Developer Relation Engineer

Roles and responsibilities

We are hiring a Developer Relations Engineer to join a new Developer Relations team that we have created to engage directly with open source communities and developer-centric organizations. We hope both to communicate our vision and products for better open source development experiences, and also to have a better feedback loop from those audiences to shape our offerings and priorities.

A Developer Relations Engineer is a technical expert, strategist and communicator with deep empathy for developers. This discipline combines practical engineering skills with firm diplomacy across organizational boundaries, in both directions. Like our audience, a Developer Relations Engineer is never satisfied with the status quo, and is driven by an insatiable curiosity to find better ways to get things done. They are problem-solvers and inventors, who understand people's needs and love the way that tools can be adapted to meet them. They stay current with tech trends and provide insights and guidance while fostering innovation.

Location: This role will be based remotely in the APAC and EMEA regions.

The role entails

• Contribute to product management team meetings
• Maintain conversations with developer community members
• Engage on IRC, social media, product forums, meet-ups and more
• Collaborate across Canonical teams
• Solve specific technical problems that users or colleagues have identified
• Contribute to technical documentation
• Work on technical articles, presentations or workshops
• Identify new opportunities in developer experience
• Present at conferences, meetups or technical events
  

What we are looking for in you

• An exceptional academic track record from both high school and university
• Undergraduate degree in Computer Science or STEM, or a compelling narrative about your alternative path
• Drive and a track record of going above-and-beyond expectations
• Developer with a demonstrable engagement in open-source software
• Well-organized, self-starting and able to deliver to schedule
• Professional manner interacting with colleagues, partners, and community
• Experience of Linux software packaging (deb, rpm or snap)
• Contributor to open-source communities, software and documentation
• An engaging, vivacious speaker and presenter
• Effective, tactful, empathetic and confident
• Builds trust, relationships and confidence
• Result-oriented, with a personal drive to meet commitments
• Ability to travel twice a year, for company events up to two weeks each
• Ability to travel in addition to upstream and industry events
  

Nice-to-have skills

• Experience in a developer advocacy or community role
• Ops and system administration experience
• Performance engineering and security experience

Desired candidate profile

Community Engagement and Advocacy

• Developer Outreach: Actively engage with developers via forums, social media, developer events, webinars, and online communities to promote the company’s products and gather feedback.
• Community Building: Foster a vibrant and active developer community by organizing events, hackathons, meetups, and conferences (in-person or virtual). Encourage participation and interaction among developers.
• Customer Feedback: Serve as the voice of the external developer community within the company, communicating developer pain points, suggestions, and feature requests to internal product and engineering teams.
• Evangelism: Promote and advocate for the company’s products, APIs, or services by speaking at events, writing blog posts, creating tutorials, and developing use cases to help developers understand how to use the technology.

2. Content Creation and Education

• Technical Writing: Write blog posts, tutorials, documentation, and other technical content that helps developers understand and effectively use the company’s tools, platforms, or products. This could include guides, code samples, and API documentation.
• Code Samples and Demos: Create code samples, repositories, and working demo applications that showcase best practices, new features, or complex use cases to help developers get started quickly.
• Video Content: Produce video tutorials, livestreams, or other media content that provides developers with visual learning opportunities and helps demonstrate the company’s technology.
• Documentation Improvement: Continuously improve and update technical documentation, ensuring it is clear, concise, and easy to follow, based on developer feedback and product updates.

3. Technical Support and Troubleshooting

• Answering Developer Queries: Provide technical support to developers through various channels (e.g., forums, email, Slack, etc.) by helping them troubleshoot issues, offering advice, and guiding them through technical challenges.
• Escalating Issues: Identify recurring issues or critical bugs reported by developers and work with engineering teams to resolve them. Help prioritize issues based on impact and community feedback.
• Debugging: Assist developers in debugging and resolving integration issues with APIs, SDKs, or the company’s products, providing insights and solutions for more seamless implementation.

4. Internal Collaboration and Feedback Loop

• Product Team Collaboration: Work closely with product managers, engineers, and other internal teams to relay feedback from the developer community and influence product development, roadmap, and improvements.
• Feature Requests: Collect and analyze feature requests and pain points from developers, helping prioritize improvements that will benefit the community and enhance product usability.
• Engineering Support: Help engineering teams understand the challenges developers face when using the company’s products or services and recommend improvements for better developer experience.

5. Developer Tools and Resources

• SDK and API Integration: Assist developers in integrating the company’s SDKs, APIs, or other products into their applications, offering advice and best practices to optimize usage.