Most developer relations teams know something feels off. They’re publishing content, hosting events, building community spaces, and improving documentation. The work is happening. The effort is real. But the results don’t match the investment.
Through our work at Stateshift helping over 250 technology companies build developer ecosystems, we’ve identified a pattern. The teams that struggle treat DevRel as a collection of tactics. The teams that thrive build it as a connected system. When onboarding, content, community, and metrics work together rather than in isolation, each component amplifies the others. That’s when DevRel stops being a cost center that’s hard to justify and becomes a growth engine that executives can measure.
The best practices for developer relations in tech companies have evolved beyond scattered activities. This guide breaks down the four core systems that separate high-performing DevRel programs from those stuck in motion without momentum.
Why Most DevRel Programs Stall
Many developer relations teams find themselves doing a lot without seeing much change. The Slack community looks busy for a month and then goes quiet. Documentation updates take effort but don’t seem to drive adoption. Webinars happen regularly, but the same twenty people show up every time.
The challenge is rarely motivation. Most teams struggle because they lack structure connecting their efforts into systems that compound.
Most teams operate through disconnected activities rather than systems. They host events, write blogs, or publish tutorials without linking these pieces into a predictable flow. Without connection, the impact fades as soon as the next task begins.
This pattern is common. According to the State of Developer Relations 2024 report, proving impact with data and metrics remains the top challenge for DevRel practitioners, cited by 60.7% of respondents. In our Discovery Calls, we hear versions of the same story: “We have great content, but we can’t prove it’s working.”
That’s the real bottleneck. The best DevRel teams don’t just produce more…they design the systems that make engagement sustainable and measurable.
Best Practices for Developer Relations: Systems Over Tactics
Through our work with over 250 technology companies, Stateshift has identified that successful developer relations programs are intentionally engineered. The best practices for developer relations in tech companies focus on structured systems that align every part of the experience, from the first line of code a developer writes to the ongoing sense of belonging they feel in the community.
Take one mid-stage SaaS company we worked with (we’ll call them Project Atlas to protect confidentiality). They had 8,000 developer signups but only 4% were completing their first successful integration. Their onboarding tutorials referenced outdated API versions. Their Slack community had 2,000 members but only 15-20 active contributors. Their blog published twice weekly, but none of those posts addressed the actual questions developers were asking in support tickets.
Everything existed in silos. Onboarding didn’t connect to community. Content didn’t reflect real developer challenges. Events happened but led nowhere. Metrics tracked vanity numbers like page views and member counts, not the behaviors that predicted adoption.
We helped them rebuild using a framework of four connected systems…onboarding, content, engagement rituals, and metrics. Within 90 days, developer activation jumped from 4% to 14%. Forum participation doubled as we seeded discussions with real questions from onboarding analytics. Most importantly, they now had a working feedback loop. Every experiment could be measured, refined, and improved.
This shift came from connecting the moving parts into a unified system where each piece amplified the others.
The Four Core Systems of Modern DevRel Programs
1. Onboarding: Design for Clarity and Momentum
Developer onboarding is where trust is built. The faster a developer can reach a successful outcome, the more likely they are to stay.
We begin each engagement by mapping the full developer journey…from their first website visit to their first successful API call. This means opening an incognito browser, starting from your homepage, and documenting every click, every page load, every moment of confusion. We use tools like PostHog or Amplitude to quantify drop-off at each stage.
For Project Atlas, we discovered that 40% of developers abandoned during environment setup…before they ever saw the actual product value. The quickstart guide assumed knowledge they didn’t have. The error messages provided no clear next steps.
We restructured their onboarding to deliver value in under 10 minutes. That meant creating a sandbox environment developers could access immediately, rewriting documentation to assume zero prior context, and adding progress indicators so developers knew how far they’d come. We aligned the tone of product messaging across every touchpoint so the journey felt cohesive, not cobbled together.
