Dev Rel needs the right tools specifically designed for the job

Developer Relations is one of the most strategically important roles for any company that wants to build a successful technology platform. We’re working with the community to create a Dev Rel Bill of Rights. In this article, we explore article 5: The right tools specifically designed for the job.

Developer Relations professionals deserve the same level of support and technical infrastructure that other disciplines rely on to execute, measure, automate and improve their work. #

Today, teams that manage marketing or sales take for granted that they’ll have mature, powerful software tools and services to help manage their processes. But too often, the Dev Rel professionals who work alongside them are still cobbling together their own, or reusing technology that wasn’t built for the purpose of Dev Rel.

It’s ironic that a field so focused on technology lacks any of its own, but the real cost is in the reduced efficiency and effectiveness of Dev Rel efforts, and the increased frustration of those trying to do the work.

Forward-thinking organizations should invest in professional-grade tools to enable analytics, reporting, and improvement of Dev Rel efforts that are aligned with the clear set of business goals that Dev Rel is working toward.

Questions to ask: #

• Do people working in Dev Rel have the tools they need to measure their progress?
• Is the organization budgeting for Dev Rel tools in its IT or operations budget in the same way it does for marketing or sales?
• Does the Dev Rel team know where to go to get approval or to procure the tools needed to do their job? *Read the original Dev Rel Bill of Rights and discover the other articles in this series. And check out Glitch for Platforms, where we’re building the first set of business analytics tools for Dev Rel professionals.