DevRel practitioners produce repositories, books, frameworks, courses, and recorded talks that can remain useful after they change jobs. This is a partial catalogue of that work.
Open-source projects and tutorials
Kelsey Hightower
- Kubernetes The Hard Way (github.com/kelseyhightower/kubernetes-the-hard-way): A step-by-step tutorial for building a Kubernetes cluster without a high-level installer. Multiple derivative versions adapt it to other environments.
- nocode (github.com/kelseyhightower/nocode): A satirical “best programming language” repository whose README is the entire codebase.
- kubernetes-up-and-running sample code: Companion to the Kubernetes Up & Running book.
- Confd. Configuration management for
etcd/consul/ etc.
Adam Wiggins (Heroku)
- The Twelve-Factor App (12factor.net, 2011): A twelve-part methodology for building software-as-a-service applications, published from Heroku’s operating experience.
Brian Douglas (bdougie)
- OpenSauced (opensauced.pizza): Open-source analytics platform for measuring and growing open-source projects. Founded after his GitHub DevRel tenure; functions as both a product and a community-data infrastructure layer.
- The OpenSauced Blog and Stars to Submitters content series: Writing about how repository visitors become contributors.
Daniele Procida (Canonical)
- Diátaxis Framework (diataxis.fr): A documentation system organised into Tutorials, How-to guides, Reference, and Explanation. Canonical adopted it for its documentation practice.
Dion Almaer and Ben Galbraith
- Ajaxian.com (founded 2005): Long-running blog covering browser APIs, JavaScript libraries, and emerging web standards during the Ajax / Web 2.0 era.
- Mozilla Bespin (later Skywriter, then Ace). An early browser-based code editor project at Mozilla Labs.
- Walmart Labs / Web Platform work. Subsequent enterprise developer-platform work after Mozilla.
Brad Frost
- Atomic Design (book and web series, 2013 to 2016): A design-systems method that builds interfaces from atoms, molecules, organisms, templates, and pages.
- Pattern Lab. Open-source tool for building design systems based on the Atomic Design methodology.
Kent C. Dodds
- Epic React (epicreact.dev): Paid React course covering application structure, testing, performance, and patterns.
- Testing JavaScript (testingjavascript.com): Companion course focused on testing.
- React Testing Library (open-source): Now the standard React testing library; replaces Enzyme for most projects.
Lee Robinson
- Mastering Next.js (masteringnextjs.com): Free video course on Next.js, originally published as Robinson’s personal project.
Wes Bos and Scott Tolinski
- JavaScript30 (Wes Bos): Free 30-day JavaScript tutorial series built around small browser projects.
- BeginnerJavaScript, Advanced React, etc. (Wes Bos): Paid courses with substantial reach.
- Level Up Tutorials (Scott Tolinski): Long-running tutorial subscription service.
- Syntax.fm (joint): Frontend and full-stack development podcast.
Theo Browne (t3.gg)
- create-t3-app (github.com/t3-oss/create-t3-app): Scaffolding tool for the T3 Stack, including Next.js, TypeScript, Tailwind, tRPC, Prisma, and NextAuth.js.
- Uploadthing. File upload service.
- Ping.gg. Live-streaming production tool.
Sarah Drasner
- SVG Animations (O’Reilly, 2017): Foundational book on SVG-based web animation.
- Conference talks on SVG, Vue, and animation. Practical demonstrations of motion and interface engineering.
- Frontend Masters courses. Courses on Vue, SVG animation, and related frontend topics.
Cassidy Williams
- rendezvous with cassidoo. Weekly developer newsletter published since 2017, alongside Cassidy Williams’s personal-site writing and open-source projects.
- HacktoberFest tooling and contributions. Various community-organising work.
Salma Alam-Naylor (whitep4nth3r)
- whitep4nth3r blog and YouTube channel. Developer education across web technologies, AI, and developer experience.
Shawn “swyx” Wang
- The Coding Career Handbook (book, 2020): Career advice for software engineers.
- Learn In Public (movement and essays): Philosophy and practice of publishing work-in-progress; widely adopted in DevRel circles.
- Latent Space (newsletter and podcast, latent.space): Interviews and analysis about AI engineering.
- AI Engineer Summit and AI Engineer Foundation. Conference and community institution for the AI Engineer identity.
Will McGugan
- Rich (github.com/Textualize/rich): Python library for rich text and beautiful terminal formatting. Extremely widely used.
- Textual. Python framework for building terminal user interfaces; founded Textualize Inc. around the project.
