Published: Jul 15, 2025

The Question That Stops Interviews Cold

Hiring managers love to ask, “What will you do in your first 30 days?”

The question sounds simple, yet it hides a trap. Real developer programs evolve. A rigid checklist ages fast, and a vague answer feels unprepared.

This article gives you a flexible framework: a concrete 30‑60‑90 day playbook followed by a 12‑Week Year cadence and long‑term strategy. Use it to win the interview, guide your first quarter, and steer every quarter that follows.

Never wonder what you should be doing again.

Follow me on X (@CoffeyFirst) to get DevRel strategy tips.

Days 1‑30 | Lay the Foundation¹

Meet Cross‑Functional Teams

Schedule introductions with product, engineering, marketing, sales, and support. Ask how Developer Relations (DevRel) can unblock their goals. Capture KPIs, budget realities, and preferred feedback loops.

Deep Dive into the Tech

Install the SDK, run “Hello World,” and build a small proof‑of‑concept. Time yourself. Every extra minute is a future churn risk.

Audit Documentation & Tools

Read every quick‑start, tutorial, and API reference. Join Slack, Discord, and GitHub issues. List gaps, stale screenshots, and missing use cases.

Map the Developer Ecosystem

Define your personas. Where do they hang out? What frameworks do they use? Draft a Developer Journey Map that plots touchpoints from Discover to Scale.

Draft a Content Roadmap

Brainstorm ten topics that solve real pain. Align them with the product roadmap. Commit to formats — blog, video, code sample — based on audience habit.

If you skip this groundwork, every later sprint inherits hidden bottlenecks.

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Days 31‑60 | Create & Engage¹

Publish Educational Content

Ship at least one tutorial and one sample app each week. Show real code, not marketing slides. Aim for a five‑minute “Time‑to‑First‑Victory.”

Host Workshops & Webinars

Run a live session that walks developers from signup to deployment. Record it and slice clips for social media.

Drive Developer Engagement²

Answer questions on Stack Overflow, Reddit, and your Discord within 24 hours. Share small wins and shout‑outs.

Contribute to Open Source

Fix a bug or add an example to a library your audience already loves. Release an official CLI or SDK wrapper if none exists.

Collaborate Internally

Feed user insights back to product and marketing. Pair with support to triage top issues. Co‑author a “What We Heard” memo every two weeks.

Measure & Iterate

Track Awareness → Activation → Engagement → Retention. Double down on the channels that move numbers.

Content without measurement is noise — you must tune the signal.

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Days 61‑90 | Scale Your Impact¹

Launch an Ambassador Program

Recruit early champions. Offer swag, direct Slack access, and speaking slots. Their authenticity scales your reach better than ads.

Engage at Larger Events

Submit talks to niche conferences. Sponsor a hackathon that stresses your APIs in the wild.

Publish Advanced Assets

Release deep‑dive guides on performance tuning, security, or cost optimization. Skilled users need fresh challenges.

Institutionalize Feedback Loops

Create a quarterly user advisory board. Hold monthly office hours. Automate Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys after major milestones.

Automate & Analyze

Schedule newsletters and social posts. Use analytics to spot drop‑offs in the onboarding funnel. Iterate weekly.

Align with Company Goals

Present a 90‑day impact report: content shipped, MAU growth, API calls, community size. Tie each win to revenue, retention, or product quality.

Without clear ROI, DevRel becomes the travel department — easy to cut in a downturn.

Follow me on X (@CoffeyFirst) to get DevRel strategy tips.

Beyond 90 Days | Think in 12‑Week Sprints³

The first 90 days are only Sprint #1. Once you survive orientation, the question changes from “What will you do?” to “How will you keep shipping value every quarter?” My answer is the 12‑Week Year framework popularized by Moran and Lennington. It compresses an annual plan into quarterly sprints so that urgency never fades and progress is measurable weekly.

Plans longer than 12 weeks invite procrastination; shorter cycles enforce focus.

