Goodbye, forever, probably
Goodbye, forever, probably
Goodbye, forever, probably. Career 2 Jul 2026 13 min read
再见，永远，大概如此。职业生涯，2026年7月2日，阅读时长13分钟。
Why I’m leaving developer relations, and why I’m not telling you what’s next. 为什么我要离开开发者关系（DevRel）领域，以及为什么我不会告诉你我下一步要做什么。
In December 2025 I wrote about my retirement from live streaming, which was once a valuable and very enjoyable part of my career in developer relations (DevRel). Since closing that chapter I have redesigned my website, launched a new side project, released some new music, and made a lot of space to reflect on the last five and a half years I’ve spent in DevRel and ultimately, my place in the technology industry. 2025年12月，我写过关于退出直播的文章，那曾是我在开发者关系（DevRel）职业生涯中一段宝贵且非常愉快的经历。自那以后，我重新设计了个人网站，启动了一个新的副业项目，发布了一些新音乐，并留出了大量空间来反思我在DevRel度过的五年半时光，以及最终，我在科技行业中的位置。
On birds, nature, and being carefree 关于鸟类、自然与无忧无虑
I recently spruced up my garden with a bird-feeding station and it has been an absolute joy to sit and watch nature at every opportunity. As I observe the wood pigeons, collared doves, gold crests, house sparrows, robins and a family of squirrels coexist peacefully and peck the seeds and munch on the nuts (even if the squirrels do often steal the bird food) I become painfully aware of how I’ve lived so much of my life on The Internet in the last six years. I also reflect on how much has changed in the technology industry throughout that time, how much negativity and weird stuff I am forced to consume every day as a result, and how much I yearn to be as carefree and alive as the nature that I love so much to sit and witness. 最近我把花园翻新了一下，装了一个喂鸟站，能随时坐下来观察大自然真是一件乐事。当我看着斑鸠、灰斑鸠、戴菊、麻雀、知更鸟和一家松鼠和平共处，啄食种子和坚果（尽管松鼠经常偷吃鸟食）时，我痛苦地意识到，过去六年里我竟有如此多的人生是活在互联网上的。我也反思了这段时间科技行业发生了多大的变化，因此我每天被迫摄入多少负面和怪异的信息，以及我多么渴望能像我如此热爱并观察的自然界那样，无忧无虑且充满活力。
Before working in DevRel I was a tech lead for a small creative agency in Manchester, UK. At the time I was frustrated with how much of my time was taken up with meetings, presentations, sprint and stakeholder management, and how little time I had to dedicate to building and working on my craft as a front-end developer. As a self-taught engineer who worked incredibly hard to pivot from teaching music to a successful tech career, I moved to DevRel in 2021, which promised to give me the time and space to continue to hone my craft. At the time, this small niche of the tech industry offered me the opportunity to explore, learn and build through teaching. I couldn’t believe what a perfect combination of my skills this type of job was at the time. It felt too good to be true, honestly. 在从事DevRel之前，我是英国曼彻斯特一家小型创意代理公司的技术主管。当时，我对自己有多少时间被会议、演示、冲刺（Sprint）和利益相关者管理所占据感到沮丧，而我能投入到前端开发工作中去打磨技艺的时间却少得可怜。作为一名自学成才的工程师，我极其努力地从音乐教学转型到成功的科技职业生涯，并在2021年转向了DevRel，因为它承诺给我时间和空间来继续磨练我的技艺。当时，这个科技行业的小众领域为我提供了通过教学来探索、学习和构建的机会。我简直不敢相信这种工作竟然是我技能的完美结合。老实说，这感觉好得令人难以置信。
The good parts of DevRel DevRel 的美好之处
The good parts of DevRel are really good. Throughout the years I’ve had the privilege of helping many people succeed through my teaching, mentoring and support, and at the same time, I’ve been able to build some fun projects and learn about The Web along the way. I even picked up some half-decent video editing skills. Through the opportunity to travel and speak at conferences, I’ve made some truly wonderful friends scattered around the world, who all come from different backgrounds and cultures, brought together through their shared love and passion for technology (or at least, what it used to be). As I reflect on the last five and a half years, I’ve found myself at the heart of a thriving network of technologists who all have each other’s back. And I will be eternally grateful for that. Unfortunately, for me, the difficult parts have outweighed the good. DevRel 的美好之处确实非常美好。这些年来，我有幸通过教学、指导和支持帮助许多人取得了成功，同时，我也能够构建一些有趣的项目，并在此过程中学习关于 Web 的知识。我甚至还掌握了一些还算不错的视频剪辑技巧。通过参加会议和演讲的机会，我结识了世界各地真正出色的朋友，他们来自不同的背景和文化，因对技术（或者至少是技术曾经的样子）共同的热爱和激情而聚在一起。回顾过去的五年半，我发现自己置身于一个蓬勃发展的技术人员网络的核心，大家互为后盾。对此，我将永远心存感激。不幸的是，对我而言，困难的部分已经超过了美好之处。
