How To Get a Remote DevRel Job From India in 2026 (Step By Step) - w/ Saurav

I got fired on January 3rd, 2024. 20 days later, Saurabh Jain had six job offers. Today, he works fully remote from Delhi for a check company and gets flown to developer conferences across three continents every other month. If you're an Indian dev sending out job applications and hearing nothing back, you're playing the wrong game and Saurabh is here to show us what the right game looks like because in the next 45 minutes, Saurabh breaks down the exact career most Indian developers don't even know exists. But, European and American companies are actively struggling to hire for. How he gets offers without even submitting an application, the framework he uses to make companies create a role for him even when they aren't hiring, and the specific skills you need to build right now to get flown out instead of filtered out. Damn.

out. Damn. There are three C's that we usually say, code, community, and content. So, your role can be all three of them, your role can be any two of them, your role can be any one of them. Join me in welcoming Saurabh Jain to the show. Let's jump right in. Saurabh, welcome. Hi. Thank you for Thank you so much for inviting me. Happy to have you and really excited to jump into really how quickly and you know how easily it almost feels like from the outside that you've become almost like the poster child of remote jobs out of India, right? So, with your current role at API five, it sounds like you're just you know touring the world, just doing the most coolest, greatest projects ever while still completely

projects ever while still completely being remote. So, I want to kick off with that, right? Talk us through um just a day in the life, I guess. Maybe we can start there, right? At API five, what is it that you do there with your current role as a developer advocate, I think is the title. And yeah, just a kind of talk us through a basic day in the life currently.

the life currently. Uh yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. I I work as a senior developer community manager at Appify. So, as the title suggests, it's developer community manager, so we do some technical stuff and we also manage the developer community of Appify. So, So, just to give a small reference, Appify is Appify have a marketplace for softwares, which we call Appify Store, where hundreds of developers all around the world, they publish some software, they decide their own price, and then we have the other side of users. We have nearly 300,000 monthly sign-ups now on our platform. It's ever-growing every month we have we are growing exponentially. So, these users from all over the world use these tools and pay for it. So, you can imagine a very big part of our

you can imagine a very big part of our business relies on the developer community. So, it's very important to have some someone or some team in the company who works for them, who takes care of them, who listens to them and who support them and who make sure that whatever they are doing is the best and they are succeeding in it. So, this is my job. I am the bridge between company and the developer community of Appify. So, we we also manage our open-source library Crawly, which is available in both JavaScript and Python. And we manage the whole open-source community for it, and then we have this whole group of developers. They have a million problems every day, which we try to fix and we try to give them the features that they request for.

them the features that they request for. So, we become the feedback loop for them. them. And then yes, conferences, conferences and different kind of events where we can increase the tribe. So, we go for different events all around the world where we can reach out to these developers and our users as well. We can meet them and we can also get some new developers all around the world. So, this is this is in just one two lines.

this is this is in just one two lines. That's awesome and that sounds really exciting and it, you know, really sounds like you you've been really enjoying it. Is there a component around content at all with this where you're trying to have via newsletters or whatever, you know, just share the new features and such and is that something you get to touch as well? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, we have this monthly newsletter for all of our users and developers. Well, apart from that, we we try to make community as part of our contact content program as much as we can. So, I recently launched one of the writing content program for Apify writing program for all of our developers. The goal is to get some good quality technical content. Many of our developers always write very, very good technical content. So, we try to

good technical content. So, we try to reward them for it and we introduced this. So, once a quarter I launched this program with some specific theme around. So, the theme for this last quarter was to have production ready uh uh scraping solutions or web automation solutions. So, many of our developers build many good actors and they they wrote some articles around it. I think we got around 100 submissions from that Wow. Wow. uh in in just like 15 days and then we closed the theme for this quarter and I'm I'm in the process of with team to review those articles, but whatever article will be up for the mark during our technical reviews and content reviews and will be published on Apify or Crawlee blogs. They will get paid $500 per article. So, it's just something that we are doing around content with the community. But apart from that

But apart from that idea. idea. Yeah. But apart from that, there are like social media channels, there are YouTube channel, newsletters, blogs already. already. A lot of things and Discord. Our Discord community is like we are 15,000 developers there and we regularly contact them. So, Discord is the place for developers. Hm, interesting. And do you get to touch all of these or is it just kind of a parallel track with your role or your team that does this? Yes. So, when I joined AvePoint, I was the first DevRel that they hired and so my my journey has been all of all of this like I've been through all of this.

