Developer Relations Advocate

The Developer Relations Advocate at FlowFuse serves as a crucial bridge between the company and the global community of Node-RED developers, industrial engineers, and automation professionals. This role combines technical evangelism, community building, and business development to drive adoption of the FlowFuse platform.

The Developer Relations Advocate is responsible for building relationships with key stakeholders in the industrial automation and IIoT ecosystems, creating compelling and engaging technical content, and identifying business opportunities within developer communities. This position requires a unique blend of technical depth, communication skills, and business acumen to effectively advocate for FlowFuse's solutions while understanding the real-world challenges the target users face.

Key Responsibilities:

• Technical Evangelism & Content Creation: Develop and deliver compelling technical presentations at industry conferences, meetups, hackathons, and webinars focused on Node-RED, industrial automation, and IIoT applications. Create high-quality content including videos, webinars, social media posts, blog articles, tutorials, case studies, and technical documentation that demonstrates FlowFuse's value proposition.
• Community Engagement & Relationship Building: Actively participate in and contribute to Node-RED, IIoT, and industrial automation communities, forums, and open-source projects. Identify and cultivate relationships with key influencers, community leaders, and potential advocates in the industrial automation space.
• Business Development & Lead Generation: Identify and qualify business opportunities through community engagement and relationship building activities. Collaborate with sales and marketing teams to develop lead generation strategies targeting developers and technical decision-makers.
• Product Advocacy & Feedback: Serve as the voice of the developer community within FlowFuse, providing product feedback and feature requests based on community needs. Work closely with product and engineering teams to ensure FlowFuse addresses real-world challenges faced by Node-RED developers and industrial engineers.
• Strategic Partnerships & Ecosystem Development: Identify and develop strategic partnerships with complementary technology providers, system integrators, and industrial equipment manufacturers. Collaborate with partner organizations to create joint content, co-marketing opportunities, and technical integrations.

Skills

The Developer Relations Advocate skill set includes:

• Node-RED Experience: Hands-on experience with Node-RED, ideally in industrial settings with deep understanding of its capabilities and limitations in real-world applications.
• Communication & Content Creation Excellence: Experience communicating with diverse audiences using various media formats. Proven ability to create engaging content through video, audio, and written formats that resonates with technical and business stakeholders.
• Business Development Experience: Demonstrated experience in business relationship development or lead generation, preferably in technology or B2B SaaS environments. Understanding of sales processes and ability to identify and nurture business opportunities.
• Domain Expertise: Firsthand experience as a user, project lead, or decision-maker in roles similar to FlowFuse's core buyer personas (e.g., IIoT Project Lead, IT Operations Manager, Manufacturing Engineer, Plant Manager). Must have faced the pain points FlowFuse solves in deploying, managing, or scaling Node-RED-based solutions in industrial environments.
• Cross-functional Collaboration: Proven ability to collaborate closely with digital marketing, sales, product, and engineering teams to optimize campaigns, processes, and product development initiatives.
• Digital Marketing Knowledge: Understanding of engagement and retargeting strategies, as well as experience with platforms like Google Ads, LinkedIn ABM, content marketing, and social media engagement.
• Results-Driven Approach: Strong project management skills with the ability to manage multiple priorities simultaneously. Experience measuring the impact of developer relations activities through metrics and analytics.
• Community Involvement: Active participation in online and offline developer communities and ecosystems, including open-source platforms, technical blogs, social channels, forums, and professional networks.
• Technical Content Creation: Demonstrated ability to create content that resonates with technical buyer personas in the form of blog articles, tutorials, webinars, conference presentations, workshop materials, and documentation.

Nice to Have

• Open-Source & Low-Code Background: Experience working in open-source software companies or with low-code/no-code development platforms, understanding of open-source community dynamics
• Marketing Automation: Familiarity with marketing automation tools such as HubSpot, Marketo, Pardot, or similar platforms for lead nurturing and campaign management
• Global Team Experience: Experience working effectively in remote and multicultural teams, with understanding of different regional markets and developer communities
• Industrial Protocol Knowledge: Understanding of industrial communication protocols such as OPC-UA, Modbus, MQTT, or similar technologies used in manufacturing and automation
• Technical Background: Software development experience in JavaScript/Node.js, Python, or other relevant programming languages
• CRM & Analytics Proficiency: Ability to identify and qualify business opportunities using CRM tools such as HubSpot, Salesforce, or similar platforms. Experience with lead scoring, pipeline management, and opportunity tracking.

90-Day Plan

• Week 1-4: Foundation & FlowFuse Immersion

  • Product Deep Dive: Familiarize yourself with the FlowFuse product, platform capabilities, Node-RED ecosystem, and target customer profiles
  • Internal Alignment: Meet with key internal stakeholders across Marketing, Sales, Product, and Engineering teams to understand positioning, messaging, and go-to-market strategies
  • Content Audit: Review existing marketing materials, technical documentation, blog content, and community engagement efforts to identify gaps and opportunities
  • Community Research: Map the Node-RED and industrial automation community landscape, identifying key influencers, forums, events, and content creators
  • Marketing Integration: Begin collaborating with the marketing team on content calendar planning and campaign alignment
  • Initial Content Creation: Start producing introductory content (blog posts, social media content) to establish your voice within the FlowFuse brand

• Week 5-8: Community Engagement & Content Production

  • Active Community Participation: Begin engaging actively in Node-RED forums, Discord channels, GitHub discussions, and industrial automation communities
  • Content Creation Acceleration: Develop and publish technical tutorials, demo videos, and case studies showcasing FlowFuse's industrial applications
  • Speaking Opportunities: Identify and apply for speaking slots at upcoming conferences, webinars, and meetups
  • Partnership Exploration: Research potential strategic partnerships with complementary tools, system integrators, and technology providers
  • Lead Generation Integration: Work with marketing to develop lead magnets and technical content that supports demand generation efforts
  • Community Feedback Collection: Start gathering feedback from community interactions to inform product and marketing strategies

• Week 9-13: Strategic Impact & Growth Initiatives

  • Conference Speaking & Events: Deliver your first technical presentations representing FlowFuse at industry events or webinars
  • Content Strategy Optimization: Analyze performance metrics of your content and optimize based on engagement data and lead generation results
  • Strategic Partnership Development: Initiate conversations with identified strategic partners for content collaboration and co-marketing opportunities
  • Community Leadership: Take on leadership roles in relevant communities, potentially organizing meetups or contributing to open-source projects
  • Marketing Campaign Support: Collaborate on multi-channel marketing campaigns that integrate developer relations activities with broader marketing initiatives
  • Success Metrics Establishment: Develop and implement tracking systems for DevRel-specific KPIs including community growth, content engagement, and qualified lead generation

Hiring Plan

1. Initial Screening: Review resumes and cover letters to assess candidate qualifications and experience.
2. First Interview (Technical Depth & Leadership): Conduct a video interview to assess technical proficiency in Node.js, Node-RED, Vue.js, and DevOps tooling, as well as initial leadership and management experience.
3. Second Interview (Team Leadership & Culture Fit): In-depth interview with the CEO and other relevant team leads to discuss leadership philosophy, experience scaling teams, and alignment with FlowFuse's "sports team" culture.
4. Technical Assessment / Case Study: Candidates will be presented with a real-world scenario or problem relevant to FlowFuse's engineering challenges and asked to propose solutions or provide a code sample.
5. STAR Interview (Behavioral Alignment): A behavioral interview focusing on past experiences to understand how the candidate has handled challenges, collaborated, and driven performance.
6. Offer: Extend an offer to the selected candidate.