Head of Developer Relations

HEAD OF DEVELOPER RELATIONS

Location: USA/CAD Remote (Remote position but candidate must be physically located in the USA or Canada) - Should be willing to travel for meetups, conferences, and company meetings.

ABOUT GRIDGAIN:

We live in a world that increasingly expects instant gratification. To remain competitive, enterprises must process and analyze extraordinary amounts of information in milliseconds.

GridGain's Unified Real-Time Data platform enables a simplified and optimized data architecture for enterprises that require extreme speed, massive scale, and high availability from their data ecosystem. It seamlessly combines streaming data in-motion and historical data at-rest with compute functionality to help companies handle complex analytical, streaming, and transactional data workloads at ultra-low latencies.

GridGain is trusted by companies like Citi, Barclays, American Airlines, AutoZone, and UPS to manage mission-critical data operations across their businesses.

GridGain is growing! Join the team and play a critical role in a fast-paced Silicon Valley startup that's changing the definition of "real time," and the world's expectations for high-speed data processing, computation, and analytics.

About the Role

As the Head of Developer Relations, you will play a crucial role in building and nurturing a community of developers around both the GridGain and the open-source Apache Ignite technologies. As a passionate developer advocate and technology evangelist, you will design programs and execute activities that drive awareness, adoption, and engagement throughout the GridGain and Apache Ignite developer

community. This role requires a blend of technical expertise, leadership skills, and the ability to engage and inspire developers.

Reporting to the Chief Technology Officer, you will work closely with other teams within the company including Product Management, R&D, Solutions Architects, Professional Services, Customer Success, and Executive Management.

What you'll be doing:

Leadership and Strategy:

• Develop and execute the strategic vision for the DevRel program, aligned with the company s goals.
• Define key activities, tasks and deliverables expected of the program and work cross-functionally to identify DevRel champions, developer advocates and content creators.
• Define key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the success of DevRel program.

Community Engagement:

• Build and foster relationships with developers, open-source communities, and key influencers.
• Identify and attend relevant conferences, meetups, and events to promote the company s technologies.
• Develop programs that encourage community participation, such as hackathons, webinars, and workshops.
• Support developer forums such as the Apache Ignite discussion group, Stack Overflow, and GitHub.

Technical Advocacy:

• Serve as the technical voice of the developer community within the company, advocating for their needs and feedback.
• Collaborate with product and engineering teams to ensure developer-centric features are prioritized and implemented.
• Create and oversee the production of high-quality technical content, including blog posts, tutorials, and documentation.

Cross-functional Collaboration:

• Work with marketing teams to develop campaigns that drive developer adoption and engagement.
• Partner with product management to ensure developer needs are incorporated into the product roadmap.
• Coordinate with customer support and success teams to address technical issues and improve the developer experience.

Metrics and Reporting:

• Establish metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of Developer Relations programs and initiatives.
• Report regularly on community health, developer engagement, and other key metrics to stakeholders.
• Continuously assess and improve Developer Relations strategies based on data and feedback.

What we're looking for:

• 10+ years of experience in software development, developer relations, or technical evangelism, with at least 3 years in a leadership role, ideally working with open-source based software.
• Strong technical background with the ability to understand and explain complex technical concepts.
• Proven experience building and scaling developer communities.
• Familiarity with modern software development practices, tools, and platforms.
• Excellent communication and public speaking skills, with a strong ability to engage with deeply technical audiences.
• Ability to work cross-functionally and influence without authority.
• Experience managing large-scale developer programs and working with open-source communities is a plus.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.

What we can offer you:

• Remote-first environment
• Competitive salary and pre-IPO stock options
• A broad selection of medical, dental and vision insurance plans
• Optional HSA, FSA and dependent care reimbursement accounts
• Company-paid life insurance
• Generous holiday and vacation policy
• Family leave programs for life events
• 401(k)
• Monthly stipend for cell phone and gym memberships
• A great company culture with a strong emphasis on diversity, equity and inclusion

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, sex, age, national origin or disability.

All qualified applicants, including those with arrest or conviction records, will be considered for employment in compliance with the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance and the California Fair Chance Act.