this like I've been through all of this. Currently, I focus mostly on events. I also am very involved in Discord, but we have different people for different tasks. So, I'm I'm not fully dedicated into Discord. Our other team members handle Discord as well and I just whenever I they need some help, I I am there, but yeah, I I think I'm right now mostly into events and content program that I'm doing. And and also like the things going on in Discord daily life.

things going on in Discord daily life. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, you mentioned my journey, right? You you talked about your journey. I am very curious about how if you can if you don't mind sharing for our listeners. So, I know you started as a software developer essentially, right? And then what you do now, DevRel is yeah, it's definitely related, right? But it's not the most common, I want to say. Maybe you would disagree and you can have more insights here, but it really sounds like you almost carved out like a pretty niche path out for yourself. So, can you talk us through kind of your just background and how you ended up here after starting out as a developer like so many others do, right? Where it's not niche at all and then you went into something that is

and then you went into something that is so niche. So, how did all of that come to be? It can be a few minutes, but I'll start explaining. explaining. So, it started the better. Yeah, so please don't Yeah, please don't feel like you have the need to you know, beat a clock. So, just just go for it. Yeah, it's really cool.

go for it. Yeah, it's really cool. Perfect, perfect. That sounds amazing. So, I think this all started in 2017 when I joined my college for computer science and engineering. I never had a chance to learn programming before in my school. I was in a government school and I we didn't have computers there. I had a computer at my home. I was that privileged with my family that I can get a computer, but I wasn't this privileged that they can get me up to have it school where I can get programming languages lessons and everything. So I wasn't aware about it. And when I went to my college Where where did you grow up? I grew up in Central Delhi Karol Bagh district. So I grew up there. Now I shifted to other part of Delhi, but yeah.

part of Delhi, but yeah. At that time we I was studying in a government school so I didn't have access to learning programming. But yeah, yeah, when I joined my college and we I saw like like programming lessons. So at my college they always assume that everybody of us knows programming so they can directly teach a little more advanced things. And I didn't understand anything and I struggled for nearly 2 years. I'll say 2 and 1/2 years. And then I first first time like I was learning the whole time C and C++ and everything and I couldn't understand anything. So I was struggling a lot in my college in starting. Then I figured out Python. And for some reason like when I started learning Python Python felt so easy.

learning Python Python felt so easy. There used to be a course by Infosys at that time and it was InfyTQ. The course name was InfyTQ. And they used to have these small lessons of every chapter about Python and they used to teach it in Python. So the focus of the whole course was to learn programming and how to build logic instead of learn learning syntax or doing things. So they'll have these visual interactions and very nice very nice course. I started doing that course and I started learning Python and that was game changer for me. I I got so much into Python that I was doing coding so much.

Python that I was doing coding so much. I was learning how to build logic and that became my teacher and my sense of thing that how programming works how how coding logic works and everything and I learned a lot from this. Most of most of my college people used to ignore that course because it was from Infosys and Infosys doesn't have much reputation in this. So but but they created something really good that I found out and I I I just go for it and it was amazing. So, I learned programming from that and then I started doing many projects. I got into machine learning at that time and at that time AI wasn't very famous. So, I I created some algorithm face recognition algorithm and many many other algorithms at that time and I was so much into it.

so much into it. And at that moment I realized there's nothing in my college that uh sense sense of community. There's nothing for a sense of community for programmers. There is no students grow up. There is no hackathon. There is nothing. So, I applied for Google Developers Group. I applied for uh GitHub Campus Expert. I applied for uh there used to be Microsoft Student Partner at that time. It used to be very very famous. I applied for all of them and I got got selected in all of them.

