Category: marketing-titles

If you’re investing in content marketing to grow your business, you’re no doubt familiar with search engine optimization (SEO). But on-page SEO isn’t the only piece of the puzzle — you also need technical SEO to help visitors find, navigate, and read content on your website.

The job of technical SEO is no small feat, and encompasses all sorts of responsibilities. A few of the most common of these include:

• Building backlinks to improve your site’s authority
• Improving page load speeds to retain readers longer
• Fixing technical errors so visitors have a seamless experience on your site

These are complicated tasks with a potentially huge time commitment, and likely more than you can handle as a marketer, developer, or small business owner. Luckily, you can delegate each of these responsibilities to a skilled technical SEO specialist working full-time on your site.

But knowing when to hire a technical SEO specialist is a lot more complicated than knowing what they do.

That’s why we wrote this guide covering everything you should know about technical SEO specialists. Our goal is to familiarize you with their many benefits so you can make an informed decision about finding one for your business.

Once we explain what their characteristics and responsibilities are, we also cover when you should hire a professional to get your website seen online.

Now, let’s start with the most obvious question:

What is a technical SEO specialist?

A technical SEO specialist is responsible for ensuring that websites are optimized for search engines like Google. This includes tasks such as fixing technical errors, improving page load speed, and building backlinks to boost your website’s authority.

However, this is just scratching the surface of what a technical SEO specialist can do. Depending on the size of your site and your specific niche, the right expert can also:

• Create sitemaps to help search engines better understand your website’s structure and create a hierarchy of information between different pages.
• Optimize your website for mobile users so potential leads never fall through the cracks.
• Update the title and meta description of each webpage with the optimal number of keywords and characters.
• Consolidate code on individual web pages to improve loading speed and retain impatient visitors.

You can think of SEO like building a house, with backend technical SEO specialists acting as the builders. Off-page experts need to construct the ‘shell’ of your structure so on-page content marketers (like interior designers) can get their content seen by the right people.

Just keep in mind your technical SEO specialist probably isn’t going to pen any content for your site. Since technical experts are focused on performance over keywords, their role is to bridge the gap between frontend content and your backend structure. 

How senior is a technical SEO position? That depends on your business structure. You may want to keep your technical SEO expert on the same level as your head of content, or you may choose to bump them a notch above or below. It all depends on what you plan to do with your website and how much you want to invest in on-page SEO.

It may be possible to hire a single specialist with experience managing on-page and off-page SEO. Just keep in mind this isn’t a common combination — and the cost of hiring such an expert may be far more expensive than hiring two separate SEOs.

Characteristics of a Technical SEO Specialist

Not everyone is cut out to be a technical SEO specialist. While you may be able to hire someone internally to manage a few off-page tasks, there will likely be a few skill gaps that require you to hire a full-time expert (or at least partner with a freelance professional).

You also need to find someone with the right skill set and temperament to handle new technical SEO challenges as they arise.

A few of the most common characteristics of a technical SEO specialist include:

• A strong understanding of the technical aspects of SEO. This means having a demonstrable, working knowledge of search engine algorithms, SSL certificates, and website architecture (HTML, CSS, JS, and others). 
• The ability to troubleshoot and fix technical errors. Most pros need to address 404 errors, webpage redirects, and canonical tags on a regular basis. 
• A strong proficiency with technical SEO tools or platforms, including Google Analytics, Ahrefs, and Screaming Frog.
• The ability to optimize websites for speed and performance. Most technical specialists should be able to diagnose issues fast and find workarounds relatively quickly.
• The ability to optimize landing pages, blogs, and published articles for non-desktop users. This includes phones, tablets, and even certain laptops.
• The ability to build do-follow backlinks through websites with reputable, high DR rankings. Remember: artificially building backlinks through shoddy, spammy websites can be terrible for SEO and is not recommended.

We should mention here that some people distinguish between technical SEO and off-page SEO. They argue that technical SEO specialists handle the backend of a website (like pagination), while off-page SEO specialists handle optimizations outside of your site (like backlinks). This article uses the terms interchangeably since many technical SEO specialists also do off-page SEO (and vice versa).

When Should You Hire a Technical SEO Specialist?

So you know for sure you want a technical SEO specialist on your team. The question isn’t if, but when.

But is it ever too early to hire a technical SEO specialist?

Well, yes and no.

Yes, you need a technical expert to flesh out your website and help content perform. Since organic traffic is responsible for 53% of site traffic (and 40% of people abandon websites that take more than three seconds to load), having a technical specialist by your side can supercharge your content efforts and hold on to more leads.

That said, hiring a technical SEO expert can be expensive for smaller brands. The average salary for a technical SEO pro is around $80,647 per year, which comes out to approximately $39 per hour. If you’re not equipped to pay for a full-time staff member, you may want to look for a freelancer to fill in the gaps. 

And keep in mind not every company needs to hire a technical SEO specialist. Depending on your specific size or niche, you could move one of your SEO-savvy developers into the role. If you’re one of the lucky few to find an SEO unicorn (someone who can do on-page and off-page optimization), you don’t need to worry about hiring separate roles at all.

What about posting a job description? How soon can you know you need technical SEO? You can use the hiring triggers below to get a better idea about your timeline.

You may want to hire a technical SEO specialist if:

• If your website is not ranking well in search engines. Lower rankings may be tied to confusing sitemaps or slow-loading pages that encourage visitors to bounce.
• If you are experiencing technical errors that are affecting your SEO. Just running your domain through Ahrefs won’t be enough to fix your site, and tinkering with the backend without knowing what you’re doing could lead to disastrous results.
• If you are looking to improve your website’s speed and performance. Many technical SEO experts can optimize loading speeds while improving structural data, which makes content easier for search bots to understand and more fun for users to read.
• If you are looking to build backlinks to your website. Paying for links or settling for low DA websites is rarely a good strategy for online growth. Good technical specialists worth their salt can propose better strategies ensuring growth over time.