Choose 2–3 Outcomes That Move the Needle

Resist the temptation to chase every shiny object. Your brand, community, and roadmap all scream for attention, but cognitive overload kills execution. Limit yourself to two, maybe three, goals per sprint. Use Lewko & Parton’s four diagnostic questions to confirm each candidate:

1. Purpose — Does this goal support the mission of your developer program?
2. Business value — Will executives see a clear impact? (e.g., usage, revenue, reduced support cost)
3. Developer value — Does it solve a real pain for your audience?
4. Feasibility — Can the team deliver in 12 weeks with current resources?

If a goal fails any test, park it in a Backlog doc for reevaluation next cycle.

Example goals

1. Adoption — Grow active developers by 30 % (Leads directly to revenue and community buzz)
2. Developer Experience (DX)— Cut time‑to‑hello‑world from 15 → 5 min (Improves activation and word‑of‑mouth)
3. Community — Launch Ambassador program with 10 champions (Scales advocacy without linear headcount)

Break Goals into Weekly, Binary Tactics

A goal is where you are going; tactics are what you will actually do. Brain‑dump every possible action, then keep the critical few. Each tactic must:

• Start with a verb (Publish, Host, Automate)
• Be 100 % controllable by the team
• Have a due‑week (1‑12)
• Be assignable to one owner

Sample 12‑Week Plan

• Sprint — Q1 DevRel
• Lead Goal — Grow active developers by 30%
• Tactics
  — Publish six step‑by‑step tutorials # weeks 1‑12, Jane
  — Host two interactive webinars # weeks 4 & 8, Ahmed
  —Reduce time‑to‑hello‑world to <5 min # week 10, Priya + DX Team

Install Process Control: The Weekly Accountability Meeting (WAM)

Every Monday, the team meets for 15 minutes:

1. Score last week: Mark each tactic Done / Not‑Done. Calculate execution %. Target ≥ 85 %.
2. Inspect lead metrics: Active developers, sign‑ups, NPS. Correlate spikes or dips with last week’s tactics.
3. Plan this week: Pull only tactics due in the next seven days into a one‑page Weekly Plan. Negotiate trade‑offs early if capacity is tight.
4. Peer feedback: What blockers need escalation? Where can teammates help?

Print the scorecard (or pin it in Notion or your software of choice) so progress — good or bad — is public. Visibility drives ownership.

Time‑Block a “Model Week”

To hit an 85 % execution rate, protect focus time. Block three recurring windows on everyone’s calendar:

• Strategic Block (3 hrs) — deep work on the highest‑leverage tactic.
• Buffer Blocks (2×30 min/day) — handle Slack, email, quick reviews.
• Breakout Block (3 hrs) — personal learning or recharge. Burnout helps no one.

Track Lead & Lag Indicators

• Lead indicators — actions you control (tutorials published, GitHub issues closed). They predict results.
• Lag indicators — outcomes you desire (MAUs, upgrades, revenue). They confirm results.

By tracking lead indicators, you see trouble early. If you ship tutorials but activation stays flat, your content misses the mark — adjust mid‑sprint.

Run a Week 13 Retrospective

The sprint ends on Friday of Week 12. Celebrate, then spend the following week like elite sports teams reviewing game tape:

• Execution score — average weekly % tactics completed.
• Goal achievement — Did you hit the 30 % uplift? Why or why not?
• Root‑cause analysis — Was failure due to poor tactics, low execution, or an invalid hypothesis?
• Clean slate — Archive finished tactics, promote unfinished but still‑relevant items into the next planning session, and delete anything with unclear ROI.

Roll Insights into Sprint #2 and Beyond

Patterns will emerge: certain channels outperform, some tasks always slip, dependencies stall progress. Use those lessons to refine goals and re‑allocate resources. Over 3–4 cycles, you’ll have empirical data that justifies budget increases — or trims waste — far better than annual forecasting.

Follow me on X (@CoffeyFirst) to get DevRel strategy tips.

Crafting Your Strategy⁴

Before drowning in tactics, answer these four guiding questions. Document the answers in a living Strategy document and revisit each sprint.