and I got got selected in all of them. Uh and uh I started doing my uh things there. I started doing courses on their platforms about community and everything. And I started few chapters in my college. So, we used to have some Scalar Ambassador channel. Uh we used to have this uh Google Campus Expert thing. We used to have Microsoft Student Partner thing. And my college this is where like it was first for my college and we started these uh small student groups. And so, I I learned what community means actually. And then suddenly COVID came and everything went to online. So, all of this was uh scraped and now I was again back on social media and everything. But now for 3 years nearly I'm I'm like 2

now for 3 years nearly I'm I'm like 2 and 1/2 years I am learning Python and I'm good in it and I I figured out like if I cannot do it uh offline, I may do it online. So, I figured out Twitter and I used to create content on it and about Python. Whatever I learned in Python last 2 or 3 years, I used to share it as a medicine. Like I will daily wake up and I will go at my PC at 12:00 p.m. and I will write some content and I'll share it. I did it for 3 or 6 months and my Twitter following increased and I I used to get reach a very nice reach at that

to get reach a very nice reach at that time. I was nicely recognized in Python community on Twitter at that moment. So, many people got to know about me and everything and I got to know many people. So, I then when you were doing the Twitter stuff, were you also employed or was this just kind of all that you were doing? doing? No, I didn't have any any job at all. I never did any internship. I never had a job job before it. So, I started doing this and uh So, it was nearly my end of college now and at that moment I uh figured out like I need to do something else as well. So, I joined uh my friend's startup as a scraping developer. So, we used to have He was doing it for helping NGOs and other uh like other other causes. Uh so, he

uh like other other causes. Uh so, he wanted someone who can do this for him. So, I joined him and he used to pay me a bit and I used to work for him. So, I used to help NGOs. I used to help these these organization in order to in order for different things to scrape internet. So, I learned a lot at that time. I did it for nearly 6 7 months and uh in in this period I was doing Twitter, too. Uh after my college and before getting my first remote job, I was doing all of this, but in this period I got to know many people online because of Twitter. So, I got to know about this project called application at that time and this project was uh uh

and this project was uh uh a backend Node.js generator. At that time we didn't have any AI, so it used to be like very nice thing. Right. Right. very very early stages. So, there was nothing uh very fancy about it and it was very buggy. And there was a very small Discord community of 300 to 500 people, something like this. So, I joined them. I I joined the Discord and I used to help people just out of curiosity, like just to help them and I didn't care much. But the the CEO of that company noticed that I'm helping so many people in the community and I can I also have a social media account and he he reached out to me if I want to join the company as a junior developer.

the company as a junior developer. Wow, that's awesome, dude. Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, after that uh he was like he he thought that I am a very uh aged person on my I'm not like but I was just 20 at that time. So, he got a bit scared that oh, you're just 20. Uh I think it's just it's uh I I'll think about it. And then he kind of ghosted me for 3 months, but uh uh I was in the community. I was constantly helping people. So, I I didn't care much, but after 3 months he reached out again that uh do you still want the job?

again that uh do you still want the job? I said, "Yeah, let's try." And I said, "Okay, you're not so sure, but let's do it on a trial basis. Maybe you can employ me uh for a month or two and we'll see if it works. If it works, we'll continue it." But yeah, he hired me and then uh this was my first remote job. The company was from Israel, uh Tel Aviv, and I was in India, New Delhi. Uh Wow. And I he employed me for 2 months, but in my first week he uh make me made me permanent and he realized that I'm doing good. So, he made me permanent. He gave me a laptop and everything and I worked there for nearly 3 years and then I joined Appify. So, that was my first remote job journey. Wow.

Wow. That's crazy how something that you started to do while in college just and I did actually mean to ask you this. I so I know when you were first sharing your story, you mentioned that it was something that you wanted to do like you said you led with that there was no community around these things that you were finding out and you were very interested in as you were teaching yourself, but you had nobody to talk to these things about. I feel like that is a reality for I want to say it like I don't know like 90 plus percent uh software engineers {slash} computer science students in India even today, right? The thing that's not as common is people don't usually go out of their way, way, especially like when you're going to a

especially like when you're going to a college that does not have these clubs, right? That you mentioned. To then figure out for themselves that hey, there is something called Microsoft Student Partner, Google this thing. So, I guess what was driving you to do that? Like why feel the need to go do this extra thing around this community stuff? Was it Yeah, like I guess what was your motivation behind that first step that you took there?

step that you took there? I think I think I I'm a curious person and I I always like to explore more and that's also like current me. I think all of these conferences like I've been to Africa, I've been to so many other places around the world. It's just my curiosity that drives me doing things out of the way always and I don't know. I I I think I always like to do the extra step than regretting it later. So, I I always say like just I I just want to do it and experience it. If it goes wrong, I won't do it. I think I remember when I was in college and I was doing

when I was in college and I was doing this, this, there was a Google Voice Assistant program that if you build a Google Voice Assistant application and if you do it nicely and if you get some users, they will send you a Google Home, which was used to be like AI AI thing at that time and it was so cool. Like I had like for a college student, it mean like world to me. I built it and I I built it and my app luckily got users and I got a Google Home delivered at my home and I posted it on LinkedIn. I still remember I went to college the next day and people were making fun of me that are you in Google?