You may want to hire a technical SEO specialist at the same time you onboard other members of your technical team. Not only can they weigh into your website’s building process, but they can also provide guidance while expanding your digital presence (like choosing the right blogging platform, for example).

Upgrading Your Website With a Technical SEO Specialist

Technical SEO specialists aren’t just a vanity hire. With deep vertical experience creating sitemaps, backlinks, and structured data, they can be a secret weapon for growing teams looking to take their marketing to the next level. 

Yes, they can be expensive. And no, they may not be the right hire for you at this particular time. But if you can make space in your budget and are ready to scale, a technical SEO specialist can no doubt help your company grow.

Several years ago, I began speaking at developer conferences. It was a great way to learn new things while meeting lots of people who would go on to become useful connections. Some of these people were professional “technology evangelists.” While relatively unknown outside the tech space, within the industry, the role has been a staple of developer-outreach for a long time.

The word “evangelist” has traditionally been associated with someone who spreads religious gospel. However, this isn’t far from what a technology evangelist does. Instead of inspiring religious converts, a technology evangelist influences individuals and businesses through talks, content, and community engagement. The term is often used interchangeably with developer evangelist.

In this piece, I’ll flesh out the role that technology evangelists play in a tech company, their responsibilities, and how you can hire (or be hired) as one. If you’re an aspiring evangelist looking to get started or a company trying to hire one for the first time, you should find some of these insights useful.

Why Is Technology Evangelism Important?

Marketing to technical people is notoriously hard. They tend to be detail-oriented, impervious to salesy spiels, and generally hard to reach behind popup and ad blockers.

At the same time, developers and other technical professionals are a very valuable market. They’re savvy, well-paid, and invest in resources and learning material to help them do their jobs. Developers are also center-stage when it comes to spending initiatives at their companies. If they recommend buying a tool that makes their job easier, there’s a good chance their companies will do it.

And make no mistake, there are a lot of developer tools out there. It’s a far cry from a decade ago, when all you had was an IDE and a server to run your software. Today, the number of paid services and applications available to help developers code, collaborate, and deploy is nearly endless.   

Evangelists help bridge the gap between the companies creating these solutions and the users they’re intended for. They’re often former software developers and technologists themselves who understand these products and can discuss their benefits authoritatively.

Developer Evangelism is outward facing – it is evangelizing and promoting your offerings to developers.

Jennifer Hooper, Sr. Director of Developer Marketing at Armory

Traditionally, developer evangelists have been a part of organizations’ sales and marketing departments as they are often responsible for moving leads through the pipeline. However, the growth of B2D marketing has spawned a host of specialized roles beyond developer evangelism, such as developer advocacy, developer success, developer experience, and more. 

Deconstructing Developer Relations

In trying to make sense of all these terms, I reached out to my network for their take and got some interesting responses. Caroline Lewko, who wrote Developer Relations: How to build and grow a successful developer program, believes that “Developer Relations is the umbrella” for the wider framework of developer-focused roles.

Jason St-Cyr, the Director of Developer Relations at Sitecore, concurs: 

In our organization, we are using different terms for different types of roles…We use Developer Relations to encompass the whole group of folks working with the developer audience. We use Developer/Technical/Product evangelism to refer to the type of work that is closer to product marketing (benefits, use cases, sales enablement, FAQs). We use Developer Advocacy to refer to people specifically focused on connecting 1:1 with the community, gathering feedback, being the first customer, building out helpful content.

Nick Ali says that at Tatum, the department consists of three standout roles:

Evangelists who do conferences, meetups, basically anything requiring physical presence (or Zoom), Advocates who support various online channels, writing tutorials, guides, and starter templates, collect feedback for our developers, and Community Managers who make sure everything is running smoothly and organize online events.

The consensus seems to be that developer relations as a space is still evolving, as is the role of a technology evangelist. Companies structure it based on what they need out of it. 

Technology Evangelism in Practice

Marketing to developers tends to be a mix of educating, helping, and empathizing with them. As a result, evangelists are often tasked with a broad range of responsibilities to drive results for their employers.

1. Event Marketing

This is one of the most effective ways to reach developers and technologists, provided it’s done right. Attending an event is a great way to get one-on-one time with developers and influencers.

Try to land a speaking opportunity — you can usually do this for free. This will let you address a wider audience, but be wary of being overly sales-y. This is a big turn-off for developers who tend to be a skeptical bunch. If you intend to present or distribute material, consider a whitepaper with detailed research instead of a more promotional case study.

You can also sponsor an event or create your own. The latter is obviously a costly proposition but gives you full control over your attendees as well as how the event is designed and marketed.

2. Content Marketing

There is a range of content types you can leverage to target developers at different stages of the outreach cycle:

• Blogs and guest posts: Articles, both on-site and external, let you improve SEO and organic traffic. Engaging, original content can help you establish your brand as an authority within your space and funnel your readers into your pipeline via newsletter sign-ups and strategic CTAs.   

• White papers: Thought leadership content like white papers and e-books is typically a top-of-the-funnel marketing initiative. These are perfect for syndicating online or presenting at an event to generate leads.

• Tutorials and case studies: These help your users understand how your solution works in the real world. Prospects who view them are typically near the end of the pipeline and use the information to decide if they want to buy into your product or not.

• Video content: Video streaming is increasing— has been for a while, and developers are in on the trend too. From entry-level tutorials to panel Q&As and live coding sessions, there’s a lot of room for you to ideate and publish video content to interest your prospects.

The key to creating effective technical content is to be authentic and genuinely helpful. Ideally, your content should be written by developers who understand how to communicate its benefits to their peers. This can either be a job for the developer evangelist or you can outsource it. 

Finding and recruiting reliable writers is hard work. The best already have full-time jobs. Alternatively, you can work with an agency like Draft.dev. We have over 200 technical writers on our roster, all of them subject-matter experts.  

It’s worth bearing in mind that executing a quality content strategy is a long-term play and doesn’t come cheap. On the plus side, it generates far better leads than outbound marketing and creates long-lasting value as well.