A well-sequenced onboarding journey builds momentum through each small success, creating confidence for the next step. Among best practices for developer relations in tech companies, reducing time-to-first-value consistently proves to be the highest-impact improvement.
2. Content: Create Connected Pathways
Each piece of content should serve a clear purpose and lead developers naturally to the next action.
Most teams create content reactively…someone requests a tutorial, so you write one. At Stateshift, we take a different approach. Our content sequencing frameworks align technical documentation, blogs, tutorials, and videos into a cohesive narrative where each piece reinforces the others.
Here’s what that looks like in practice. When Project Atlas’s onboarding analytics showed developers struggling with authentication, we didn’t just update the docs. We created a blog post explaining the authentication model, linked it to a step-by-step tutorial with working code samples, embedded a 3-minute video showing the setup process, and then used that topic as the focus for their next community office hours.
A developer hitting that friction point now had multiple learning paths…all connected, all pointing them toward success and toward the community where they could ask follow-up questions. The blog post drove traffic to the tutorial. The tutorial linked to the sample code on GitHub. The GitHub repo linked back to the community. Each piece gave developers a reason to keep moving forward.
When the flow is connected, engagement grows without constant reinvention. Content becomes a system, not a collection of isolated assets.
3. Engagement Rituals: Build Habits That Stick
Communities thrive when people know what to expect. Regular, meaningful rituals…weekly office hours, monthly deep dives, quarterly expert sessions…create predictable opportunities for developers to learn and contribute.
Project Atlas initially tried “random acts of community”…a workshop here, an AMA there, whenever someone had time. Attendance was inconsistent. Follow-through was minimal. Developers never knew when to show up or what they’d get from participating.
We helped them establish a rhythm. Every Tuesday at 2pm Pacific: 30-minute office hours focused on a specific technical challenge identified from that week’s support tickets. Every third Thursday: a deep dive session where community members shared how they solved real implementation problems. Every quarter: an expert session with an industry figure, structured as an interactive conversation, not a passive webinar.
Within two months, office hours went from 8-12 attendees to 35-40. More importantly, the same developers started showing up repeatedly. They built relationships with each other. They began answering each other’s questions. The rituals created habit, and habit created belonging.
These gatherings were designed systems that compounded participation over time. Developers knew what to expect, when to expect it, and what value they’d receive from investing their time.
4. Metrics: Measure What Compounds
The right metrics reveal whether systems are working.
Project Atlas initially tracked member count, page views, and event registrations. These numbers looked good in reports but told them nothing about whether developers were actually succeeding with their product.
At Stateshift, we help teams define Foundational Metrics that connect engagement to business impact. For Project Atlas, we focused on three behavioral signals: time from signup to first successful API call, percentage of developers who return within seven days, and rate of progression from basic to advanced features.
Our Acceleration Flywheel reviews these metrics every two weeks. We look at the data, develop a hypothesis about what change will move the needle, implement that change, then measure the result. The cycle repeats. This is how systems improve.
When measurement becomes routine, DevRel becomes accountable and respected as a driver of growth rather than a cost of doing business.
How These Systems Reinforce Each Other
The real power emerges when these four systems connect. Here’s how they work together:
Onboarding surfaces common stumbling blocks through analytics. Those insights become your content priorities…you write tutorials addressing the exact problems developers face. You discuss those topics in your community rituals, where developers share their own solutions and workarounds. Those community conversations reveal edge cases and new questions, which inform your next onboarding improvements and documentation updates. The cycle repeats and compounds.
Each system feeds the others. Metrics reveal what to fix in onboarding. Better onboarding creates more engaged community members. Active community members generate authentic content and identify gaps. Content drives more successful onboarding. Everything connects.
Project Atlas didn’t just get better metrics. They built an engine that continuously improves itself.
