things that are important to developing voices, different languages, different infrastructure, or even like super siloed, like think about like air gap systems for highly sensitive environments. Those are things that maybe aren’t top of mind as

as we think of it, or nonprofit organizations that don’t see the huge expense and resource intense investment that AI is seeing. Opening up.

suggestions and allowing people to participate in something that they feel has legs that has a longevity is also something that we’re trying to bring. So translations is great. Upkeeping of translations, upkeeping of new endeavors is a huge underpinning and huge task. so making sure we

Unified developers and getting everyone’s hands in the pot to make sure that they’re able to add their own spices and make it their own taste I think is is one that we are able to leverage because we are seen as a central authority to a lot of things least we hope to be and leveraging that to make sure that People who don’t have a voice

either through different abilities, but also different languages and that they know that if they attach their resources and their time to push that forward, that that’s something that we are going to take the care of to make sure that we keep moving that forward. So that’s how I hope.

that we’ll get more involvement by allowing people to see us as not an offshoot of someone who has passion and whose priorities might change based on someone else getting a new job. that some exec decided that we’re not going to invest in this anymore, but seen as like you’re mentioning the, the, what Intel said that nonpartisan central location

allows people the permission to feel that if they invest in our mission and what we’re trying to do, that we will be good stewards of that resource and that passion and focus to make sure that when they want to make sure things move forward that we’re able to do what we can to help that.

Kate Holterhoff (32:15)
Let’s talk about membership here. So it sounds like this is going to be a very inclusive group in terms of job roles. How about in terms of voting and actually having a say? Do folks have to have their employer pay for them to have a spot on the leadership board? Or how is that going to work?

Wesley Faulkner (32:35)
Thank you for bringing up that term. I think membership is a weighty term and it’s up to the interpreter to figure out what that means. And let me just try to say right now, we don’t have a formal quote unquote membership. So there’s no application. There’s no validation. There’s no fee. There is no structure in which you have to be assigned or declared or validated to become quote unquote a member. That type of title

is not something that we have. We have participants and we have managers in terms of a process. If we’re talking about the steering committee, those…

people who are interested in joining the steering committee, that governance structure is something that we’re also building in parallel. So we are working out what it means to be part of the steering committee. What is the role of a person and the dedication in terms of time and commitment. Those are things that we’re still figuring out and we welcome the voices of anyone who has opinions on what that should be. We have a very vibrant GitHub discussions platform for people to chime in. We have open meetings every week.

and hope to have more geographic representation other time zone representation going forward, so allowing other people to share their thoughts about how things should be done. Right now, the steering committee is kind of formed by people who have a passion and seen as people who have unique experience and information related to developer relations, people who have respect within their profession and the industry.

making sure that we have the skills to be able to fulfill the mission and we’re writing the documentations of the gaps.

and more self-awareness of what we can and can’t do with our current makeup so that we can bring more people onto the steering committee as we formalize an election, a nomination, and to figure out how big the steering committee should be, who should be represented, and how do we make sure that we’re legitimized by making sure that the people have a voice in determining who is running the foundation. So all of that is to say that if you’re interested,

Raise your hand, step up, If you’re listening to this after October 4th, please just jump into our discussions or sign up for our mailing list, show up to the open office hours or open meetings that we have once a week. Talk to us, we’re open to hearing everything. Some of the formalization of a membership.

I hope one of the groups that I mentioned before that forms can help formalize that. Should there be a formal membership? Should we leave it open? Should we have a tiered membership? Should it be paid or free? Do we do certifications? Do we have some sort of gating? Do we do some sort of union? All of that stuff, none of that stuff has been decided and it’s up for grabs and we’re open to hearing everyone’s opinion on it.

But once again, nothing’s been decided. There is no quote unquote membership in terms of a formalized structure at the very, very moment.

Kate Holterhoff (35:49)
Wow, it sounds like an exciting time to join the organization then since it is so much in flux. I hadn’t even thought about the idea of a union or creating some certifications, but I’m thinking of other organizations that form a similar role. And they do tend to have all those structures built out to support that community and legitimize folks who are employed in it. So I think that there is some opportunity there, although I don’t know if the desire is gonna follow. It seems like