3. Community-driven Marketing

Don’t be fooled by the sight of a developer sitting quietly behind a keyboard with headphones on. We tend to be quite active and vocal in forums where we feel comfortable. Companies that can effectively tap into these communities will find a lot of traction for their product. 

Slack groups, Discourse forums, and Stack Overflow are all great forums to engage your users, as are social media platforms like Twitter, Reddit, and Hacker News. 

As an evangelist, you’ll likely play a prominent role across these initiatives, from writing content to recording videos and speaking at conferences. You’ll often be the face of your company at events and in online communities. Expect to be entrusted with tasks such as introducing new products and features to the public as well as engaging with customers and providing feedback to the product team.

Becoming a Technology Evangelist

A developer evangelist is first and foremost a translator. Someone who can explain technology to different audiences to get their support for a certain product or technology. It needs to be someone who is technical but also capable to find the story in a technical message…A good developer evangelist can get techies excited about a product by pointing out the benefits for developers who use the product on an eye-to-eye level.

– Christian Heilmann, Principal Technical Evangelist at Mozilla

Now that you’re familiar with what entails being an evangelist, let’s take a look at some of the skills you’ll need to become one.

1. Technical Skills

This is a bit of a given. Most technology evangelists are experienced software developers in addition to being strong technology generalists. The latter, in particular, is non-negotiable; it’s why companies are turning to you instead of run-of-the-mill marketers.

The specific skills you’ll need will depend on the company you’d like to work with, although this isn’t likely to be an issue. There are companies selling everything from low-code applications to financial news APIs. Pick an area you’d like to specialize in. If you’re new to development, consider exploring niches like Kubernetes and data warehouses that need technology evangelists.

2. Communication Skills

You need to be able to effectively communicate information to other developers. Start by learning to write technical content and speaking at local meetups. Challenge yourself with tougher assignments in front of bigger audiences. Consider applying to Draft.dev for more writing experience in a professional context.   

3. Empathetic Personality

As Medi Madelen Gwosdz and Ritika Puri put it “…the ability to create impact in a DevEv role begins with the right mindset.” Technology evangelism builds on technical knowledge, but the job itself is a mixture of sales, marketing, and support. You’re expected to be helpful and keep a positive attitude amid possible pushback and disinterest from users.

Hiring a Technology Evangelist

If you’ve hired developers before, you’ll know how hard it is to recruit in this space. There aren’t that many candidates available. The best technology evangelists tend to be very good at building their personal brands and are highly sought after. 

1. Cast Your Net Wide

Don’t make the mistake of narrowing your search to within the United States and Western Europe. Technologists and developers worldwide tend to be fluent in English and accustomed to collaborating with foreign companies. At Draft, we work with writers from more than 40 countries and counting. 

Also consider candidates who aren’t necessarily developers. Product managers, technology salespersons, and consultants are just some of the people who will likely have the combination of technical and interpersonal skills you’re looking for.

2. Be Specific About Deliverables

The role of technology evangelist varies quite a lot and vague job listings will dissuade qualified applicants. Define very clearly what the role entails at your company and what you expect your hires to deliver.

Are you looking for an online community manager or an event representative? Will they be responsible for just marketing initiatives or have sales targets as well? Is it a self-directed role or are you prepared to offer guidance and mentorship?

3. Expect to Pay the Big Bucks

You can’t hire someone with the experience of a developer and expect to pay them a marketing manager’s salary. A specialist role such as this will cost you a pay rate similar to a senior developer or even more. To promote an available Technology Evangelist role in your company, you can post a job listing on DevRel Careers.

If you can’t afford someone full-time, consider outsourcing part of the responsibility to a B2D marketing agency like Draft.dev. We create specialized technical content for developers written by developers.

Evangelism is an integral part of marketing to developers, engineers, and technical users, and you need someone who speaks the same language.

Technical content can help and creating it tends to take up a big chunk of an evangelist’s time. Simplify the process by partnering with us. Schedule a call with us to see how we can help you create authoritative content at scale.

I started speaking at conferences several years ago. As I met more speakers and sponsors at events, I started to hear about developer evangelists a lot. While my goal at these conferences was to meet people, learn new things, and improve my public speaking skills, developer evangelists were being sent to these events to spread the word about their employers’ products and services.

Developer Evangelism is outward facing – it is evangelizing and promoting your offerings to developers.

Jennifer Hooper, Sr. Director of Developer Marketing at Armory

As the number of B2D-focused companies grows, specialized roles like Developer Evangelist, Developer Advocate, and Developer Relations are all growing in demand. But, if you’re new to this world, understanding these roles and the subtle differences between them can be tough.

In this piece, I will help shed some light on the role of developer evangelists in a company trying to reach software developers. I’ll share some of the day-to-day responsibilities of a developer evangelist, insights on how you can become one, and finally, some tips for hiring developer evangelists.

Where Does a Developer Evangelist Fit In?

Before we dig into what developer evangelists do, let’s look at where they typically fit in an org chart.

Traditionally, developer evangelism has been a sales or marketing function. Evangelists were often responsible for driving leads and pushing people down the marketing funnel.

But, more recently (and I’d argue, more appropriately), developer evangelism is put under a broader developer relations organizational unit. So, we’re seeing highly specialized teams of developer evangelists working in parallel with support and experience teams:

There’s a lot of variety in how organizations use developer evangelists and whether they even use that term at all. When I asked him about this, Chris Riley, Sr. Manager of DevRel at HubSpot told me that “Evangelism was the original title,” but that it’s being replaced with Advocacy “to be more clear and welcoming.”

So this leads to the question, what is the difference between Developer Evangelism, Advocacy, and Relations?

Developer Evangelist vs. Advocate vs. Relations

Because there are so many new terms popping up, I decided to ask my network what they thought the differences were between these three roles. I got some good responses in Slack and on Twitter, but they did vary quite a bit.

