The role
From Temporal's own posting.
About the Role
Developers have a lot on their plates right now. Most are shipping faster than they were a few years ago and learning AI tools on top of their regular work, while nearly every developer tool company is trying to get a bit of their time. On top of that, many developers have never heard that the problem Temporal solves can be solved at all.
Your role is to build and lead our Developer Advocacy team in North America, focused on how developers first learn about Temporal and inspire them to take their first steps. Part of that is figuring out which videos engineers actually finish watching, what gets someone to a meetup after a long day, and which open source communities and partners we should be working with.
You will manage a team of senior advocates and still do plenty of the work yourself, whether that’s giving a talk, writing code, or showing up at a meetup. You will have a real voice in which events, communities, and programs the team focuses on, and a direct line to Product and Engineering when developers tell you something isn’t working. Our preference is for a candidate based in the Bay Area, as it remains the central hub of industry activity, and we want our leader actively immersed in that ecosystem to bring back key insights. If working remotely, frequent travel to the Bay Area will be expected.
Location: San Francisco Bay Area or US Remote with willingness to frequently travel to the Bay Area.
What You’ll Do
Manage, coach, and develop a team of Developer Advocates, setting explicit goals and expectations and giving honest feedback.
Co-develop talks, review demos, pair on content, and help each advocate find their stage and voice.
Build the team’s operating cadence (planning, event coverage, content pipelines, quality bar) so the work is focused rather than reactive.
Set the strategy for how Temporal earns awareness and consideration among developers in North America. Favor other people’s channels (community meetups, partner events, conferences, OSS projects) over our own.
Grow Temporal’s online developer audience by investing in content people actually watch and share, and by making the call on which formats and channels deserve the team’s time.
Build a plan for Temporal’s in-person presence across North America that maintains a balance of our own events with partnerships, so we show up consistently in the communities that matter most to our growth.
Develop and deliver use-case narratives, demos, and practical experiences that show the practical capabilities of durable execution. Determine clear success metrics for each program, including attendee engagement rates, knowledge retention outcomes, and measurable increases in developers’ adoption and usage.
Know which tools, frameworks, and communities developers are pairing with Temporal, and figure out which partnerships would get us in front of developers we’re not reaching yet.
Build relationships with partner DevRel teams and community leaders, and co-create programs, content, and events that reach developers we couldn’t reach alone.
Partner closely with Product, Engineering, Marketing, and Sales to align messaging, campaigns, and technical narratives aligned with company priorities.
Define and report on metrics that tie advocacy to adoption and product impact, not just activity.
What You Bring
You’ve been a working software engineer and owned production systems, including being on call when they broke.
Senior-level developer advocacy experience, as a Principal or Senior Staff IC or as a manager, with real credibility in technical communities.
People management experience, or principal-level leadership (mentoring advocates or engineers, leading programs across a team) and a clear desire to make management your path.
You’ve made technical content people actually watch or read, whether that’s a YouTube channel, a popular talk, or a blog developers share.
A gift for teaching: you are able to make complex distributed systems concepts click on stage, in a workshop, or one-on-one.
You’ve built programs that needed buy-in from teams you didn’t manage, and you know how to get it.
Willingness to travel ~30–40% to support events, community, and team activities; Bay Area presence is a strong plus.
Nice to Have
You’ve been active in open source, whether as a maintainer, regular contributor, or someone who helped run the community.
You’ve worked on distributed systems or workflow orchestration. Experience with Temporal is a big plus.
You’ve built workshops or training programs for developers, or run a large event calendar.
You’ve worked with Product Marketing to shape how a technical product is positioned and talked about.
Deep, active connections in the Bay Area developer community, and an intuitive understanding of the wider developer ecosystem and how its platforms and communities fit together.
Temporal Technologies is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Temporal Technologies does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, non-disqualifying physical or mental disability, national origin, veteran status, or any other basis covered by appropriate law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, merit, and business need. We embrace and celebrate differences and diversity.
Temporal is committed to providing access, equal opportunity, and reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities in employment, its services, programs, and activities. If you need to request a reasonable accommodation, please let your Recruiter know so we can assist.