Stateshift’s Approach to Developer Relations Best Practices
At Stateshift, we’ve refined best practices for developer relations in tech companies through our work with hundreds of teams. Our Pathfinder framework helps companies move from scattered DevRel activities to connected systems through three phases:
Discovery and Blueprinting: We map your entire developer ecosystem, identify where systems are disconnected, and create a sequenced plan for the highest-impact improvements.
Acceleration Calls: Biweekly coaching sessions where we review metrics, test hypotheses, and clear roadblocks. This is where systems get installed and refined.
On-Demand Coaching: Unlimited async support via Intercom and Loom means you get expert feedback on slides, messaging, content, and metrics without waiting for your next scheduled call.
The best practices for developer relations we’ve identified consistently prove that systematic approaches outperform ad-hoc tactics. When DevRel operates as an integrated system rather than a collection of activities, teams see measurable improvements in activation, retention, and advocacy.
How to Start Building Your Own System
If your team feels stuck in disconnected motion, begin with a simple audit:
Map every developer touchpoint. Open a spreadsheet. List your homepage, docs, GitHub repo, community spaces, support channels, social media, events, newsletters…everything. Most teams discover 12-15 touchpoints they didn’t realize they had. This is your current ecosystem.
Trace the journey from first visit to active engagement. Pick one recent developer and reconstruct their path. Where did they enter? What did they click? Where did they get stuck? Most teams find that developers abandon during setup or environment configuration, not during the conceptual learning phase.
Find where energy drops. Look at your analytics. Where do 50%+ of developers stop progressing? That’s your highest-leverage improvement opportunity. For many teams, this happens between documentation and first successful implementation. For others, between initial success and return visit.
Choose one improvement per system. Don’t rebuild everything at once. Fix the biggest onboarding friction point. Start one consistent community ritual. Define three metrics that actually predict adoption. Connect one piece of content to the next logical step.
You don’t need to overhaul everything. Start with clarity, measure your results, and use the data to refine. This builds trust with developers and confidence with executives.
The Takeaway
The best practices for developer relations in tech companies have evolved beyond isolated tactics. Successful programs engineer repeatable systems that connect onboarding, content, engagement, and measurement into a single compounding engine.
When each part of your developer ecosystem reinforces the others, engagement stops being a guessing game. The pattern becomes predictable: learning, contribution, and growth feeding into each other.
If you’re ready to move from scattered efforts to structured progress, begin by auditing your developer journey…or schedule a blind spot review call with Jono to identify where your DevRel programs are disconnected and what changes will drive the most impact.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the best practices for developer relations?
Stateshift’s research across 250+ companies shows that the most effective best practices for developer relations focus on four connected systems: onboarding that removes friction and delivers quick wins, content that guides action and connects to next steps, rituals that create belonging through predictable engagement, and metrics that prove value by
How do you measure success in developer relations?
Track developer activation rate, time to first success, return visit percentage within seven days, and progression from basic to advanced features. These behavioral metrics link engagement to adoption and long-term ROI far better than vanity metrics like page views or member counts.
How can startups start DevRel programs effectively?
Map your developer journey first, identify the biggest drop-off point, and fix that before adding new initiatives. Create a clear onboarding flow with measurable success milestones, start one consistent community ritual, and define three metrics that predict adoption from the beginning.
Why do many DevRel programs fail to sustain engagement?
They rely on disconnected activities rather than systems. A great blog post leads nowhere. A community event happens once and isn’t repeated. Documentation lives separate from where developers actually work. Without structure connecting these pieces, early enthusiasm fades before impact can compound.
What metrics matter most for developer engagement?
Time to first successful API call or integration, percentage of developers who return within their first week, contribution quality in community spaces, and rate of feature adoption. These are reliable indicators of real engagement that predict long-term retention and advocacy.
How can DevRel prove its ROI to executives?
Connect engagement data directly to business results. Show that developers who complete onboarding convert at 3x the rate of those who don’t. Demonstrate that community participants have 40% lower churn. Link content engagement to product adoption rates. This proves how DevRel fuels measurable growth beyond simple awareness metrics.