While some said the terms were just semantic differences and rarely mattered in practice, the majority of people see these roles as distinct. Caroline Lewko, who wrote Developer Relations: How to build and grow a successful developer program, answered it this way:

Developer Relations is the umbrella. It’s all about the relationship with the developer! Different areas/roles support that. pic.twitter.com/xPGUln0NSD

Caroline Lewko (@CarolineLewko) April 21, 2022

Nick Ali of Tatum said that they break the whole department into three roles:

Evangelists who do conferences, meetups, basically anything requiring physical presence (or Zoom), Advocates who support various online channels, writing tutorials, guides, and starter templates, collect feedback for our developers, and Community Managers who make sure everything is running smoothly and organize online events.

Jason St-Cyr, the Director of Developer Relations at Sitecore shared his company’s structure this way:

In our organization, we are using different terms for different types of roles…We use Developer Relations to encompass the whole group of folks working with the developer audience. We use Developer/Technical/Product evangelism to refer to the type of work that is closer to product marketing (benefits, use cases, sales enablement, FAQs). We use Developer Advocacy to refer to people specifically focused on connecting 1:1 with the community, gathering feedback, being the first customer, building out helpful content.

There are a lot of ways that developer evangelists can be worked into an organizational chart. This might be confusing, but it makes sense given the broad range of responsibilities developer evangelists are often tasked with. For employers, the job titles don’t matter as much as getting the work done.

In the next few sections, we’ll look at some of these responsibilities and the skills you’ll need if you want to become or hire a new developer evangelist.

Responsibilities of a Developer Evangelist

Specific tactics, like webinars and interacting with developers using your product, are only part of a successful DevEv experience…the ability to create impact in a DevEv role begins with the right mindset.

Medi Madelen Gwosdz and Ritika Puri

Much like Developer Advocates and Relations professionals, the day-to-day work involved in Developer Evangelism varies widely. Some of the responsibilities most commonly given to evangelists include:

• Speaking at conferences
• Attending and running events
• Writing blog posts
• Recording videos
• Overseeing developer social media presence
• Helping announce new features to the public (often with product marketers)
• Listening to customers and providing feedback to the product team

As you’ll note, many of these responsibilities overlap with those of developer advocates. Because this role is still relatively new and every organization treats it differently, there’s no way to avoid some crossover, but I tend to see developer evangelists being more focused on outward, public-facing efforts.

While their role might sound more like marketing or communications, developer evangelists still need to be technical.

The key to building trust with developers is being able to understand their needs and be part of their communities. It’s possible to learn a lot of this, but the most successful evangelists have usually been software developers in the past.

Becoming a Developer Evangelist

A developer evangelist is first and foremost a translator. Someone who can explain technology to different audiences to get their support for a certain product or technology. It needs to be someone who is technical but also capable to find the story in a technical message…A good developer evangelist can get techies excited about a product by pointing out the benefits for developers who use the product on an eye-to-eye level.

– Christian Heilmann, Principal Technical Evangelist at Mozilla

Now that you know what kind of activities you’ll need to take part in, let’s take a look at some of the skills you must have in order to get into developer evangelism.

1. Technical Experience

Most developer evangelists are strong generalists in technology who have worked for at least 5 years in software development. While you can break into the field without a ton of experience writing code, the more you’re able to empathize and understand the mind of a developer, the better you’ll be.

As far as which technical skills you should pick up, it depends.

The range of companies selling tools to software developers is huge—everything from CI/CD platforms to low-code data visualization tools—but if you specialize, you might have an edge in certain areas. If you’re brand new to development, I’d encourage you to explore Kubernetes and data warehouses as there seems to be a huge need for developer evangelists in these niches.

2. Communication Skills

Learn to write technical content and speak in front of developers. You can start by writing on your personal blog and speaking at local meetups, but eventually you’ll need to step it up. If you’re looking for more experience writing, be sure to apply to Draft.dev as we pay software engineers to write content while keeping a byline.

3. Positive/Helpful Attitude

Finally, you need the right can-do mentality to succeed in developer evangelism. You’re going to face pushback from users, but you have to keep your attitude positive and just focus on providing whatever help you can. Because this role edges on sales, marketing, and support at times, you can’t use the “not my job” excuse if you want to be a good developer evangelist.

Hiring a Developer Evangelist

Now for the really hard part, hiring.

Like many roles in this field, the number of qualified candidates available is low. Because the best developer evangelists tend to be good at building their own personal brands as well, they’re often highly sought after by big companies who can pay good salaries for them.

I will share a few tips though as it’s an important role to get right:

1. Broaden Your Search

The world is a big place, but a lot of companies still focus their search on the United States and (maybe) Western Europe. In programming though, developers all over the world are fluent in English and very comfortable working with foreign companies. Our writers at Draft.dev hail from more than 40 countries and it’s only increasing.

You may also have to look for non-traditional candidates to build a good funnel. People who have previously worked in product management, engineering management, or consulting often have the blend of interpersonal and technical skills that developer evangelists need.

2. Set Expectations for the Hire

Because the role of a developer evangelist can vary so widely, good candidates are wary about vague job listings.

Is it really a sales or marketing role? How much autonomy will they get? Will they get guidance and mentorship or do they need to be self-directed?

The more specific you can get in your job listings, the more likely you will be to find the right evangelist for your stage of company.

3. Expect to Pay Senior-Level Developer Rates…or More

Another common issue is that companies sometimes think they can hire developer evangelists for the pay rate of a marketing professional. But, because these individuals are so highly specialized, they usually command a similar pay rate to senior developers or even higher.

If you don’t have the budget to hire someone full-time, you could work with a B2D marketing agency like Draft.dev to help augment your team. We’re solely focused on creating technical content for developer tools companies, and typically cost much less than a full-time developer evangelist.

Conclusion

Developer evangelism is an important part of marketing to developers. Whether you call it “evangelism” (or advocacy or relations) or not, you need people in your company who are focused on building awareness and advocating for your product.