making fun of me that are you in Google? You are in Google. You don't even know coding. And I was like It's fine. I mean It is easy to make fun, but like people do this, but when you take extra step, it just always works. I think all of those small things which I did in my college helped me a lot in figuring out when I was doing this scraping job that I cannot do it full-time. I was when I was doing this, I I was enjoying the process, but I was also thinking about it like this is not the complete picture I want for myself. I I want to do this. I want to do this scraping, but I cannot just live without the community factor in my job. So, I want that, too. And that made me do all

want that, too. And that made me do all of the other things that I did. And that's how you learn. I mean, you just explore and learn. So, be curious. I think your story around how they were making fun of you in college after you had posted on LinkedIn is so interesting to me now because I'm sure So, I know this, right? And I'm sure you know this because you come from the same world, but but you know, like hate, right? Like so, LinkedIn hate comments or whatever, be it hate engagement or any engagement, ultimately, it it boosts your post, right? It boosts It tells the algorithm that show this to more people. And it's so interesting that we don't realize it at the time when this happens to us, but what you faced in real life with those

what you faced in real life with those people that were saying that was just the same exact thing that makes posts go viral. So, in a way, you were actually going viral in real life, not just in LinkedIn. Like you actually broke the contagion of LinkedIn. That That is how much power there was in your post there. So, the reason I called this out is for anyone listening, I've had similar experiences happen to me as well where I mean, people are quick to judge um India, right? Where where they say that this is almost like a crab in crabs in a bucket mentality and stuff like that. I disagree with that. I think this just happens anywhere anywhere people are just jealous. It's one of the human traits to feel jealousy, right?

traits to feel jealousy, right? So, but the reason I'm trying to call this out for anyone listening is if this happens to you, like literally celebrate. What this means What this is proof of is that something you did is big enough for people to literally start saying mean things to your face. And and like, you know, few things that are more powerful than that. So, you know, just wanted to call that out. And then then Sorry, go ahead. I completely I I completely agree on this. I mean, at that time it felt bad, obviously. Even now Even now, if someone will come to me on when I'm on stage and just say on my face, it will feel bad. But yeah, like you come out of it. You have two choices. Either to stop doing the

two choices. Either to stop doing the good work that makes you happy, or you have a choice to do it more and make them more jealous. So, I choose the second one always. I like that. Yeah, exactly. And I wish I realized this earlier, right? But it took me I mean, even if you had told me this like 2 years ago, it probably would not have registered the way this works. So, it really yeah, like my goal here was just to be like, this is good. It doesn't feel like it, but trust me, this is you're doing something good for this to be happy. Like Like Like to be very honest, I got a message from all of them after I joined Amplication and I started going to conferences and everything. I think all of them are still in touch, but they

all of them are still in touch, but they realized they up. Previously. That's how it goes. Yeah, that's usually how it goes, yeah. It's when you turn your haters into fans. Yeah. Yeah. You know, just through work. So, that was one thing. The other thing I wanted to double-click on was you mentioned that for about 6 months or so you had this habit of whatever you were learning you were going on Twitter to post. Talk to me about that. Why was this something you felt the need to So, because of COVID, I think everyone went online and nothing was offline. No community was offline. There were few webinars and events, but yeah, I mean I thought like I learned something and I saw on Twitter people doing it, especially one of my friend, Pratham.

especially one of my friend, Pratham. He's very famous and I want to give him shout-out again. He He used to do create content on Twitter a lot and he started getting some followers and something and people find it his content on CSS at that time very very nice. So, I thought like he asked me like you can do this too and I say why not? Let's try and that's how I tried it. But everybody was on Twitter at in COVID. So, everybody and the tech community was the sweetest at like even now if I compare all of the platform social media platforms, Twitter in 2020 and 2021 was the sweetest, the most supportive and you can get a lot of

most supportive and you can get a lot of opportunity just being on Twitter and being present there. So, I saw this I saw a many many people getting those opportunities and many things. So, I started doing doing this too and I had a lot of experience already in Python and I created some I also wrote some research papers at that time in in machine learning which got accepted. So, just to share things and to start having conversations and to connect to more people in and out of India. And I made a really really nice connections from there even until now I have I know many people just because I was present on Twitter at that time.

