Authentic DevRel: Why advocacy > evangelism

The title "Developer Evangelist" needs to die. Not because evangelism is bad, but because it represents everything wrong with how most companies approach developer relations.

At MAXIMIZE, we've worked with countless developer tool startups building DevRel programs. The ones that succeed understand a fundamental truth: developers don't want evangelists. They want advocates. The difference isn't semantic. It's the difference between DevRel that builds trust and DevRel that destroys it.

Evangelists promote products. Advocates represent developers. Evangelists have quotas and talking points. Advocates have credibility and honesty. Evangelists optimize for conversions. Advocates optimize for developer success, even when that means recommending competitors.

This distinction matters because developers have finely tuned BS detectors. They can spot promotional intent from miles away. And once they detect it, they tune out everything you say forever. No amount of technical credibility can overcome the stink of evangelism in developer communities.

The companies winning with DevRel aren't the ones with the most charismatic evangelists. They're the ones with advocates who genuinely care about developers first and products second.

Why evangelism fails with developers

Evangelism works in some markets. Developers are not one of them. The cultural values and information dynamics of developer communities make traditional evangelism not just ineffective but actively counterproductive.

Developers value honesty over enthusiasm

Evangelists are supposed to be enthusiastic about products. That enthusiasm is the entire point. But developers interpret enthusiasm as either ignorance of limitations or deliberate dishonesty. Neither builds trust.

Developers respect people who acknowledge tradeoffs, admit limitations, and give honest assessments of when tools are and aren't appropriate. This honesty signals technical credibility and genuine concern for developers making good decisions rather than just adopting your product.

When someone tells you the downsides of their own product, you trust their upsides are real. When someone only shares positives, you assume they're hiding problems or don't understand their own product well enough to know the limitations.

Developer communities reject promotional content

Evangelism is inherently promotional. The goal is spreading adoption of a specific product. But developer communities have strong antibodies against promotion. They ban, downvote, and socially punish promotional content aggressively.

This creates an impossible position for evangelists. They're hired to promote, but the communities they need to reach reject promotion. So they either get shut down by communities or they hide their promotional intent, which destroys trust when discovered.

Advocates don't face this problem because their goal isn't promotion. It's helping developers succeed. Sometimes that involves their product. Often it doesn't. Communities welcome advocates because they add value without agenda.

Enthusiasm doesn't transfer to technical decisions

Even if evangelism worked socially, it wouldn't work practically. Developers don't make tool decisions based on someone else's enthusiasm. They make decisions based on technical fit, documentation quality, API design, and whether the tool solves their specific problem better than alternatives.

Evangelists focus energy on generating excitement. But excitement doesn't correlate with adoption. Technical credibility does. Developers adopt tools they trust will work, not tools someone was enthusiastic about.

What authentic advocacy looks like

Advocacy isn't evangelism with better branding. It's a fundamentally different relationship between DevRel professionals and the developer communities they serve.

Representing developers to the company

Advocates see their primary responsibility as representing developer needs, frustrations, and feedback back to their company. Not representing company products to developers.

This means fighting internal battles for better documentation when docs are inadequate. Pushing back on product decisions that hurt developer experience. Advocating for features developers actually need rather than features that help close enterprise deals.

When developers see you fighting for their interests internally, they trust you externally. They know you're on their side, not just another marketing mouthpiece.

Recommending competitors when appropriate

The clearest signal of advocacy over evangelism is willingness to recommend competitors. If a developer asks about your product for a use case it doesn't handle well, advocates tell them honestly and suggest better alternatives.

This seems counterintuitive from a business perspective. You're supposed to drive adoption, not send developers to competitors. But the math works out completely differently than evangelism logic suggests.

One honest recommendation of a competitor builds more trust than ten promotional messages for your own product. That trust creates relationships that generate referrals, advocacy, and long-term adoption that evangelism never delivers. Developers remember who helped them make the right decision, even when that decision wasn't your product.

Building expertise beyond your product

Advocates are valued community members because they have deep technical expertise, not just product knowledge. They can help debug problems unrelated to their product. They understand the broader ecosystem. They contribute to technical discussions on their merit, not their promotional value.

This broader expertise is what makes their product recommendations credible. When someone who clearly knows ten different solutions recommends yours for specific situations, that carries weight. When someone only knows their own product, their recommendations feel hollow.

Building advocacy-first DevRel programs

Transitioning from evangelism to advocacy requires structural changes, not just title changes. It requires rethinking how you measure success, who you hire, and what you expect from DevRel.

Measure relationships, not conversions

Evangelism metrics focus on conversion: signups generated, trials started, leads captured. These metrics create incentives for promotional behavior that undermines trust.

Advocacy metrics focus on relationship health: quality of community engagement, feedback quality from developer conversations, trust indicators like unsolicited recommendations from community members. These metrics create incentives for genuine helpfulness.

The conversion metrics still matter for business. But they're outcomes of good advocacy, not goals to optimize for directly. This indirect path takes longer but creates sustainable growth that evangelism can never achieve.

Hire for credibility and empathy, not charisma

Evangelists need charisma to promote effectively. Advocates need technical credibility to help effectively and empathy to care about developer success over company metrics.

This changes hiring completely. Stop looking for people who are good at presenting and promoting. Start looking for people who are respected in technical communities for their helpfulness and expertise. These people might be less outwardly charismatic but they're infinitely more effective at building the trust that drives adoption.

Give advocates permission to disappoint you

The hardest part of advocacy-first DevRel is accepting that your advocates will sometimes recommend competitors, criticize your product publicly, or tell prospects your tool isn't right for them. This feels wrong from a traditional marketing perspective.

But this permission is what makes advocacy credible. If advocates can't be honest, they're just evangelists with different titles. Developers see through that instantly.

Companies with successful advocacy programs accept short-term disappointment for long-term trust. They understand that one honest conversation that loses a deal today might generate ten referrals next year from the trust it built.

Why advocacy wins long-term

Evangelism can generate short-term results. Create buzz around a launch. Drive initial trial signups. Generate conference excitement. But it doesn't create the sustained adoption and organic growth that builds lasting companies.

Advocacy takes longer to show results. Building trust is slower than generating enthusiasm. Earning credibility takes more time than promoting features. But the results compound instead of plateauing.

Developers who discover your product through authentic advocacy become advocates themselves. They trust you because someone they trusted vouched for you honestly. This creates network effects that evangelism can never replicate.

The developer tools that dominate long-term aren't the ones with the loudest evangelists. They're the ones with the most trusted advocates. Trust scales. Enthusiasm doesn't.

Moving beyond evangelism

If your DevRel program still has "evangelist" in job titles, that's a signal about priorities that developers will read clearly. The title matters because it reflects the relationship you're trying to build.

Authentic DevRel starts with accepting that your job isn't promoting your product. It's helping developers succeed. Sometimes that involves your product. Often it doesn't. Always it requires honesty, technical depth, and genuine concern for developer outcomes over company metrics.

Make that shift, and you build DevRel programs that actually work in developer communities. Stay stuck in evangelism, and you'll keep wondering why your DevRel spending never generates the returns you expect.