If technical content writing is part of your evangelism plan, be sure to book a call. I’d love to share what we’re seeing work and if we can help you scale up your content efforts.

Marketing is one of the fastest growing fields of the decade. Recent BLS data suggests there are more than 316,000 marketing roles available in the United States, with more than 31,000 new opportunities projected to be added by 2030. And that’s not all: a 10% average growth rate puts the marketing field well ahead of adjacent industries, and is only expected to rise as new frontiers and platforms become available.

It’s clear that marketing roles are extremely significant, both for jobseekers and employers alike. Today, it takes dozens of different skill sets and positions to make the industry go ‘round, from heads of content to CMOs to the multifaceted product marketer. Marketing titles hold an enormous amount of significance, and understanding how and why they apply to your industry could make or break your future strategy.

Let’s explore the various types of marketing job titles and roles, particularly as they appear in common practice. This includes a breakdown of jobs by type and level of influence, as well as other potential resources for staying up-to-date with the job market.

Marketing Job Titles

There are quite literally thousands of marketing titles in use today, ranging from internal colloquialisms to traditional terminology. Sure, there’s more to a name than meets the eye, but when comparing one job title against hundreds of similar sounding roles, it can be hard to discern an actual definition.

Clarity is key to success, and in the world of modern job descriptions, it matters more than ever. Let’s explore some of the most common marketing job titles in the field today, including their universal meaning and function in the average department.

Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)

Often referred to as a CMO or a C-level marketer, the chief marketing officer leads all other marketing personnel. These professionals work alongside other executives at the top of the ladder, including CEOs, CFOs, and COOs. CMOs generally have years (if not decades) of industry experience and have proved their prowess in the marketing field with years of results.

CMOs are in charge of several different tasks, all of which are dependent on the company in question. Startups may have their CMO leading most or all daily marketing tasks, while established companies may delegate quarterly reporting tasks or project management functions.

Head Of Marketing

Just below the CMO, the Head Of Marketing is a focal point for all elements of the creating marketing process. These professionals hold the line of communication by helping advertisers, content creators, and product specialists effectively communicate upcoming projects.

You might find a Head of Marketing acting in a CMO role at smaller companies, or working as a department head for larger teams. In either case, the job duties are clear: to create the building blocks of success by delegating work among teams.

Marketing Manager

The Marketing Manager translates high-level strategy into specific steps for the rest of the marketing team. These experts usually specialize in one or two fields within certain areas of the marketing department. For example, some managers may be in charge of content production, while others curate product positioning teams.

You might find a marketing manager performing a middle management role, toeing the line on:

• Translating new strategies
• Tracking campaign effectiveness
• Developing key insights

Head Of Content

If your company manages a high volume of content, chances are you will need a Head Of Content to bring it all together. Content Leads supervise the creation of content in all forms and act as the final layer of quality control for blogs, videos, and the general public.

A head of content may also be in charge of strategy creation and trend research, helping to direct the actions of content creators and the content marketing manager.

Content Marketing Manager

Similar to the marketing manager, the Content Marketing Manager manages daily tasks for content creators, supervisors, and SEO professionals. Most firms expect this role to have strong on-the-ground responsibilities, including project updates and work supervision.

Depending on the company in question, content marketing managers may be in charge of producing and delegating digital content production.

Head Of Growth

B2B or technology-oriented companies frequently rely on a Head Of Growth to scale their brand’s presence and profit margins. This is a relatively new role in the industry and is particularly sought-after by brands like HubSpot, Uber, and EventBrite. There’s a good reason why: these experts track, report, and optimize key growth metrics across an entire organization – not just certain departments.

Most organizations expect three key functions from their head of growth: growth hacking, growth management, and growth nurturing. Other functions, including data analytics, are usually part of their daily responsibilities.

Marketing Associate

Growing startups eventually begin the process of hiring marketing associates. Often referred to as MAs, these employees are responsible for creating and implementing all the elements of a marketing strategy – from content and reporting tasks to daily updates for supervisors.

The marketing associate may not sound like the flashiest of internal roles, but these employees are nothing less than essential. If you’re planning on growing your brand in any capacity, an MA will be one of your star players.

Product Marketing Specialist

While marketing associates focus on brand-wide campaigns, a Product Marketing Specialist is only interested in awareness, value, and demand for specific inventory. These relatively complex roles use a plethora of tools to effectively market their marketing projects and have an excellent understanding of data, KPIs, and additional growth metrics.

Product marketing specialists are one of the most complicated roles on this list. Project roles and duties vary widely from company to company, and will likely change over time as the job becomes more defined. If you’re interested in getting a job in the field, it would be wise to directly ask your employer about expected tasks and responsibilities.

Advertising Specialist

It’s important to draw a clear distinction between the Marketing Specialist and the Advertising Specialist. While the marketer specifically focuses on customer support activities such as content production, UX, and social media, the advertiser is more interested in the promotion of a brand or idea. Advertising specialists create brand awareness campaigns, manage paid media activities, and otherwise monitor the growth of sponsorships and promotions.

Advertising specialists usually have the same organizational presence as marketing specialists, and may even be seated in the same department. This, like many things, is up to the discretion of the company.

Developer Relations

One of the most exciting marketing roles in recent years includes Developer Relations. Think of it as a combination between PR reps and your software developers, with a sprinkle of speaking, writing, and conference paneling on the side.

Developer relations is becoming highly sought after in the marketing field, and has evolved into a critical role for startup tech companies. While job boundaries may be less defined, general responsibilities fall somewhere between marketing tasks, sales work, and elements of customer support. From creating technical content to running live demos and workshops, DevRels truly live in a class of their own. If you’re interested in pursuing a career in Developer Relations, DevRel Careers is a great source for job opportunities.

Learn More About Common Marketing Roles

The world of digital marketing is constantly changing, including its job titles and performance roles. If you’re planning on forging a new career path, or if you’re looking to fill gaps at your organization with top talent, it’s a good idea to stay in the know with colloquialisms and changing vernacular.