Right now what you’re doing very much resembles how an open source community works in terms of like an open dialogue. Everybody’s invited. It’s extremely democratic. But yeah, at the end of the day, as these organizations grow and as you do try to…

make sure that it has some teeth so that folks who join can then go to the leadership at their organization and say, hey, you know, that’s fine if you want me to do X, Y, and Z as part of my job description in the DevRel role, but just so you know, this is not what the DevRel Foundation considers best practices. This goes outside the remit, which is something that I wanna push back on, and I’ve got the authority and the weight behind me to, you

demonstrate to you that is not something that we agree with as a profession, that this goes against a lot of our values. And I think that’s tremendous. I have maybe one last question before we round off this conversation here. And that’s about

the idea of burnout and mental health within the developer relations community. And it seems like what you have described right now actually gives a lot of community building to folks in this profession in a way that could actually be really beneficial for them where it becomes almost like a forum for DevRel enthusiasts and folks that work in this sphere to come together, share.

their experiences, support one another and say, I’m going through this tough issue. Can you mentor me? Can you talk to me about how you’ve dealt with it in the past? Or how would you push back? Or maybe just asking for a sympathetic ear from folks who understand Is that part of the mandate of the organization? Are you seeing that as something that is happening currently?

Wesley Faulkner (37:53)
Mm.

I can say that that is something that’s happening organically. I don’t know if that was some of our initial plans, but it’s happening and I’ve seen it already where we’ve launched a Discord server where people can join and people can connect. And I’ve been a part of many developer relations groups and get togethers and meetups. I think you are familiar with Flyless.

with during the beginning of the pandemic when we were all flying less, a lot of people in developer relations got together to talk about how we’re pivoting, how we’re dealing with the situation, how we’re making adjustments. And also that listening to people who’ve been in similar situations previously and seeing, am I seeing this correctly? I reading this the right way is very important.

I know that I’ve been in organizations or groups where they really want someone to be.

boots on the ground and start cranking out work almost immediately. And so there’s been a lot of action without a lot of strategy. And so the impact has been diminished between those people who are working developer relations from that capacity. They’re saying, you’re doing all this work, but nothing’s getting done. No, there’s no impact. And I’ve been on the other side of the coin where I’ve laid out strategic plans of how things will work and how we need to kind of get the organization on the same page, get different departments to

work with each other and making sure we integrate feedback and building up a pipeline of connections and community. And I’ve gotten the feedback. I see all these plans, but no action. So DevRel is inefficient. And people are like, we need to hire one person to do both, which is really a very good recipe for burnout. So.

That is an example of where if you have access to someone who’s been doing developer relations for a long time, that you’re able to say, how do I have these conversations in a way that allow me to not burn out, make results that are impactful, and to be able to feel like the people who are making the decisions and allocating resources.

feel that what I’m my approach is valid and has legs and has

research and has white papers and has the buy-in of support from everyone who does develop relations. So that’s something that we’re trying to tackle on that part. But the organic conversations is something that I personally love to foster and make sure that we have a home for people who are looking to have those conversations and to find those people. One of the communities that I’m aware of is SlashData had a DevRelX community for developer relations professionals, and they’re dissolving that community and all

those people are looking for a home. So I would love to be a home for those people or anyone else looking to find other people who are in the profession either to break through or to be supported through their journey in developer relations.

Kate Holterhoff (40:59)
That’s phenomenal. What a great opportunity.

Although it’s sad that I hear that the community is drying up where it already had sort of flowered, but it sounds like, maybe the Developer Relations Foundation can fill a very needed gap in terms of, supporting that community. So you had mentioned that there’s a Discord channel. Can you talk more about ways that folks can hear more from the Developer Relations Foundation and from you,

personally, I’m sure that you’re going to continue with your outreach campaign raising awareness that this organization exists. How can folks follow these conversations?

Wesley Faulkner (41:32)
Well, we’re working on our site. Right now we have a wiki. If you go to dev-rel.org.

you can find the foundation there. It’ll also point to our GitHub, where we have a lot of our governance, a list of initial issues that we’ve already gathered from the community. And of course, as I mentioned, we have discussions where you can participate directly. And if you go to github.com/DevRel-Foundation/ you’ll be able to find those documents there. Also, you’ll find links.

on either of those sources to our GitHub if you’re interested in participating that way. If you want to contact me, I have all of my links on Wesley83.com. You can find the things that I’m interested in, the podcast I’m on, and the talks that I do, and my portfolio, but also there’s a contact form. So if you want to be able to contact me, you can use that to send me a message.

Kate Holterhoff (42:30)
All right, it has been an absolute pleasure speaking with you today, Wesley. Again, my name is Kate Holterhoff, senior analyst at RedMonk. If you enjoyed this conversation, please like, subscribe, and review the MonkCast on your podcast platform of choice. If you are watching us on YouTube, please like, subscribe, and engage with us in the comments.