After the 2022 to 2024 contraction, DevRel teams were under greater pressure to connect their work to activation, retention, revenue, or product learning. That pressure changed reporting lines, hiring profiles, and what teams measured, while AI developer platforms created a new source of roles.
What the contraction confirmed
The contraction exposed three recurring weaknesses:
- DevRel without business alignment is structurally fragile. An inability to articulate a connection to revenue, retention, or product feedback appeared repeatedly in accounts of the cuts, although that does not establish why every team was selected.
- A marketing reporting line can increase exposure. When marketing budgets shrink, a DevRel function inside them has to defend its work within the same reduction.
- PLG gives the function a clearer business route. Where DevRel contributes to activation, the team can connect documentation, examples, and community support to product behaviour more directly.
What the recovery has produced
By 2026, several structural changes are visible:
Higher quality bar for DevRel programs
- Clear metrics, mapped to business outcomes.
- Explicit strategy documents.
- AAARRRP, Orbit, Four Pillars in mainstream use.
- DXI-style satisfaction measurement.
- Quarterly executive-level reporting.
The surviving programmes generally use explicit goals, product or business measures, and regular executive reporting.
Different organisational structures
- More C-suite reporting (CEO / CTO).
- More embedded models: DevRel members embedded in product teams.
- Less “VP of Marketing’s DevRel team” as default structure.
Renewed professional infrastructure
- Developer Relations Foundation under the Linux Foundation (announced August 2025).
- DevRelCon continuing strong in multiple cities.
- State of Developer Relations surveys continuing.
- DevRel-focused courses and certifications through the Product Marketing Alliance, the Developer Marketing Alliance, and DevRel Uni.
Compensation reset
The 2020 to 2022 boom and the later contraction changed DevRel compensation at many companies. By 2024 to 2026, some developer-product companies again advertised ranges comparable with adjacent engineering roles, with substantial variation by market and level.
AI as a new source of DevRel roles
AI companies including OpenAI, Anthropic, Hugging Face, LangChain, NVIDIA, Cohere and Mistral created developer-facing roles during the recovery, and some people affected by earlier cuts moved into them. Public accounts show AI as a visible destination, but do not establish what fraction of displaced DevRel professionals it employed.
Cross-pollination across companies
The contraction shuffled talent, alongside moves that began before the 2022 layoffs. Examples from 2021 to 2026 include:
- Cassidy Williams: Netlify → GitHub (Senior Director, DevRel).
- Sarah Drasner: Netlify → Google (infrastructure leadership).
- Brian Douglas (bdougie): GitHub → OpenSauced (founder).
- Logan Kilpatrick: Apple / OpenAI → Google AI Studio.
- Omar Sanseviero: Hugging Face → Google DeepMind.
- Salma Alam-Naylor: Sentry → Nordcraft (Head of Developer Education).
Those moves redistributed expertise across companies and product categories.
What remains unsettled
Headcount
- Most large DevRel functions remain smaller than their 2021 peaks.
- AI-company DevRel functions are growing rapidly.
- No comprehensive field-level count establishes whether total headcount has returned to its 2021 level; the visible roles are distributed differently.
Career path
- The career ladder for senior DevRel ICs (Staff, Principal, Distinguished) is clearer at some companies than others.
- Lateral moves between DevRel and adjacent functions (PM, engineering management, customer success) are more common than in 2021.
Tooling consolidation
- Orbit’s SaaS wind-down (2023) and Common Room’s consolidation suggest the community-CRM category is consolidating.
- Documentation tooling remains competitive (Mintlify vs. Docusaurus vs. ReadMe vs. GitBook).
- Analytics tooling has stabilised but PostHog’s open-source rise is reshaping the space.
What “DevRel” means
- At some companies, DevRel and DevEx have merged.
- At some, DevRel has been absorbed into Product Marketing.
- At some, DevRel has split into Developer Education, Developer Advocacy, and Community as separate functions.
The organisational boundaries of DevRel remain unsettled.
What watchers should monitor
Through 2027 to 2028:
- AI’s continued effect. How does agent-mediated developer discovery change DevRel work over the next 2 years?
- DevRel Foundation maturity. Does it produce professional certifications, standards, or codes of practice?
- PLG-vs-AI-buyer split. Many AI tools are bought by enterprises rather than developers; does this change AI-company DevRel?
- Compensation trajectory. Is comp keeping pace with engineering?
- Reporting structures. Does C-suite-reporting DevRel become more common or less?