Developer Relations Lead

Building data and AI-driven software and agents is still way too hard, even for advanced developers. At Spice AI, we’re helping developers combine code with data and machine learning (ML) to create truly intelligent, decision-making applications. Spice AI is on a mission to make this as easy as creating a modern web page.

Spice AI is the creator and primary maintainer of Spice.ai OSS; a unified SQL query interface and portable runtime to locally materialize, accelerate, and query data sourced from any database, data warehouse, or data lake. Spice OSS enables developers to build data-driven AI applications and agents by co-locating data with ML models to enable the AI-Feedback-Loop (AI-Fly-Wheel). Read more about the vision to enable the development of intelligent AI-driven applications.

For a deeper look, watch Luke's CMU Databases talk on Spice.ai OSS at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyM-ec1lKfU and read his Materialized View interview at https://materializedview.io/p/building-a-cdn-for-databases-spice-ai.

Spice AI is also building the Spice.ai Cloud Platform; building blocks for data and AI-driven applications, including managed, cloud-scale Spice.ai OSS. The Cloud Platform enables developers to compose high-performance SQL query, machine learning training and inferencing, in a single, interconnected AI backend-as-a-service.

Spice AI hires for MEI: Merit, Excellence, and Intelligence.

The Developer Relations Lead at Spice AI will be a key technical advocate for Spice.ai OSS and the Spice.ai data and AI platform. You will enjoy being one of the public technical faces of Spice AI, responsible for leading and executing developer relations and product marketing.

As the first DevRel hire, you will be creating and sharing meaningful content, like for our cloud-scale DuckDB product, Firecache including samples and tutorials, documentation, or even core pull-requests when required. You'll directly engage with developers through social media, blogs, and at events, providing insights and support, and collecting feedback that you'll use to directly influence what we build. Your work will directly contribute to building a supportive and collaborative developer community around Spice AI and technologies we use like Apache Arrow, DataFusion, Iceberg, and DuckDB. 

You've done this before. Your participation in relevant projects will have previously earned you the respect of open-source and engineering communities. You have published excellent written content, marketing materials, and documentation.

Along with oustanding communication, marketing, and written skills, this role requires a solid technical background, especially in data and ML, and a genuine passion for helping other developers succeed.

You new opportunity

• Be one of the technical faces of Spice AI.
• Work side-by-side with the CEO to develop, lead, and execute on all areas of Spice AI's DevRel and Developer Marketing strategy.
• Build and grow an engaged technical community with industry-leading technical content including documentation, blogs, and thought leadership articles.
• Develop and maintain sample applications and demos to showcase Spice AI capabilities.
• Participate actively in developer forums, events, and conferences.
• Own Spice AI's open-source blog and documentation.

This role may be a great fit if

• You are a proven, hands-on technical thought leader.
• You have and enjoy building a developer audience in open-source and social communities.
• You enjoy the process of writing and crafting high-quality written content.
• You are a creative problem solver and approach solutions from different angles, focusing on possibility, rather than limitations.
• When faced with ambiguity, you are a guiding north star and provide clarity to the team.
• You are passionate about high performance and have high standards.

This experience is ideal

• 4-6 years of proven experience in developer relations, advocacy, product marketing, or a similar role.
• A track record of excellent marketing and communication decisions.
• Excellent communication and writing skills, comfortable with deep technical writing and conference presentations, with a talent for distilling complex technical concepts into clear, accessible language.
• Experience managing social media platforms and creating engaging digital content.
• Leadership skills with the ability to inspire and grow a technical community.
• Experience in startups, open-source projects, AI/ML, data platforms, and distributed systems.

Your first 90-days

• Days 0-30: Learn and use Spice.ai OSS and the Spice.ai data and AI platform, building at least one end-to-end demo and contributing written pieces to newsletters, blog.spice.ai, blog.spiceai.org, and X/LinkedIn.
• Days 31-60: Work with the CEO to develop Spice AI's DevRel and Product Marketing strategy for 2024.
• Days 61-90: Take ownership of the execution and success of DevRel, Developer Marketing, and associated assets and channels.

This is a hands-on role. Expect to join the all team, including the CEO, in building, developing, and marketing the platform.

About Spice AI

Founded in June 2021 by Microsoft and GitHub alumni Luke Kim and Phillip LeBlanc, Spice AI creates technology to help developers build intelligent apps that learn and adapt.

Before co-founding Spice AI, Luke was the co-creator of Azure Incubations in the Office of the Azure CTO, where he led cross-functional engineering teams to create and develop technologies like Dapr and OAM.

Spice AI is backed by some of the top industry angel investors and leaders, including Nat Friedman, Chairman of GitHub, Mark Russinovich, CTO of Microsoft Azure, and Thomas Dohmke, CEO of GitHub.

Spice AI also has notable VC backing from Madrona Venture Group, Basis Set Ventures, Founders' Co-op, and Picus Capital.

Learn more:

- On TechCrunch and GeekWire

- About the team at spice.ai/careers

- The Spice.ai general availability announcement blog post

- The Spice.ai OSS project announcement blog post