Apps are essential to turn Android into a platform that people love – whether it’s on their phones, cars, TVs or watches. As a popular mobile platform, Android is thriving with 1 in 4 developers – worldwide – building for Android by Stack Overflow 2020 Developer Survey.
At Android Developer Relations (or Android DevRel for short), our mission is to help developers succeed on Android by helping them build great apps with the latest Android and Play features, empower everyone to have a great career as an Android developer, and encourage To Develops as Android and Play evolve. It’s really rewarding because we get to see the future of apps – every day – and help our other developers achieve great things. With such a big mission, we are recruiting engineers, technical writers and program managers – and if that inspires you, we’d love to talk! Check out the links at the end of this blog and apply to join our team.
But first, what exactly does Android DevRel do? Our team works with external developers, writes code, creates content, launches careers, increases communities, conducts conferences – and more. Read on to learn more!
We work with product and engineering teams on Android and Play to define market-leading strategies for new developer products and run Early Access Programs (EAPs) with the goal of building better products for all developers. Through these EAPs, we do in-depth technical engineering work with the most influential developers to help them integrate and provide feedback to verify that the products we build are ready for scale work.
We work with these developers to build high quality apps across multiple screens, to ensure better user experiences on Android and we share their success stories to show how integrating with these products will help developers be more successful in the Android ecosystem, and to inspire other developers to adopt.
A big part of the way we help developers is through code – whether it’s tutorials, videos, blogs or whole multi-unit educational courses. We produce everything from simple code snippets that explain how to perform a particular function, to sample applications Like a jet * Or e Google I / O app Which demonstrates how everything connects. In the process of creating sample code, you may be the first developer to ever build something with a new API! We call this being the “zero customer” and this is an important role where you can directly influence the direction of the product through feedback (and yes, some trial and error!)
With the help of developers, we end up learning best practices and producing lots of content – documentation, tutorials, screenshots, conversations, blog posts, podcasts and more. There is an art in breaking down complex topics into a learning path – helping both beginner and advanced developers – and that is something we do every day. From introducing new concepts, refining best practices to thoroughly documenting the functionality of a new API – our job is to help developers understand and evolve on Android. While our output is the content itself, it is important to note that engineering is at the heart of it. In order to teach developers how to use these technologies, we must first understand them in depth ourselves.
Many of us were Android developers before joining DevRel, and one of the happiest aspects of our role is meeting and connecting with developers around the world. We communicate with Google’s developer experts for Android (GDEs), Google Developer Groups, and of course individual community members on a regular basis through events, social media and Slack. We love hearing about what people are working on, reaching out where we can and making connections across the community so people can learn from each other.
One of the places where the community gathers is at conferences – and Android has a lot of these! Although you can gather skill or learn about the latest software design pattern, people always say that the most expensive thing they get from pants is a connection with other developers. Meeting people in person (Side note: Can’t wait until we can do it again!) Is such an important part of building a network of people you can count on to help you – whether you’re stuck in your next project or looking for career counseling . While many of these conferences are run by the community itself, we attend these events around the world and look forward to engaging with this community wherever they are. We also organize the Android Developer Summit and the Android track in Google I / O.
Apps connect you to the people in your life, help you do things more easily, or even help you learn new skills. During the plague, many of us had to find new ways to do things, and this caused us to reach apps more often than ever, while increasing the demand for app developers. In fact, developer jobs are growing 5.5 times faster than other professions (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). At Android DevRel, it’s our privilege to build syllabus And work with universities and student groups around the world to train the next generation of developers.