Foundational books and longer-form publications
Guy Kawasaki
- Selling the Dream (HarperCollins, 1991): Origin text for technical evangelism as a discipline.
- The Art of the Start (Portfolio, 2004; Art of the Start 2.0 in 2015): Entrepreneurship classic, drawn substantially from his Apple Macintosh experience.
- Enchantment, Reality Check, The Macintosh Way, etc.
Mary Thengvall
- The Business Value of Developer Relations (Apress, 2018): The discipline’s first systematic ROI treatment.
- DevRel Weekly newsletter: Long-running curated newsletter.
- Community Pulse podcast (co-host): Long-running DevRel community podcast.
Jono Bacon
- The Art of Community (O’Reilly, 1st ed. 2009; 2nd ed. 2012): Canonical community-management reference.
- People Powered (HarperCollins, 2019): Modern community-strategy framework.
- JonoBacon.com and YouTube channel: Long-running thought-leadership presence.
Caroline Lewko and James Parton
- Developer Relations: How to Build and Grow a Successful Developer Program (Apress, 2021): Operational manual; introduces the Four Pillars framework.
- Developer Marketing and Relations: The Essential Guide (SlashData, multiple editions): Industry reference combining survey data and field practice.
Christian Heilmann
- The Developer Advocacy Handbook (open-source, 2010s): Practical guide published free online.
Stephen O’Grady
- The New Kingmakers: How Developers Conquered the World (O’Reilly, 2013): Defining strategic text underpinning the modern DevRel business case.
- The Software Paradox and other RedMonk research-based shorter works.
Kelsey Hightower (with Brendan Burns and Joe Beda)
- Kubernetes Up & Running: Dive into the Future of Infrastructure (O’Reilly; first edition 2017, multiple revisions): Standard introduction-to-Kubernetes book. Hightower’s contribution as a co-author helped position the book as the practitioner’s first reference.
James Whittaker
- How to Break Software series (Addison-Wesley, 2002 onward): Books on systematic approaches to software testing.
- How Google Tests Software (Addison-Wesley, 2012; with Jason Arbon and Jeff Carollo): Defined how the industry thought about Google’s testing approach at a time when it was setting the bar.
Scott Hanselman
- Hanselman on .NET and other technical books.
- Hanselman.com blog (since 2002): One of the longest-running personal technical blogs on the web.
- Hanselminutes podcast (since 2006).
Liz Rice
- Container Security: Fundamental Technology Concepts that Protect Containerised Applications (O’Reilly, 2020): Foundational text on container security.
- Learning eBPF (O’Reilly, 2023): Reference on eBPF for cloud-native engineers.
Tanya Janca
- Alice and Bob Learn Application Security (Wiley, 2020): Accessible application-security book.
- WeHackPurple community and courses.
Trisha Gee
- IntelliJ IDEA and Java talks, articles, and live demonstrations.
- JetBrains TV talks and conference sessions from her time at JetBrains.
- 97 Things Every Java Programmer Should Know (contributor and editor).
Venkat Subramaniam
- Practices of an Agile Developer, Programming Concurrency on the JVM, Functional Programming in Java, Test-Driving JavaScript Applications, and many others.
- Long-running speaker at NDC, GOTO, Devoxx, JavaOne, and similar conferences.
Joel Spolsky
- Joel on Software (Apress, 2004) and follow-ups: Essays on software development and management.
- Co-founder of Stack Overflow, which became a central developer question-and-answer platform.
Stephen O’Grady, James Governor, Donnie Berkholz (RedMonk)
- RedMonk Programming Language Rankings (published by RedMonk since 2012, building on Drew Conway’s 2010 analysis): Rankings that compare GitHub and Stack Overflow activity.
- Multiple shorter monographs and the RedMonk blog archive.
Eric S. Raymond
- The Cathedral and the Bazaar (1999): Foundational essay/book on open-source development models.
Karl Fogel
- Producing Open Source Software (O’Reilly, 2005; continuously updated online): Practical guide to running open-source projects.
Nadia Eghbal (Asparouhova)
- Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software (Stripe Press, 2020): Analysis of open-source production and maintenance.
- Roads and Bridges: The Unseen Labor Behind Our Digital Infrastructure (Ford Foundation, 2016): Earlier report on OSS sustainability.
Signature conference talks and talk series
Kelsey Hightower
- Live-coded Kubernetes demos at KubeCon (multiple years): Multi-time benchmark for what conference live-demonstration can be.
- “Beyond Microservices: From Service to Workflow” and other architecture talks.
- “GitOps with Kubernetes” demonstrations.
