DevRel Success Checklist for New Hires

The First 90 Days Can Make or Break You

Starting a new Developer Relations role is exhilarating, but it can also be incredibly confusing. Unlike traditional software engineering or strict product marketing, DevRel sits in a hazy middle ground. It's very easy to spend your first 90 days "talking to people" and have absolutely nothing tangible to show for it when review time comes.

This checklist is designed to keep you focused, productive, and visibly impactful from Day 1.

Month 1: The Detective Phase

Your primary goal in month one is not to write code or launch a massive campaign; it's to understand the landscape.

• Review the Product: Complete the "Hello World" or onboarding tutorial of your company's product exactly as an external developer would. Document every single friction point, confusing error message, and unclear doc.
• Map the Internal Stakeholders: Identify the Product Managers handling your core APIs, the marketing team managing the brand, and the engineering leads. Set up 15-minute virtual "coffees" with all of them.
• Audit Existing Communities: Join the Discord/Slack, read the subreddits, look at GitHub discussions. Who are the power users? What are the biggest complaints?

Month 2: The Builder Phase

Now that you know the landscape, it's time to start producing value.

1. Ship One Tangible Piece of Content: This could be a blog post solving a major friction point you found in Month 1, or a sample application utilizing a newly released feature.
2. Fix the Documentation: Submit at least 5 pull requests to improve the public documentation based on community feedback.
3. Establish Your "Feedback Loop": Start a weekly sync with the Product Management team to relay the developer friction points you've discovered.

Month 3: The Amplifier Phase

By month three, you should be fully integrated into the team and looking outward.

• Host a Community Event: This could be a virtual AMA (Ask Me Anything), a webinar, or a local meetup.
• Identify Champions: Reach out personally to 3-5 power users and ask for a quick chat to understand their use cases deeply.
• Define Your Metrics: Work with your manager to lock down the 2 or 3 KPIs you will be measured on for the next year.

Conclusion

Remember, the goal of DevRel isn't just to be "liked" by the community. You are the bridge between the company and the developer. Walk that bridge every single day.