How do you build an active and engaged developer community? What is your take on Developer Evangelists?

Ah, the perennial question. Before we dive into "how to", let us look at the primary characteristics of an "active and engaged" developer community; and then work our way backwards.

- Being part of any "community" is primarily to serve a deeply human need. There are a ton of communities I can be part of as a developer, but why should I choose to engage with a specific one? typically this boils down to 4 reasons
1/ Identity and meaning: We derive a sense of identity and purpose from our affiliations. A developer community provides a space to connect with like-minded individuals. It reinforces my identity as a developer and gives my work a sense of collective purpose. But this tenet generally works well if it is the developer community of an "established" brand. Identity is something that is automatically provided
2/ Knowledge and growth: I want to be seen as someone who is getting things done at work. But i am also incredibly curious as a developer to learn and create. Spaces like communities provide a lot of knowledge that I can go through. But there is also a chicken and egg problem here. How do you solve for knowledge if there is no participation.
3/ Reciprocal altruism: We are hardwired to the act of helping others with the expectation of receiving help in return. Developer communities thrive on this principle, where we readily share their knowledge and expertise, knowing that we can rely on others for support when needed. This creates a positive feedback loop of mutual benefit and collaboration. In short engagement/person >>> volume of people
4/ Desire to create: Developers love to make things. They want to contribute to the world. A community provides a platform for them to share their creations, receive feedback, and collaborate on projects. This satisfies a fundamental human need to build, to make, and to have their creations recognized.

Now to build a thriving community from scratch, you need to be creative in building these 4 tenets. Some key principles I would follow

• Be unique: Don't try to be everything to everyone. Identify a specific niche within the developer ecosystem where your brand can become a recognized authority. By focusing on a niche, you create a sense of exclusivity and attract developers who are deeply passionate about that area. Never focus on volume of developers from the scratch. Always focus on quality of engagement as a trade off. A strong visual identity helps to create a sense of belonging and reinforces the community's identity. Create a brand identity that reflects the values and personality of your community.

• Be authentic: Any community at its core is made up of people, not numbers. Imagine yourself being a part of it. You would want to be valued. Get to know the people who are part of the community. Understand them as individuals, while reinforcing the need to be a collective. You'll be amazed at the magic of being vulnerable and authentic, in building a community.

• Be helpful: Solve the cold start problem by creating an initial knowledge hub of resources. This could include tutorials, code samples, documentation, and best practices. Invite experienced developers to contribute their expertise, and highlight their contributions. Encourage developers to share their knowledge and expertise with others. Create opportunities for developers to mentor and support each other. Recognize and reward developers who contribute to the community. The reward should be authentic and not something generic.

• Listen, don't tell: Actively solicit feedback from developers about your product and the community. Show that you value their input by responding to their feedback and implementing their suggestions. Create a sense of co-creation and shared ownership. Feature them on your blog. Maybe give them credit for a product idea. Make them "invested" in your success
  

I see you have a lot of documentation and developer content on your developer portal. I think you can take the following steps to building an active and engaged developer community

• Select a channel where your developers can interact with peers and experts—it could be Slack, Discord, Reddit, StackOverflow, X, HackerNews or a custom online forum. Highlight it on this portal and invite developers to sign up.

• See your channel with some FAQs, foundational content, or product news that can spark discussions and peer-to-peer engagement.

• Identify your most active developers and invite them to an in-person or virtual meetup to formally launch your community and recognize them as champions or advocates.

• Continue these meetups and empower your community members to organize their own user meetups in their local regions globally.

• Incentivize and recognize community members with badges for different activities.

Developer Evangelists can help foster technical discussions, offer live support, and moderate your community channels as you scale and grow your community. Coming from deep technical backgrounds, developer evangelists can become the perfect bridge between your product teams and customers, help build trust and credibility, and ultimately accelerate community growth.

My take on this is assess what's already out there before building something new. Your team could benefit from becoming active in preexisting communities, building content for them, or sponsoring workshops instead of building something from the ground up. My example for this is when I was first launching Crossbeam's Slack App to the market and we wanted to educated the app developers about the product. We partnered with Slack and our engineering team to author a series of blogs targeted for the Slack App community. This resulted in a surround effect where we were able to impact the dev community who in turn go their teams excited about the App and increased utilization.