- Multiple keynotes at KubeCon, GitHub Universe, and other flagship events.
Guy Kawasaki
- “The Art of the Start” keynote (delivered hundreds of times in different forms).
- Various Macintosh-era evangelism talks.
James Governor
- “Progressive Delivery” talks (popularised the term).
- “GitHub Generation” and “Kubernetes Generation” keynote series at conferences.
Sarah Drasner
- “Animating Vue”, “Functional CSS” and other CSS-and-animation talks.
- Vue.js, JSConf, and CSSconf keynotes.
Cassidy Williams
- Many JS-conf, GitHub Universe, and Next.js Conf talks; particularly known for humour-and-substance combination.
Scott Hanselman
- Long-running conference keynotes and technical talks on .NET, the web, accessibility, and software careers.
- The Hanselminutes podcast and hanselman.com archive provide the more durable record of this work.
Wes Bos
- React Conf, JSConf, and React Summit talks; “What’s New in CSS” series at multiple events.
Theo Browne
- GraphQLConf 2023 keynote, “The Right Size for GraphQL,” and frequent talks on React, TypeScript, and the T3 Stack.
Brian Douglas
- GitHub Universe, KubeCon, All Things Open talks on open-source health and contribution funnels.
Liz Rice
- “What is a container?” and “A beginner’s guide to eBPF” popular technical talks.
- KubeCon keynotes (multiple years).
Dion Almaer and Ben Galbraith
- Multiple OSCON, JSConf, and Ajaxian-affiliated talks through the 2000s and 2010s.
Standards and methodologies originated by DevRel-adjacent practitioners
- The Twelve-Factor App (Adam Wiggins, Heroku).
- Diátaxis (Daniele Procida, Canonical).
- GitOps (Alexis Richardson and Weaveworks colleagues; widely promoted by Kelsey Hightower and others).
- Progressive Delivery (term popularised by James Governor).
- Orbit Model (Patrick Woods, Josh Dzielak et al.).
- AAARRRP (Phil Leggetter: DevRel strategy framework).
- Four Pillars of DevRel (Lewko & Parton).
- The Developer Advocacy Handbook (Christian Heilmann).
Framing documents and manifestos
- Atomic Design (Brad Frost).
- The Cathedral and the Bazaar (Eric S. Raymond).
- Producing Open Source Software (Karl Fogel).
- The New Kingmakers (Stephen O’Grady).
- Working in Public (Nadia Asparouhova).
- Learn In Public (Shawn Wang / swyx).
Categories of DevRel-produced work
For someone deciding what work to produce, the spectrum looks like:
| Type | Effort | Half-life | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tutorial repository | Weeks | Many years | Kubernetes The Hard Way, JavaScript30, create-t3-app |
| Book | 1 to 2 years | 5 to 20 years | Selling the Dream, The Art of Community, Kubernetes Up & Running |
| Open-source library | Continuous | Indefinite (with maintenance) | Rich/Textual, React Testing Library, MSW |
| Course | Months | 2 to 5 years | Mastering Next.js, Epic React, Testing JavaScript |
| Framework / methodology | Months to years | Decade+ | Twelve-Factor, Diátaxis, Atomic Design, AAARRRP |
| Signature talk | Weeks of rehearsal | 3 to 5 years (recordings live longer) | Kelsey Hightower’s KubeCon live-demos |
| Long-running blog | Continuous | Accumulating archive and audience | hanselman.com, RedMonk blog, Ajaxian |
| Podcast | Continuous | Accumulating archive and audience | Hanselminutes, Syntax.fm, Latent Space, Community Pulse |
| Newsletter | Weekly cadence | Recurring distribution to subscribers | DevRel Weekly, Bytes, Pragmatic Engineer |
The entries above use several durable forms: runnable tutorials, named methods, maintained libraries, books, and recorded talks. Their continued value depends on whether the underlying work remains accurate and usable.
What this list omits
- Hundreds of widely-used open-source projects authored or maintained by DevRel professionals at companies (e.g., the React core team’s many libraries, the Vercel/Netlify team’s framework contributions, the AWS Heroes’ integration tools).
- Most non-English-language works by senior DevRel practitioners outside the US/UK.
- Most internal-platform-engineering works (Spotify Backstage, Netflix Spinnaker, etc.) where the line between “DevRel work” and “platform engineering work” is fuzzy.
See also
- DevRel pioneers
- Expanded people directory
- Books
- Podcasts
- YouTube for developers
../03-frameworks/: Frameworks themselves are DevRel-produced works.