was present on Twitter at that time. Yeah. So, if you had if you were doing this today, would you still choose Twitter as your primary source of posting technical content or would you go somewhere else and why? I mean there are ways of putting content everywhere. I don't know how comfortable you are with video content, how comfortable you are with technical content, how comfortable you are with small form written content. It totally depends. If you are comfortable with just writing I mean LinkedIn Twitter still works and you will still make connections. You can still write some articles if you are okay with technical content and post it on Twitter and other platforms you'll get really really nice reach. You can start writing newsletter Substack which is very nice. But if you

Substack which is very nice. But if you are good with obviously good with short form video content I think that is another level power right now on social media that many people do very nicely and get recognized. So, it totally depends on you on what you are comfortable with. Makes sense. So, I think the lesson here is that it kind of the platform doesn't matter almost like the goal is to just start and that's the most important thing. Is that right?

thing. Is that right? Yes. Yes. Yes. I mean, you still find a lot of people on Twitter posting something. You just need to say a hi and ask them a genuine question and they will surely reply and answer you. I bet. So, you can still make a lot of good connections even if you are not getting thousands of followers. It doesn't matter. Followers doesn't matter.

matter. Followers doesn't matter. Yeah. And no, I agree. And I think I like that you called that out because yeah, a lot of people feel like, "Oh, I've been doing this for 30 days. I have, you know, nothing to show for it. This obviously does not work. Let's just completely stop doing this." And yeah, it's obviously yeah, that's the biggest pitfall there that it it is built to not work in 30 days. Like if it were that easy, everybody would be just going viral all the time every day. So, yeah, I that's a great call out there. And then I guess from there continuing your journey. So, it obviously through your hard work, through the seeds that you laid across those all of those years, you were able to get that inbound

you were able to get that inbound opportunity for the Israeli company. So, then talk to me about how you ended up at API 5. Was that a similar story or did you end up applying for it? How did that come to happen? Yeah. So, I was working in this startup for 3 years and we grew our community a lot. We did a lot of things.

community a lot. We did a lot of things. But, at that time in Israel, the conflict started All right. We we were also about to raise the round seed round for that company and it the timing didn't match very well. And also the AI AI game so Node generate Node.js generator become not so useful after that. So, they have to shut off the operations very quickly in few months. So, they laid off most of the company including me. But, the relation that I made with founder, I want to mention this that if you are working in a company, if you are working in a startup, uh make good relations that helps you a lot. Before even getting an Appify offer or getting touch with Appify, I already had at least 10 interviews scheduled with so many founders just because I had a

many founders just because I had a really good relation in my company. The founder was so nice. He was not happy with the decision that he had to make to lay off the people, but he made sure that that he will refer me into so many companies. So, at least 10 10 companies reached out to me and offered me a job and I was daily giving interviews a lot. So, I got fired on January 3rd, 2024 and I joined Appify. I had a 30 days notice period which ends on February 3rd, but I joined Appify on February 1st already. So, in in the middle in the in these 20 days, I had nearly like seven or eight job offers because of just because of the referrals and everything, I got so many opportunities

opportunities walk to me. But, the thing was like I I did a lot of work in that company, but I didn't like I outgrew myself and the work there and I wanted to do something and that extra wasn't so challenging in those all of those companies. Although the money was really nice, but the task was not so challenging and I thought like I am very early in my career. It means just 3 years and everything. I want to do something more challenging and Appify I saw a post on LinkedIn from CTO of Appify. They posted 26 jobs in one one post and the last one was developer advocate and I thought, "Okay, seems interesting." I saw the platform and I think it's interesting. Really nice. I like it. And I saw that they had

nice. I like it. And I saw that they had no developer in the company. They have a community, but not any community programs or there was nothing done for the developer community yet. So, they were at the point that they want to grow the community. They want to grow things. They want to build the programs, developer programs, and community programs inside the company. So, I'm I just messaged the CTO that, "Okay, you posted a job. I I think I'm also switching companies, so let's talk if there is energy." He shared my contact immediately. I think in 10 or 15 minutes he he saw my profile because this is this is the one reason. Because my LinkedIn profile and my Twitter profile always shows my work publicly.

profile always shows my work publicly. So, whatever I have done in last 3 5 years now 5 or 6 years now. I have posted on LinkedIn and Twitter already. So, whenever I message someone, the message comes with an authority that this person have done all of these things and there is a public proof for it. So, I didn't even create a need to create a resume for it. So, from both of both of my jobs I never created a resume. So, I messaged him. He saw my profile.