Below are some of the best resources to stay up-to-date with common marketing roles:

• RSS Feed Reader: A good RSS can supply a wealth of thought leadership and trends within a matter of minutes. Enjoy a good read with your breakfast or lunch, and stay updated even on the fly.
• Good News & Trends: Scanning Google News or Trends can provide brief insights into critical changes within the marketing world.
• Email Newsletters: Following industry development is a lot easier when someone else does it for you. This ultimate list of developer newsletters is a great one-stop-shop resource.

The more you learn about marketing roles and job titles, the more confident you can be as a team lead, incoming professional, or established marketing pro.
Interested in more marketing insights? Subscribe to Draft.dev’s weekly newsletter for valuable resources, tips, and case studies delivered to your inbox every week. Enjoy our newsletter archive at your convenience, and start building your acumen in marketing for technical developers and beyond.

I first heard about developer relations back in 2018 when I started speaking at technology conferences. Many companies send Developer Advocates or “DevRels” to these conferences to help promote their company, so I got to know a lot of people in the field.

This career path fascinates me because it blends technical knowledge with speaking, writing, and helping other developers. It was one of the alternative career paths that inspired me to write this article, and I’ve gotten to know much more about it in the past two years as many of our clients at Draft.dev are in the field.

That said, breaking into developer relations is a bit different than getting a job in software engineering. There’s no degree that focuses on DevRel, so people in the field come from a wide range of backgrounds and prior experiences.

So, I decided to ask several developer relations professionals about their careers. It was eye-opening to hear how their day-to-day work varied and the wide range of skills they had. In this post, I’ve captured several key takeaways from those conversations that will help you if you’re exploring or entering into a career in developer relations.

What Exactly do Developer Relations Professionals Do?

Every DevRel I spoke with mentioned a wide range of tasks that they engaged in on a regular basis:

[DevRels] talk with customers in support, write blog posts, plan events, connect with product and engineering about upcoming releases, write docs, and really whatever else needed to be done.

– Justin Johnson, Macrometa

Developer relations is a relatively new field and as such, it’s not always clearly defined. In some companies, it’s a marketing function, while others lump it in with customer support or product management. Because of this, every DevRel position is different, and the KPIs (key performance indicators) that developer relations professionals report on can vary widely.

Some of the tasks I’ve seen Developer Relations professionals responsible for include:

• Maintaining open source libraries and SDKs
• Writing and maintaining documentation
• Building demo applications
• Speaking at conferences
• Running workshops and training
• Writing and publicizing blog posts and tutorials
• Managing user groups and online communities
• Announcing product releases
• SEO and keyword research
• Community research
• Managing social media
• Hosting developer podcasts
• Writing landing page copy
• Writing ebooks, whitepapers, and guides

At most companies, only one or two people hold a Developer Relations title, so they have to be generalists.

I like DevRel because it’s interdisciplinary…In general, DevRel lets me use my broad skill set every day, from storytelling to speaking, from planning to management, and from development and design. DevRel really is for the generalists at heart.

– Ivan Burazin, Infobip

But, as PJ Hagerty of DevRelate pointed out, DevRel is maturing and some companies now have established career ladders: “One of the interesting things that has happened over the last few years is that DevRel has a career path…Now we have specialists and focus areas.”

Developer Relations Backgrounds

Having a wide range of responsibilities also means developer relations professionals come from a diverse set of backgrounds. Of the seven people I spoke with for this article, each had a very different path into the field.

Katie Miller went from sales development to product marketing to working as Google’s Global Lead for Cloud Developer Events before settling into her current role with Asana. “I came to Developer Relations and Developer Marketing by a combination of curiosity and good timing,” she told me. “By showing commitment to learning about developers and developer technology…I was able to build trust and credibility.”

On the other end of the spectrum, Lorna Mitchell describes herself as “a very experienced software engineer with a blogging habit.” Her background as a software developer and consultant helped her build the tech and people skills required to empathize with developers.

I started out by delivering some training about coding skills and software architecture, then I gave a conference talk (or twenty), wrote technical magazine articles, and eventually some books. After some years of doing part-time tech lead roles to fund the community lifestyle, l accepted my first official DevRel role.

– Lorna Mitchell, Aiven

Note: Asana and Aiven are both currently hiring developer relations professionals if you’re looking for a new role.

Others I spoke with came from marketing, sales, user experience development, and product development backgrounds. Many were also business owners or startup founders at some point along their career journey.

Ivan Burazin pointed out that his background as a business owner has made him into a “jack of all trades,” which is perfect for DevRel. “As I have been an entrepreneur for most of my career, I’m used to doing a bit of everything all the time,” he said.

The Skills DevRels Need

Interestingly, there isn’t a college degree or bootcamp (that I could find at least) to prepare people for a career in DevRel, so almost all of them are self-taught. Often, developer relations professionals have cobbled together a unique mix of skills that make them a fit for the role.

That said, four skills kept coming up in my conversations with DevRels for this piece:

1. Empathy

While none of the DevRels I spoke to said that you have to have a technical background to break into the field, they all said that empathy for software developers is essential. “People connect not just with what the technology can do for them but a relationship that shows trust and compassion for the developer experience,” Wesley Faulkner, host of the Community Pulse Podcast told me.

“DevRel doesn’t mean you have to be a hard-core dev,” Drew Harris of Rapyd.net added. “Developers are human just like we are, and need to be heard and appreciated just like everyone else.”

2. Communication

As you might guess from the list of job responsibilities above, developer relations professionals need to be strong external communicators. Whether it’s giving conference talks, writing blog posts, or listening to community members, almost everything in DevRel revolves around communication.

Because developer relations sits at the intersection of so many disciplines and departments, they often act as a mediator for internal communications as well. When describing his workday, Wesley Faulkner said that “It’s a constant dance between prioritizing my work and objectives and influencing others and their execution.”