The difficult parts of DevRel DevRel 的困难之处
The approaches to effective DevRel can vary wildly depending on the individuals that make up a team and the company itself, but ultimately, the primary goal of a DevRel team is to inspire and educate a community to encourage product adoption, and to help users achieve meaningful outcomes with that product in as short a time as possible. Unfortunately, the nuances within this clear remit are often at odds with what business leaders require in terms of being able to measure success. 实现有效 DevRel 的方法因团队成员和公司本身的不同而大相径庭，但归根结底，DevRel 团队的主要目标是激励和教育社区以促进产品采用，并帮助用户在尽可能短的时间内利用该产品实现有意义的成果。不幸的是，这一明确职责中的细微差别往往与商业领袖对“衡量成功”的需求相冲突。
Arbitrary measures of success 武断的成功衡量标准
Developer education in the community is a long game. Product adoption by the right audience takes time, patience, and an experimental approach. But very often, this does not satisfy those in leadership positions, as they want to see measurable success in the short-term. I get it, I really do. However, it is notoriously difficult to measure the short-term impact and success of DevRel unless you use somewhat arbitrary metrics. These could be sign-ups (that might not end up being activated), blog post views or video stats in order just to have something to measure and report on. The issue with this is that you can measure anything, and you’ll naturally optimise for making that line go up, regardless of whether it’s the right approach for the product or the customers or the team. For example, you could write a click-bait blog post and reach the front page of Hacker News. You could make a silly YouTube short that gets 15k views. Congrats, you demonstrated success! But it’s most likely the “wrong” success, as those little Internet escapades most probably won’t convert to impactful product adoption and paying customers. What’s more, all of this distracts and diverts the efforts of DevRel teams from real impactful work that shows meaningful results in the long term. 社区中的开发者教育是一场持久战。让合适的目标受众采用产品需要时间、耐心和实验性的方法。但通常情况下，这并不能满足领导层，因为他们希望看到短期的、可衡量的成功。我明白，我真的明白。然而，除非使用一些武断的指标，否则衡量 DevRel 的短期影响和成功是出了名的困难。这些指标可能是注册量（可能最终并未激活）、博客阅读量或视频统计数据，仅仅是为了有东西可以衡量和汇报。问题在于，你可以衡量任何东西，并且会自然而然地优化以让那条线向上增长，而不考虑这是否对产品、客户或团队是正确的方法。例如，你可以写一篇标题党博客文章并登上 Hacker News 的首页。你可以制作一个获得 1.5 万次观看的愚蠢 YouTube 短片。恭喜，你证明了成功！但这很可能是“错误的”成功，因为这些小小的互联网闹剧很可能无法转化为有影响力的产品采用和付费客户。更重要的是，所有这些都会分散 DevRel 团队的精力，使他们偏离那些在长期内能产生有意义结果的、真正有影响力的工作。
Like many others in the industry, I have tried to find ways to show how DevRel and education is more than content creation, arbitrary metrics and making the line go up. But my detailed article Defining Paths to Business Value in Developer Relations, in retrospect, feels like a bit of a cry for help in trying to justify the profession to people who have already decided that regardless, they need those meaningless results in the short term in order to appease the shareholders. 像行业中的许多其他人一样，我曾试图寻找方法来展示 DevRel 和教育不仅仅是内容创作、武断的指标和让数据线向上增长。但回过头来看，我那篇详细的文章《定义开发者关系中的商业价值路径》，感觉就像是一种求救信号，试图向那些已经决定无论如何都需要短期内那些毫无意义的结果来安抚股东的人证明这个职业的合理性。
Fighting to be valued and justify my existence 为被重视和证明我的存在而战
Given DevRel is a long game, with the only way to measure short-term successes through entirely arbitrary metrics, businesses who are struggling to grow in this reckless economy often find financial investment into DevRel very difficult to justify. Even as this niche of the tech industry was seemingly thriving in the digital post-pandemic pre-AI era of 2021-2023, my day-to-day work was always accompanied by an ominous, low-level, yet all-encompassing feeling of anxiety centred on the premise that if I cannot demonstrate short-term financial success for the company, then I could lose my job at a moment’s notice and be without a way to su… 鉴于 DevRel 是一场持久战，而衡量短期成功的唯一途径是通过完全武断的指标，那些在当前鲁莽的经济环境下挣扎求存的企业往往发现很难证明对 DevRel 的财务投资是合理的。即使在 2021-2023 年疫情后、AI 爆发前的数字时代，这个科技行业的小众领域看似繁荣，但我的日常工作始终伴随着一种不祥的、低水平却无处不在的焦虑感，其核心前提是：如果我不能为公司证明短期的财务成功，那么我随时可能丢掉工作，并且无法……