A Developer community is very similar to a real-world community, a techno-social unit made of members from varying experience and backgrounds but celebrating technology, common goals and challenges. DevRel focuses on serving the community needs in every possible way during their journey and hopes to turn them into champions and ambassadors. However, care must be taken not to assume all members are same or equal and employ a one-size-fits-all approach. We will be dealing with people of varying technical experience, backgrounds, expectation, interest level, prior exposure, skillset and above all the intent and goals.

The most crucial aspect of Developers’ journey is the onboarding and it determines their commitment for a successful and continuous engagement. It should be noted that their experience and engagement may affect the success of the Partners or Customers whoever they are representing. When designing the onboarding journey, DevRel should be aware of the persona of developers and devise paths to engage them correctly from the beginning. Oftentimes, one would assume that creating world-class materials and references, in all possible media forms is enough to turn every Developer into an ambassador - sadly not true. The sifting and searching one has to go through to get their feet on the ground would drain the interest levels, rather than engaging.

There are numerous classification schemes for learners and learning patterns.

a) The question of ‘Who’

Who are they and why are they there? Are they a ‘Student’ - genuinely wanting to learn, a ‘Tourist’ - a drifter, just want to check it out and decide and lastly a ‘Prisoner’ - who doesn’t want to be there. The return on investment is much higher on the Student and even Tourist persona, as their attention span and interest levels are better and will excel eventually without fail.

b) The question of ‘How’

The University of Arizona classifies typical learning patterns as

i) Sequence - Begin a task by asking basic questions like ‘What are the directions’ and ‘What am I expected to do?’. Learners following this pattern would wait till their questions are cleared and are convinced of the agenda for themselves.

ii) Precision - Loads of questions, needing information and acting with precision to do things correctly. These are walking encyclopaedia 😊

iii) Reasoning - Hands on, wanting to get a handle on the tools and gadgets and do it themselves. These are tinkerers who love to solve problems and prefer to work alone and DIY guys.

iv) Confluence - Abstract thinkers, usually think out of the box and use metaphors to explain things as they see and experience, rather than the exactness with words

I would like to add the following as the fifth pattern for advanced and experience developers who already have relevant background but might require bit of concept mapping and unlearning :)

v) Cross-reference - Experts who have prior experience on similar products, who prefer to map out things to either a standard or vocabulary they are familiar with.

c) The question of ‘What’

From the wealth of resources and materials, what excites them. Their learning style would steer them towards artifacts of a particular medium - visual, auditory, written and kinaesthetic. Having content in relevant mediums would ensure that they kick start their journey with ease and joy.

To cover the disparate needs and expectations - the following guideline would help make the first step.

1. Collect key information at the time of signup to know the Developer’s persona, how they learn and their preferences
2. Catalog all the existing reference materials marked for level, path and relevant tags
3. Collate materials, stitching up a learning path for distinct roles with versions of right mix of different mediums (audio, visual, reading and labs)
4. Collaborate with them to create new assets, present opportunities to showcase their expertise, recognized and reward them

Of course, it goes without saying ‘continuous evaluation and tweaking is expected’ and should become part of the process.

A Developer Community that has maximum participation, collaborative knowledge creation and sharing and genuine reach-out with the singular goal of helping is bound to succeed and surely poised to become a sustained community.