Dave Nugent and I sat down together and Dave asked me the following questions about Developer Relations:
- How do you prove the value of DevRel inside a large company?
- How valuable is consistent messaging for DevRel?
- How does leading DevRel differ between a startup and enterprise?
- How does your team interface inside IBM?
- How has your mission changed since you started at IBM?
- Who in DevRel would you like to call out?
Q: How do you prove the value of DevRel inside a large company?
Probably one of the best ways and my favorite is to explain that developers today have a lot of influence. In other words, developers make decisions what software to use and buy. Many years ago software was purchased by executives and pushed down to developers (top-down approach). In most companies today it’s the complete opposite. Developers try software and if they like it they go to their managers/executives (who has the budget) and ask them to buy the software. Instead of top-down it’s now bottom-up approach. In some companies developers not only influence what software to buy but they also have the buying power.
Continue reading the interview.
Max Katz 
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