Head of Developer Relations

Buildkite; San Francisco (CA); Remote; USD 220,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Remote work flexibility

Paid parental leave

Mental health support

Learning budget

Job summary

Buildkite in San Francisco is seeking a Staff DevRel to own the interface between engineering reality and developers evaluating it. You’ll teach, demo, and debug in public, while gathering signal to inform product, support, and marketing.

You’ll lead education-to-advocacy pipelines, build durable learning assets, and partner with product teams to improve docs, docs, and UX across CI/CD workflows. Remote-friendly and enterprise-ready.

Qualifications

• You've shipped and operated real systems and can hold your own in CI/CD conversations.
• You have proven DevRel experience with evidence of impact.
• You communicate technical concepts with clarity, and can recover when a live demo breaks.
• You protect credibility relentlessly and know what erodes trust.
• You build reusable assets and repeatable systems, not one-off content.
• You document what you learn so the org compounds.

Responsibilities

• Own campaign execution across priority pillars, from concept through launch and iteration.
• Build programs that layer credibility, clarity, and conversion for both developers and buyers.
• Teach CI concepts and Buildkite workflows in formats engineers respect, backed by real technical depth.
• Design learning paths — onboarding guides, implementation walkthroughs — that cut time-to-first-value.
• Partner with Product and Support to turn recurring confusion into better docs, defaults, and UX.
• Co-create dev-grade technical assets with Content Engineering and Content Writing that survive scrutiny.
• Share technical war stories with customers, partners, and OSS communities.
• Collect and categorize what developers are asking, objecting to, and struggling with, and route it to the right owners.
• Close the loop by making sure signal turns into shipped fixes.
• Identify and nurture champions — power users, repeat contributors, future speakers.
• Partner with Dev Events to turn field moments into lasting community relationships.

Job description

Buildkite's CI platform is trusted by the world's leading engineering teams, helping ship software used by more than 1 billion people every day. Companies including Canva, Meta, Mistral AI, and NVIDIA rely on Buildkite to run builds, tests, and deployments on their infrastructure, ours, or both - giving them the speed, reliability, and flexibility to ship with confidence.

About the Role

This is a Staff DevRel role: you'll own the human interface between Buildkite's engineering reality and the developers evaluating, adopting, and championing it. You'll teach, demo, and debug in public, while running signal capture that feeds Product, Support, and Marketing the truth about what's confusing, what's missing, and what to ship next.

You'll operate with full ownership of the education-to-advocacy pipeline (from concept, to shipped artifact, to champion, inside a small) high-trust team where credibility comes from technical depth.

What You'll Do

• Own campaign execution across priority pillars, from concept through launch and iteration
• Build programs that layer credibility, clarity, and conversion for both developers and buyers

Be the technical advocate developers trust

• Teach CI concepts and Buildkite workflows in formats engineers respect, backed by real technical depth
• Design learning paths — onboarding guides, implementation walkthroughs — that cut time-to-first-value
• Partner with Product and Support to turn recurring confusion into better docs, defaults, and UX

Turn proof into public artifacts

• Co-create dev-grade technical assets with Content Engineering and Content Writing that survive scrutiny
• Share technical war stories with customers, partners, and OSS communities

Run signal capture for the org

• Collect and categorize what developers are asking, objecting to, and struggling with, and route it to the right owners
• Close the loop by making sure signal turns into shipped fixes

Build durable advocacy

• Identify and nurture champions — power users, repeat contributors, future speakers
• Partner with Dev Events to turn field moments into lasting community relationships

This Is You If...

• You've shipped and operated real systems and can hold your own in CI/CD conversations
• You have proven DevRel experience with evidence of impact
• You communicate technical concepts with clarity, and can recover when a live demo breaks
• You protect credibility relentlessly and know what erodes trust
• You build reusable assets and repeatable systems, not one-off content
• You document what you learn so the org compounds

Bonus Points If...

• You have deep CI/CD or DevOps experience
• You have OSS contributions or public technical proof
• You've supported enterprise evaluation and migration motions
• You've collaborated on events programming
• You're comfortable building agentic tooling or workflow automation for DevRel systems
• Work from anywhere in the world for up to 6 weeks a year, on top of a fully remote setup — great work doesn’t have to happen from one desk.
• 20 days paid annual leave plus 10 days sick & carer's leave — actively encouraged, we want you to be at your best and time off is a part of that.
• 16 weeks paid parental leave for primary carers (6 for secondary) — becoming a parent is life changing and we’re committed to supporting you and your family through it.
• A remote-work allowance for home-office kit, co-working, or working elsewhere — we want you to have everything you need to be set up for success in your role.
• Confidential EAP & mental health support — sometimes life gets hard. You should be able to access the resources and support you need.
• Support for learning and growth — with time and budget for conferences, courses, and coaching so you have the opportunity to grow, improve your craft, and build mastery.
• Retirement and health coverage (based on your region) — build towards your future, your way.

Exact benefits may vary slightly by country. We'll walk through the specifics for your location.

Compensation

The base salary range for this role is $220,000–$240,000 USD. Compensation is determined based on geographic location, relevant experience, and qualifications.

Equal Opportunity Employer

At Buildkite, we value diversity and celebrate all types of skills, backgrounds, and experiences. We’re dedicated to fostering an inclusive environment and providing reasonable accommodations throughout our recruitment process.

If you need any accommodations or support during the application or interview process, please reach out to us at [e-mail].