Developer Relations Manager (AI & Realtime Infrastructure)

About Ably

Ably is at the heart of the real-time revolution, powering billions of messages daily for millions of devices for organizations like Harness, EA, Panasonic, and HubSpot. We provide the essential infrastructure for building, extending, and delivering powerful digital experiences in real-time, enabling the next generation of applications from live chat during events to collaborative online environments.

About This Role

In today's landscape, developers begin product evaluations not just through traditional search, but increasingly via AI assistants like Claude, ChatGPT, and Perplexity. This role is designed to meet developers where they are, establishing Ably's presence, trust, and credibility within developer spaces before a signup occurs. Reporting to the Marketing team and collaborating closely with Developer Experience and Product teams, your mission is to make Ably's AI Transport genuinely known and respected among developers evaluating real-time infrastructure. This involves technical education that builds trust, a strong presence in relevant communities, content that gains organic traction, and ensuring Ably is accurately represented when developers query AI assistants for recommendations.

This role is complementary to the Developer Growth Manager, who focuses on the journey from sign-up through activation. Your focus is upstream: cultivating the content, community, and credibility that attracts developers. This is an AI-forward position where you will build content optimized for LLM ingestion, create reference implementations for AI coding assistants, and leverage AI to accelerate research, writing, and experimentation. We value individuals with established personal brands and credible voices in the developer community, aiming to foster a company culture where technical opinions originate from multiple authentic voices.

Day-to-Day Responsibilities

• Own Technical Education: Develop and write quickstarts and guides that teach developers how to solve real AI problems using Ably, focusing on practical application and honesty about failure modes for senior engineers evaluating production use.
• Community Presence: Establish and maintain a credible presence in key developer communities, contributing genuine knowledge, engaging in technical debates, and building relationships. Facilitate and encourage participation from Ably's engineers and product teams to ensure multiple authentic voices represent Ably.
• Feed Developer Intelligence: Aggregate and share insights from developer interactions in communities, at events, and through content regarding surfacing problems, framework pain points, common objections, and Ably's presence in relevant conversations. This intelligence will inform DevEx, Product, AI Transport engineering, sales, and marketing.
• Contribute to Documentation: Collaborate with DevEx and AI Transport engineering to ensure technical content is LLM-parseable, accurate, and structured for practical use. Identify and advocate for the resolution of gaps surfaced by AI coding assistants.

What Success Looks Like

• Ably is accurately and consistently featured in LLM responses for queries related to real-time infrastructure, AI streaming, or pub/sub.
• Ably is recognized and respected within developer communities addressing challenges in streaming, session continuity, and multi-agent coordination at scale (e.g., Temporal, Vercel AI SDK forums), with genuine engagement preceding evaluation.
• Technical content is shared organically by developers, driving measurable self-serve signups.
• AI coding assistants (Cursor, Copilot, Claude) correctly recommend and implement Ably for relevant problems.
• You possess a personal brand with a genuine, engaged developer audience.
• Specific, actionable developer feedback directly influences product and documentation decisions.

We’d Love to Talk If You Have

• A technical background with the ability to write code, read technical architectures, and engage in discussions with engineering teams.
• A proven track record of writing technical content that developers actively read and share, earning trust.
• Experience building or growing a healthy developer community.
• A deep understanding of how developers evaluate and adopt new tools, including the role of AI assistants in this process.
• A well-defined point of view on real-time infrastructure, AI development patterns, or developer experience.
• Familiarity with orchestration frameworks like Temporal and Vercel, enabling clear articulation of Ably's position relative to state management and orchestration.
• Experience using AI extensively in your workflow for research, writing, content structuring, and experimentation.
• Strong cross-functional instincts, comfortable working across marketing, product, and engineering.

Bonus Points If You Have

• Experience building AI products requiring streaming and session management.
• An existing, engaged developer audience (blog, newsletter, YouTube, social media).
• Experience structuring documentation or content for LLM ingestion.
• Familiarity with product analytics and activation funnels.
• Previous DevRel, developer marketing, or developer education experience at an infrastructure company.

Working at Ably

Ably offers a remote-first and flexible work environment. UK-based teams meet monthly in London, and the company gathers twice a year. You have the flexibility to work where you are most productive.

• Equity: EMI share options program for all team members.
• Enhanced Holiday Allowance: 28 days paid annual leave (including your birthday off).
• Enhanced Parental Leave: Comprehensive package for new parents.
• Home Workstation Budget: £500 on joining, £150 annually thereafter.
• Learning & Development: £1000 annual budget and 5% dedicated time for professional development.
• Private Healthcare: BUPA coverage.
• Medical Cash Plan: To cover various medical and dental costs.
• Mental Wellbeing: Coaching and counselling from Self Space.
• Wellbeing Budget: Monthly budget via Juno.
• Life Assurance & Income Protection: Comprehensive coverage.
• Tech & Cycle to Work Schemes: Access to these programs.
• Snack Allowance: For weekly "Need To Know" meetings.
• Sabbatical: Fully-paid one-month sabbatical after five years of service.

Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging at Ably

Ably champions diversity, inclusion, and belonging, believing that individual differences strengthen the team. We encourage applications from all backgrounds and welcome everyone to be their authentic selves. We are committed to ensuring everyone can contribute to our shared opportunity.