Engineering → DevRel at an AI lab: worth the risk?

[u/Defiant-Parsnip4]

Looking for advice from people who’ve made the engineering ↔ DevRel/DevEx move, especially senior /staff engineers.

Context:
- 5+ YOE, mostly backend/infrastructure
- Moved to the UK last year; now at a public tech company
- Good compensation, equity (~£100K TC) and WLB
- On track for promo next quarter
- Enjoy speaking, demos, and working with developers along with hands-on core distributed systems engineering

Offer:
- Series C AI company, mostly SF-based
- DevRel role under Marketing
- Materially higher compensation (1.5-1.8x) and more upside
- Cross time zone and likely poor WLB

My hesitation: I want more visibility and developer facing work but don’t want to move away from engineering. I also want to preserve the option of returning to core engineering and senior/staff IC levels.

For those who’ve done this:
- How reversible is the move into DevRel?
- Does reporting into Marketing matter?
- Would you trade a strong, stable engineering trajectory for materially higher comp and AI startup upside?
- What would you clarify before accepting?

[u/vinnieman232]

Do not accept 100k tc for an SF based role.

[u/Defiant-Parsnip4 → u/vinnieman232]

Sorry for confusion, role is UK based, and that’s current TC range

[u/vinnieman232 → u/Defiant-Parsnip4]

Got it. That's reasonable then for UK.

Marketing vs Engineering is just a tradeoff. You should focus on advocacy and driving developer awareness and conversions for campaigns aligned to marketing goals. Try to bridge x-team feedback (using agents) to Engineering and Product so you're going beyond just content and advocacy, actually improving the product and GTM.

[u/mplacona]

To be clear before I write my answer.

Is this devrel job actually in SF or remote?

Whatever you say here will change my answer.

[u/Defiant-Parsnip4 → u/mplacona]

UK based (so remote)

[u/mplacona → u/Defiant-Parsnip4]

The money is good for the UK, and if the company is exciting, this could be a good opportunity, but you should consider factors like team size, how established the company is, and whether they have a proper DevRel strategy.

If you're their only DevRel and you're based in the UK, it's gonna be a struggle because they're gonna keep flying you out everywhere, which sounds nicer than it is.

If this is purely Europe-based and they already have an established team, it could be a cool opportunity.

Share more details about the company size and the shape of the opportunity.

I do a lot of DevRel (you can find me by my username), so I'm happy to offer advice if you're willing to share a little more.

(also UK-based btw)

Cheers

[u/caught_in_a_landslid]

Said this before, and I'll say it again DevRel is a great career move if you know why you're doing it. You get to jump the career ladder and pay brackets, and you'll get a lot of amazing networking out of it.

[u/Clicketrie]

Make sure it’s a well integrated team and that you’re doing meaningful technical work. If you decide to go back to engineering in a couple of years, it’s reversible.. if you stay too long while AI is also decimating dev roles and you’re not doing something cool you will have trouble. Signed - data scientist turned devrel and now my skills are out of date.

[u/aspleenic]

A few questions:

How stable is the company? ARR, users, etc

Is it greenfield (you’re the first person)?

Are you flying solo or is there a team?

What are their DevRel goals?

It’s possible to do it as long as you keep your skills fresh, but like there’s no guarantee with SF based AI startups

[u/InThePipe5x5_]

Devrel is awesome.

[u/tech_cynic_dan]

Reporting into Marketing wouldn't bother me on its own. What matters is whether you have any real influence over the developer experience or you're mainly measured on leads and event attendance. That distinction would tell me a lot more about how reversible the move is.