So, I messaged him. He saw my profile. He messaged He messaged my profile to the chief operating officer of the company who was hiring for this role and he did an intro call with me. He sent me some assignments and we did some three rounds of interview because this company never hired many people remotely before. So, I was the one first few of them. So, they need to make sure that everything goes right and I did a lot of panel interviews and then we figured out that that the senior developer advocate role that they are hiring for is very senior and I don't think personally that I am that senior that I can make a team as of now and everything.

and everything. On a senior role but not so senior that it's head of a developer or something. So, we joined at I joined at senior developer community manager in Appify. And yeah, we started work. So, there were a lot of interviews, lot of things, live coding round, assignments that I need to do. But because I like the challenge of this thing and I can foresee that there are there are a lot of things that we can do in Appify for the community and that's why I joined them. I think it's it's very exciting.

them. I think it's it's very exciting. And also all of these developers who works like who created these actors, we call them actors on Apify. They are from different parts of the world. They are from Africa, they are from Asia, they are from Eastern part of Europe or many other places. So, you can imagine they are earning few thousand dollars per month and it means the world to them. So, when you work for them, actually feel the impact that you are making. making. I have heard from them when I was in Nigeria for a conference, I met one of the developers and he video called his wife and his kid to when he came to meet me and all of them said thank you Saurav for working for us. You bring bread to our table. table. And that's like I still get goosebumps

And that's like I still get goosebumps whenever I hear this. So, you don't get such impact in many jobs. So, I really like working for them. Man, that is so cool. Wow. And I guess this is kind of just blowing my mind a little bit, but so for a company that has never hired somebody remotely before, I'm sure this would have come up in the initial conversations itself, right? Like hey, I'm based out of this geography that you're not. So, I guess for anybody that's applying to remote jobs like this, say they have gotten an interview by doing the work, right? Cuz there's obviously no shortcut to that itself.

obviously no shortcut to that itself. Um so, you're here, you're you're about to go into that interview. You have to make the case for you being remote. Talk us through the strategy that worked for you maybe or that you generally think works in these situations because I can imagine there's like a hundred different ways to convey this, right? And not all of them would leave a strong mark. So, how do you recommend people go about that conversation? Yeah, as I said, public presence is very important at times. Many people like I have met so many people in conferences all around the world. They always ask me this and I always say post on LinkedIn.

this and I always say post on LinkedIn. I don't get why people don't post on LinkedIn what they are doing. You always think that you are doing some boring work, but it's not so boring actually. Either write blogs or make make yourself more visible. It's visibility is very important in current world. I think that makes a lot of trust in everything. If you are visible enough in public, people trust you that okay, this is like there can be 10 candidates in pipeline. I've I've been on the other side of the interviews now and I know like like I can tell with my experience if there are 10 candidates in the pipeline, one candidate have a YouTube channel where he posts YouTube or one candidate have a LinkedIn profile which is very nice and they post their work regularly and then there is a

work regularly and then there is a developer who is good enough, but on a similar level and they don't post anything. anything. do that. And then then you see the comparison. They automatically gets on the top of it because you already know the proof. And you already get them. But again, one more thing that I want to repeat. The second thing will be good relations where you work at and everything because I remember they did reference calls with at least three or four of my workers of my last company and everybody recommended me strongly strongly because they have worked with me remotely and they wanted to make sure that I I'm not lying in general and this is [snorts] like every every good

is [snorts] like every every good company process that they do reference call. So they did a did a reference call. Everybody recommended me. Everybody told the honest feedback and everything. So good relations help helps a lot. So I think these two things are very important. Apart from that, I think I I'm being very honest here. I don't think like Appify was hiring for this role for a longer time and they tried to find someone in in their region and in nearby countries, but it was hard for them to find someone who can take the ownership of everything initially. So I think it's also they have to go remote for this job so they can find someone. So, it's also that. But, it's