1. What is the purpose of your developer program? (e.g., Drive ecosystem revenue.)
2. What must it achieve? (e.g., Reach 50k MAUs by Q4.)
3. What value does it bring to the company? (e.g., Shortens sales cycles by 30 %.)
4. What value does it bring to developers? (e.g., Saves them three weeks building auth from scratch.)

Any tactic that does not trace back to a clear answer is scope creep.

Segmentation & Personas

A one‑size‑fits‑all voice repels specialists. Segment first, then personify.

1. Language — Python, JavaScript, Go
2. Role — Data scientist, Backend engineer, Product manager
3. Use case — Real‑time analytics, Batch ML training, Edge inference

Example personas

• Maya — Data Scientist
  — Quote: “I prototype fast and hate hidden limits.”
  — Key needs: Python SDK, Jupyter snippets, generous free tier
• Luis — Backend Engineer
  — Quote: “Stability beats flash.”
  — Key needs: SLA docs, Terraform module, versioned APIs
• Kenji — Startup CTO
  — Quote: “Time to market trumps perfection.”
  — Key needs: Quickstarts, pay‑as‑you‑go pricing, one‑hour support

Tip: Paste persona cards with photos on the wall near your desk — or in your Docs home page — so every feature and blog post passes the “Maya test.”

Map the Developer Journey

1. Discover
   — Developer goal: “Is this relevant?”
   — Internal metric: Unique site visits
2. Evaluate
   — Developer goal: “Will it fit?”
   — Internal metric: Free trial sign‑ups
3. Learn
   — Developer goal: “Can I make it work?”
   — Internal metric: First successful API call
4. Build
   — Developer goal: “Can I ship?”
   — Internal metric: Deployed MVPs
5. Scale
   — Developer goal: “Will it grow with me?”
   — Internal metric: Upgrades, renewals

Conversion Rates Drive Priorities

If 10,000 visitors → 100 sign‑ups but only five first API calls, do not pour budget into ads. Fix DX first: improve quickstart docs, sample apps, SDK ergonomics. A simple instrumentation stack will pinpoint drop‑offs.

Metrics That Matter

• Awareness
  — KPI examples: Unique visitors, share of voice, social mentions
• Activation
  — KPI examples: First API call, SDK installs, sandbox completions
• Engagement
  — KPI examples: MAUs, GitHub issues closed, forum replies
• Retention
  — KPI examples: Net Dollar Retention, churn %, cohort upgrade rate

Integrate product analytics with your CRM so human‑assisted sales and self‑serve usage appear in one dashboard.

Follow me on X (@CoffeyFirst) to get DevRel strategy tips.

Key Takeaways

• 12 weeks is a year. Treat every sprint as do‑or‑die; urgency powers focus.
• Goals ≠ tactics. Two or three goals, fewest tactics, twelve weeks — keep it simple.
• Score weekly at ≥85 % execution or improve the plan.
• Segment, personify, instrument. Know who you serve, where they drop, and why.
• Data beats opinion. Use funnel metrics to divide your effort and develop goals.

Next Steps

Ready to craft your own plan? Clone these tactics, adapt them to your context, and share your first 12‑week goals with me on X.

Follow me on X (@CoffeyFirst) to get DevRel strategy tips.

1. Bucan, L. (2024, October 21). 30–60–90 day plan as a developer advocate for Arbitrum: Immersing, building, and scaling. Medium. https://medium.com/@lazar-bucan/30-60-90-day-plan-as-a-developer-advocate-for-arbitrum-immersing-building-and-scaling-55181f2e61f0 (Medium)
2. Ihuman, A. (2025, February 20). Navigating your first year as a developer advocate for a startup. Medium. https://medium.com/@Anita-ihuman/navigating-your-first-year-as-a-developer-advocate-for-a-startup-9445516df46c (Medium)
3. Moran, B. P., & Lennington, M. (2013). The 12 week year: Get more done in 12 weeks than others do in 12 months. Wiley.
4. Lewko, C., & Parton, J. (2021). Developer relations: How to build and grow a successful developer program (1st ed.). Apress. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-7164-3

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