DevRel Metrics Language
5 exercises — Master DevRel metrics vocabulary: community health measurements, developer funnel stages, ROI framing, vanity vs. meaningful metrics, and presenting conference impact to leadership.
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A DevRel manager tells the VP of Engineering: "Our developer community is healthy." The VP asks: "How do you measure that?" What metrics best answer the question?
Community health metrics measure self-sustaining activity, not audience size or DevRel output volume.
Why follower counts and event attendance fail:
• A large community where no one helps each other is not a healthy community — it's an audience
• Event attendance measures DevRel activity, not community vitality
• Satisfaction scores tell you sentiment, not whether the community is self-sustaining
The three metrics that signal community health:
1. Monthly active contributors (MAC) — people taking action: code commits, doc edits, forum answers, not just lurking
2. Time-to-first-response (TTFR) — how quickly questions get answered; a declining TTFR means community members are helping before staff do
3. Community answer ratio — what % of questions are answered by community vs. DevRel team; a high ratio means the community is self-sustaining
The progression: audience → community → self-sustaining ecosystem
Key vocabulary:
• Monthly active contributors (MAC) — community members who take a contributing action each month
• Time-to-first-response (TTFR) — the average time between a question being posted and receiving a response
• Community answer ratio — the fraction of questions answered by non-staff community members
• Community health metrics — measurements that assess whether a community is active, self-sustaining, and growing
• Lurker-to-contributor ratio — the ratio of passive community members to active participants
Why follower counts and event attendance fail:
• A large community where no one helps each other is not a healthy community — it's an audience
• Event attendance measures DevRel activity, not community vitality
• Satisfaction scores tell you sentiment, not whether the community is self-sustaining
The three metrics that signal community health:
1. Monthly active contributors (MAC) — people taking action: code commits, doc edits, forum answers, not just lurking
2. Time-to-first-response (TTFR) — how quickly questions get answered; a declining TTFR means community members are helping before staff do
3. Community answer ratio — what % of questions are answered by community vs. DevRel team; a high ratio means the community is self-sustaining
The progression: audience → community → self-sustaining ecosystem
Key vocabulary:
• Monthly active contributors (MAC) — community members who take a contributing action each month
• Time-to-first-response (TTFR) — the average time between a question being posted and receiving a response
• Community answer ratio — the fraction of questions answered by non-staff community members
• Community health metrics — measurements that assess whether a community is active, self-sustaining, and growing
• Lurker-to-contributor ratio — the ratio of passive community members to active participants