But, it's like complete package of everything, I think. think. That's so interesting. Yeah, like all of this is actually news to me. I I didn't I had no idea this worked this way. Like, because I guess just maybe just to offer you an insight from the outside world, the way we perceive this is that either it's open or it's not, right? So, if I were you, like a dummy, I would go to the link. It would say non-remote or if it wasn't it wouldn't explicitly say that this is hiring for remote, and I wouldn't even apply, right? Cuz I'd be like, "Oh, this is not remote, so why bother?" But, that's not the right way to go about this thing, it sounds like.

to go about this thing, it sounds like. Like, it's it's just gray. Right? Right? It depends, actually. It depends. So, there are few jobs, for example, US remote jobs, and there is some technicality and legality behind it, so they cannot hire actually anyone outside of US. But, then there are jobs like when I was applying to Avify, it says like like Prague location and everything, but I didn't apply, actually. I just messaged them. But, it said like Prague location, but it also said in somewhere in the job description that they're open for remote job. So, I just reached out to them, and I checked it with the hiring manager if that's what they are looking for. Interesting. Interesting. And they are they were pretty flexible, I think. They were very flexible with it. They

They were very flexible with it. They just needed someone good, and they didn't much care about the location. They just wanted to make sure that whoever they are hiring and investing their time in is good enough, and they wanted to make sure through different kind of rounds of interviews, from different kind of assignments, and then doing some reference check with my ex-colleagues. ex-colleagues. Totally. So, and then on a related note, for so like I guess just in your experience, have you come across any other good resources in terms of maybe websites or just aggregators and such of remote jobs only that maybe you used to look at or is it really just purely you know serendipity just go on LinkedIn and kind of see. Yeah, to be honest luckily I haven't been in a time recently where I need to

been in a time recently where I need to search for job. So I don't know the current updated resources but I think LinkedIn works pretty nicely. I I usually my approach for any job search will be to find a problem that matters to you and then you do a lot of relevant work that you have done. So it can be any problem. So for me the problem was to monetize solutions for developers because all of us have some developer skills but it's really hard to make money out of it and happy fire solving that other side of marketplace. So I really cared about this problem and I felt about it and that's how I think I reached out to happy fire and that's how I was following already them and I got to know about this job.

them and I got to know about this job. So I think in general if you have even there are like many of my friends have got remote job and these jobs even when there was no opening at all in the company. I think that doesn't matter actually when you have enough skills and everything and the company is doing well if you reach out to them and the openings can can be made they can talk you through it they can make a special special role for you if needed if you are good enough. So it's mostly showcasing your skills.

showcasing your skills. In general I again recommend to make yourself a good brand uh Yeah. Yeah. Don't think like you'll get just 10 likes 10 10 likes is not the issue here it's like you have some public publicly available content available on internet written by you created by you and it's yours and it shows it builds some trust in outside world and that's how it goes. Amazing and then from there want to touch on the DevRel job specifically just a little bit. So you mentioned that there were coding rounds. So that surprised me because why would if if your job is to just kind of advocate for new tools, make sure all the developers are taken care of, it kind of makes sense why you would need to understand how code is written,

need to understand how code is written, but I was surprised to hear you say when you said that there were there were just full-blown coding rounds. So, is that common for most DevRel type roles, or is was that unique to Apify? No, it depends. It depends, actually. So, it can be either uh a technical engineering kind of job in DevRel. DevRel is a very vast department. So, there are three C's that we usually say: code, community, and content. So, your role can be all three of them. Your role can be any two of them. Your role can any one of them. So, it depends on which which What what that company exactly wants from the DevRel department in in particular. So, in general, when Apify was hiring me, they

general, when Apify was hiring me, they wanted all-in-one person. So, they wanted someone who can do all of these things and who also knows code because my job was to talk with developers on a daily basis and to help them in the problems that they are encountering. And what they do? They code. So, uh we have They just want It was not a very very hard coding round. It was a two or three-step coding round where you need to just make sure that you know how to build logic and everything. It wasn't It was not that hard. It was trivial. So, but they just wanted to make sure that I'm a technical person. I think that was the crux of it. So, they used one of the

the crux of it. So, they used one of the engineering test that they host for most of the web automation engineers in the company and they put it on me and it was live coding round on a Google Meet. So, that's how it was it was, but uh it totally depends. If you are If your job is to write code, maybe with engineering team in DevRel, and the feature requests and everything, yeah, they might do uh a coding test. But for example, now in Apify, when we hired recently many people, we didn't do coding rounds because their job was not to code. So, it changed uh it changed with time, but at that time it felt important because I was the only one. I was going to be the only one, so they needed to make sure.