3. Comfort with Variety

I’ve already alluded to how wide-ranging developer relations can be, so if you’re the kind of person who likes jumping between many different types of work, it could be a great field for you.

“I’m a generalist through and through,” Justin Johnson told me when describing why he likes DevRel. “The different types of work I do varies a ton and I get to interact with so many people in the organization.”

Drew Harris echoed the sentiment, “there is never a dull moment,” he told me. “One minute you are amplifying an amazing API product to external developers and then next you are setting up an external hackathon.”

Lorna Mitchell agreed, adding that while her role can be very technical at times, “mixing it up with the creative aspects of working with all of the content types and for so many different audiences keeps it interesting!”

4. Learning Mindset

Having an interest in learning lots of new topics is probably critical in most technology roles, but it stands out in developer relations for several reasons. Katie Miller’s background in European History and Higher Education might not appear to set her up for success in developer relations, but she was able to build a successful career “by showing commitment to learning about developers and developer technology through research, asking loads of questions, active listening, and showing how my skills and experiences add value.”

The tech tools and APIs that developers are using change really quickly, so if you want to stay current in this field, you’ll need to commit to learning new things all the time.

What’s Hard About Developer Relations?

The hardest part of DevRel is still just staying on top of everything. There are so many amazing technologies and philosophies around tech and work that I wish I could learn them all. Sadly, there isn’t enough time.

– PJ Hagerty

Some of the same attributes that make DevRel so fun also make it challenging. Besides keeping up with an ever-changing technology landscape, the variety of tasks can also be a big adjustment. Many of the former software engineers I spoke with specifically mentioned how they miss having time to focus on one product or project at a time.

“I do sometimes miss the certainty of my previous engineering roles,” Wesley Faulkner told me. PJ Haggerty added that software development is “a closed system in that you are focused on completing a single task or goal – unlike DevRel where you have many plates to spin all at once.”

Another point that several people mentioned was that it can be difficult to show the business value of developer relations. “You’re often doing work that is hard to tie directly to revenue,” Justin Johnson told me, “leadership has to really see the value of building out the DevRel team.”

Similarly, developer relations departments are usually small and interdisciplinary, so it can be hard to carve out a good space for the role.

As DevRel overlaps, Marketing, Engineering, and Product, and if the borders between these departments are not well defined, you can find people intentionally or non-intentionally stepping on each other’s toes, which just makes that job harder.

– Ivan Burazin

How Do You Get Started in DevRel?

Despite the challenges, there is a growing interest in developer relations and a growing number of companies are hiring for it. PJ Haggerty pointed out that in the past 6 or 7 years, the position has gone from being undervalued to “one of the biggest growing job fields in tech.”

But, since there’s no set career path or degree that sets you up for a career in DevRel, it can be hard to know where to start. Many of the people I talked to had to develop most of the required skills on their own.

If your background is in software engineering or engineering leadership, you’ll want to work on your communication and community skills. “Find opportunities to participate in and build community, hone written and verbal skills,” Katie Miller told me. “For folks moving into DevRel from engineering, the technical skills are there, so it’s redirecting them to deliver bi-directional outreach and advocacy.”

Justin Johnson’s advice was similar. He said that he favors candidates who “write a blog, start a meetup, build a side project, or contribute to an open-source project.” Ivan Burazin added that you could create or organize events. “They don’t have to be large-scale conferences, just a little meetup would do…this can all be done on [your] own, no need to wait for the experience you can start now.”

Of course, not all DevRels come from a tech background and that’s okay. Lorna Mitchell and Drew Harris said that demonstrating enthusiasm for helping others (especially developers) is a good way to build your qualifications in developer relations.

You have to have an insane amount of empathy for your audience. Having worked in support, design, sales, product, and other teams through the years really allows you to put yourself in the shoes of a developer.

Drew Harris

o matter your background, Wesley Faulkner pointed out that “the best thing you can do is know yourself well.” By understanding where your strengths lie today, you can figure out what skills you need to develop to set yourself up for success in developer relations. “Know what you’re good at, see what you’re bad at, and understand where you want to improve,” he told me.

Conclusion

Developer relations is an exciting and growing field. The job is all about empathizing with and lifting up your users, so if you like helping others, you’ll probably find it a very rewarding job.

For example, Drew Harris was really excited about Rapyd API’s series of hackathons (last year they gave away a Porche Taycan). Running these kinds of events and helping good developers get rewarded for their work is just part of what developer relations is all about.

Finally, there are wonderful, active communities for developer relations people on Twitter, Discord, Slack, and more. Katie Miller specifically mentioned how accepting the DevRel community has been. “It is global, diverse and in most instances, aspires to be inclusive,” she told me. “I’ve generally found that DevRel and developer communities aim to bring people together with common goals and interests, and aspire to create space for everyone and to celebrate what’s unique and what’s shared across us all.”

In our age of digital adoption and value-driven marketing, a head of content is increasingly important for startup success. In this article, we’re going to get familiarized with major topics on the subject:

• What is a head of content?
• Characteristics of a head of content
• When you need a head of content
• Alternatives to a head of content
• Making the right call for your business

What Does a Head of Content Do?

Before we talk about heads of content, we need to introduce the term ‘content.’ At its most fundamental level, content is a form of inbound marketing. The role of all inbound marketing is to drive interest, clicks, and valuable interactions with your audience. Ultimately, it turns visitors into customers and generates more revenue. No matter how far along your business is, you’re going to need strong, optimized content to set up your inbound marketing journey.

Content can take the form of text, audio, or video, and appear in almost any digital space. The brainstorming, administration, and management of content will stem from your content manager (also called a head of content). Their daily tasks fall into three categories:

• The creation of a holistic content strategy.
• The management of other members of the content team (like graphic designers, copywriters, and freelancers).
• The monitoring of analytics to direct data-driven and evolving content plans.

