Latest / The Career Change Podcast with Fexingo: Switching Fields, Bootcamps, and Reskilling / How Bootcamp Grads Can Start a Career in DevRel
Transcript
- Lucas: So you finish a coding bootcamp, you have a solid portfolio of projects, you can talk through a React component or an API endpoint in a technical interview — but you also genuinely enjoy teaching others, writing about what you build, and getting people excited about a product. There's actually a career path that wraps all of that into one role, and it's called Developer Relations — DevRel for short. Luna: DevRel is one of those roles that didn't really exist as a distinct career a decade ago, but now pretty much every major tech company has a team. The question is, can a bootcamp grad realistically land that kind of job without years of industry experience? Lucas: That's exactly what I want to dig into. And full disclosure — if you've gotten something out of these episodes, a couple of dollars a month is genuinely what keeps them going. You can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's a small thing that makes a real difference in keeping this show ad-free and independent. Luna: Yeah, absolutely. And we hear from listeners who say these episodes have helped them make actual career moves — that's the stuff that keeps us going too. So if that resonates, the link is buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Lucas: So back to DevRel. The reason it's relevant for bootcamp grads is that the role values exactly the kind of skills that career changers often develop in their previous lives: communication, empathy, the ability to explain complex things simply. Sarah Chen is a good example — she came from a marketing background, did a bootcamp in 2022, and within eighteen months she was a Developer Advocate at a company called Stedi, which makes API tools for logistics. Luna: I remember her story. She started by writing tutorials about Stedi's API before she even worked there — just on her own blog. That basically became her resume. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the playbook. DevRel hiring managers care a lot less about your years of professional engineering experience and a lot more about whether you can produce content that developers find useful. Sarah wrote seven or eight detailed walkthroughs — how to integrate Stedi's API with Shopify, how to handle error codes, that kind of thing. By the time she applied, the community team already knew her name. Luna: So the first piece of advice is: start creating content about the product or space you want to work in, even before you have the job. But what about technical depth? Don't you need to be a really strong coder to do DevRel? Lucas: You need to be competent, for sure. You have to be able to write sample code, debug a demo, answer technical questions on the fly. But you don't need to be the strongest engineer on the team. The core skill is translation — taking a complex technical concept and making it accessible. That's something bootcamp grads actually practice constantly during their programs. They're used to being beginners and having to explain things to each other. Luna: That's a good point. Bootcamps are inherently collaborative. You're pair programming, you're doing code reviews, you're presenting projects. That's basically DevRel muscle. Lucas: Right. So if you're a bootcamp grad interested in DevRel, here's a concrete roadmap. Step one: pick a specific developer tool or platform you genuinely like — it could be an API, a framework, a database, whatever. Step two: use that tool to build something small and then write a tutorial about it. Publish it on Dev.to or your own site. Step three: look for opportunities to speak at local meetups or online events. Even a lightning talk at a virtual meetup counts. Luna: And step four, I'd add: contribute to open source. Even a small documentation fix or a translated README can show you understand how to communicate with a developer audience. Lucas: Yes. Documentation contributions are actually a huge signal for DevRel roles. One of the most common interview questions is 'Tell me about a time you made a technical concept easier to understand.' If you can point to a pull request where you rewrote an unclear section of docs, that's gold. Luna: What about the job titles? I see Developer Advocate, Developer Evangelist, Developer Experience Engineer, sometimes just Community Manager. Are they all essentially the same thing? Lucas: They overlap a lot, but there are nuances. Developer Advocate is usually more external — you're the face of the company at conferences and online. Developer Experience Engineer is more internal — you're improving the product based on feedback from developers. Community Manager is often less technical, more about running forums and events. For a bootcamp grad, Developer Advocate or a junior Community Manager role with a technical bent are the most accessible entry points. Luna: And the compensation? I've seen ranges from eighty to a hundred and fifty thousand, but for entry level it's probably on the lower end. Lucas: Yeah, entry-level DevRel at a mid-size company in the US typically starts around eighty to ninety-five thousand. That's competitive with junior engineering salaries, and the ceiling is higher because the role often involves public speaking and personal brand building, which can lead to speaking fees or consulting later. But the trade-off is that you're always on — you have to be active on social media, responsive in community channels, and comfortable with public scrutiny. Luna: That's the flip side. It's not just writing code in a quiet room. You have to be genuinely social. If the idea of tweeting about your work or standing on a stage makes you cringe, this might not be the right path. Lucas: Right. And there's another trap: some people assume DevRel is an easy way into tech without having to be a strong engineer. That's a mistake. You do need to be able to code, and you need to be comfortable being wrong in public because you'll demo things that break. The best DevRel people are humble about what they don't know and quick to say 'I'll find out and get back to you.' Luna: So if you're a bootcamp grad with strong communication skills and a genuine interest in teaching, DevRel could be a great fit. But you have to build the portfolio before you apply. What's the one thing you'd recommend doing this week? Lucas: Pick one API or tool you've used in your bootcamp — maybe Twilio, Stripe, or even a simpler one like the GitHub API. Spend three hours building something with it and then write a five-minute tutorial. Publish it on Dev.to. That single piece of content will tell a hiring manager more about your potential than any resume bullet point. And if you do that every month for six months, you'll have a body of work that most applicants can't match. Luna: And if you're already doing that, or if you have questions about the next step, we'd love to hear from you. Drop us a note — we read everything. Lucas: That's it for this episode. I'm Lucas. Luna: And I'm Luna. Lucas: See you next time.