needed to make sure. Fascinating. Yeah, I love the three C's there. I had no idea those were a part of the thing, and it makes sense where if you're just a content focused DevRel, you probably don't have a coding round at all, right? Because why would they need to check your coding proficiency if you're focused mostly on the final C of content. So, that's super helpful. Um final question here before I let you go.

final question here before I let you go. Um what lies ahead do you think in the world of DevRel, remote jobs, etc., especially under the perspective or the lens of what AI is doing to our world in real time as we as we, you know, live and breathe every single day. How do you see these things changing? Do you see remote jobs being more common, less common, mostly the same?

common, mostly the same? And then separately, um yeah, with the DevRel type roles, how do you see them evolving with AI as well? well? I think there's always a constant demand, a constant upstream for jobs for remote on remote in general. I think remote is just a small thing out of the jobs. If there are jobs in market, there are enough remote jobs, too. So, that that totally depend. You just need to have a skill that is not uh uh that is unique enough that people cannot find them in their home countries or anything, and then they have to make the job remote. So, that's the crux of it. So, be good enough in your job that people come to you and give you job no matter what where you stay. And And AI, yeah, AI is I think

stay. And And AI, yeah, AI is I think it's it's very integrated in our daily life. life. And now in DevRel, we use it to get some metrics, we do organize meetups, to uh to publish content, too. So, for example, the writing program, we created a whole fully blown prompt for writers, so they can actually use it initially to write to check the writing that they have done before submitting it to us. So, they are Nice. Nice. They are using the Pie tone of voice.

They are using the Pie tone of voice. They are using uh they don't have any any typos in it or they have uh make sure the structure of the content looks like what Appy Pie wants. So, there is less chance of rejection. And then in the uh review process also, we are using AI. Uh so, then there there is a lot of integration of AI in daily life uh for feature requests, for many things, for uh creating some dashboards for the data that we get in community, and a lot. And in general, I think DevRel uh is here.

in general, I think DevRel uh is here. DevRel will be here uh because we I think we will still be the So, the audience uh are changing. So, the audience which used to be core developers are now also white coders. And as you can imagine, with white coders, they need more help in general in order to be successful on the platform. So, uh more need of uh DevRel people and everyone uh in order to organize more meetups or or to do more things uh in order to uh make So, yeah, I think uh we are here and I think think so far I'm looking at like whatever I see on LinkedIn and every everywhere, I think there is a very huge amount uh demand for DevRel jobs, especially like good DevRels in uh industry. And I see a lot

uh industry. And I see a lot Like even like when we are hiring recently, it was really hard to get people. So, there are a lot of uh jobs in market, I'd say. Wow, I I I love just how optimistic you you are with just everything that you do and say. But that's been uh you know, something that's that's been very striking in the you know, 40-odd minutes that I've I've had to spend with you. But sort of um yeah, this was so cool, man. Like thank you so much for taking the time. I learned so much. I feel like this is just like one of those conversations where where there's a door to a universe that you didn't even know existed and somebody just comes and opens the door for you just to be like, "Oh, cool. Okay, this is a whole entire uh thing by itself

is a whole entire uh thing by itself that was just completely unknown to me." So, So, yeah, kudos to the work you do. And one final note before we end, I guess. You mentioned in the beginning of our chat where you you said I think you had about 300,000 sign-ups this past month for APISIX. I'm happy to report that I was one of them and um I think maybe not directly, but it is your work that is enabling enabling I don't I mean, yeah, I guess you could call you could file me under a white coder technically, even though the lines are blurred. But, yeah, a big reason why in many ways, right? Maybe not directly, but at least indirectly, the reason I was able

least indirectly, the reason I was able to do that was because of the incredible work that folks like you do. So, yeah, just wanted to share that with you and thank you for not just taking the time here today, but for also building the next part of the internet for AI and for AI agents and what lies in the future. So, thank you so so much. so much. That's so nice to hear from you. If you have any feedback, give it to me. I'm in Discord and thank you so much for inviting me. It's been a really nice chat. I didn't even feel like there was a camera here. Love it, dude. Amazing.