While they may not always be doing actual content creation, they will be heavily involved with its development. By supervising content generation, heads of content work closely with marketing teams, sales groups, and the CMO of your company. Their primary objective is to actualize and promote online content, making a measurable difference on your ROI.

Characteristics of a Head of Content

These marketing gurus are ‘T’ shaped professionals, meaning they have a wide span of industry knowledge and a deep understanding of content, SEO, and content marketing initiatives. Realistically, they should embody key traits that keep your company on the cutting edge of inbound strategy, and heads of content must:

• Stay current with the latest content platforms and trends.
• Have a broad understanding of what makes good content.
• Be able to enact best practices across all your content, harnessing SEO, social media, evergreen posting, and more.

As the head of content has seniority over members of the marketing department, they should exhibit strong leadership qualities. They must be quick to meet deadlines, flexible on the fly, and able to respond well to revisions. They are skilled at adapting their writing to meet your brand voice and tone, and can work with or without an established rubric.

Before you hire a head of content, you should make sure they are familiar with your niche. Even if your candidate has years of experience in content, they may not be comfortable working within your tech stack, programs, or products. Take time to source a head of content that exhibits these key traits:

1. Detail oriented in every sense of the word. Your content manager needs to keep track of all efforts, and know where to access content at any time. They should be able to check blog posts, articles, emails, and other forms of content for proper grammar, SEO, and where they sit in the strategy.
2. Deep experience both creating content and analyzing results. Some content creators are excellent at written content, but less comfortable tracking KPIs or other metrics. On the other hand, some marketers are incredible data analysts, but weaker at hands-on content creation. Try to find a balance between the two.

When You Need a Head of Content

The timing for hiring a head of content is critical. Too early and they won’t be able to create cohesive, cross-platform inbound strategies. Too late, and they may not be able to make a timely impact. Content marketing that takes too long could miss out on organic search trends, leaving your company in the dust.

Here’s how to tell when to hire a head of content:

• Your company has the means to support a full-time employee.
• The business retains both a marketing and sales department.
• All proto-content marketing has seen traction, but not enough to move the needle.
• Content marketing programs are seeing a great deal of traction, but your company is unable to supply higher output with more blogs, articles, etc.

If your business operates online or markets products through digital platforms with no physical presence, you’ll want to hire a head of content as soon as your goods or services are ready for launch. Physical businesses may want to wait until there is an express need to hire (meeting the requirements above). If spend is still tight, and you don’t have the ability to retain a full-time head of content, you may want to invest in some outside help.

Truthfully, heads of content cannot work best in isolation. If you want to take advantage of content and its benefits, your company will need a wider marketing team. It’s important to hire out a marketing and sales team long before investing in a head of content. Since your content managers rely on cross-platform collaboration (metrics + sales + marketing campaigns), having fully stocked teams allows them to do their best work. Plus, a mature and well-oiled system will help your head of content integrate into your company much faster.

Your company may start to show growing pains in the months leading up to hiring a content manager. You may want to accelerate your hiring plans if:

• Your company is unable to source organic leads from the web, or create enough content to move the needle accordingly.
• Members of your team are unable to measure the scope and impact of your inbound marketing tactics.
• Your content rollouts are becoming more and more infrequent, or difficult to promote after their initial debut.
• Your sales team lacks the content tools to convert leads with case studies, white papers, technical content, or related work.
• Your buyers’ journey or marketing funnel is ‘leaking’ (i.e. not optimized correctly and suffering from a low conversion rate).

Alternatives to a Head of Content

For companies that don’t require a head of content yet, there are three alternative options:

1. Internal Hiring

Use the skillsets of marketers in your company to generate content marketing initiatives. This method has the potential to save thousands of dollars in spend, and can help businesses scale quickly without hiring for new positions. Bear in mind that internal hiring or multitasking could create overstretch, or distract your employee from their primary role. It may be simpler to pass the ‘torch’ around from place to place, and have multiple marketing employees manage content marketing within a certain period of time (per week, per month, etc).

Whether or not you have a head of content, having someone on standby for writing services will be paramount. Your content manager should not be expected to create content and content outlines. That’s why it’s important to keep a list of talented employees, contract workers, and freelancers on hand to help with the nitty-gritty of content creation.

It’s important to remember that internal hiring can never replace a full-time head of content. Although your employees will be able to create and manage some content marketing, they shouldn’t be expected to know the ins and outs like a professional manager. Internal hires should be considered a temporary solution while your company grows.

2. Freelance Work

Sourcing freelance or contract work is an excellent method of generating content. Freelancers can be content marketers, SEO pros, or strategy experts who position your content in line with marketing initiatives. Unlike full-time employees, contractors work on an as-needed basis, and can be extremely cost effective for growing startups.

Contract work may not be the right choice for every startup. Freelancers juggle multiple clients at once, and may not always be available when you need them. Additionally, not all content creators have the skills to handle every aspect of the content generation process (SEO, KPIs, etc). Consider exactly what you need before signing any contracts.

3. Agency Outsourcing

Agency outsourcing is one of the best options for established startups. If you have a greater marketing budget, a higher content need, and specific industry requirements, agencies like Draft.dev could be your best bet. We develop blog posts, articles, and other inbound marketing collateral with technical audiences in mind, capturing the attention of decision makers.

Outsourcing content to agencies like Draft.dev doesn’t fit every situation. Agencies carry a higher price tag, typically on a monthly retainer, while freelancers usually charge per project or per word. Understand how much you can dedicate to an agency before you sign on the dotted line.

Making the Right Call for Your Business

Content is a vital part of modern business, regardless of a company’s size. Whether or not you choose to hire a head of content, the production of inbound marketing still needs to take place. For some companies, this could be done by hiring a content manager. For others, it could be through hiring part-time workers, freelancers, or an agency.

If your startup company isn’t quite ready to hire a full-time head of content, you may want to consider alternatives while you mature.

If you’re a technology company trying to reach software developers, we have the tools to help you thrive. Book a time to discuss your technical content marketing plan with us, and let’s talk about how content can help your business.