Head of Developer Relations

This is Adyen

Adyen provides payments, data, and financial products in a single solution for customers like Meta, Uber, H&M, and Microsoft - making us the financial technology platform of choice. At Adyen, everything we do is engineered for ambition.

For our teams, we create an environment with opportunities for our people to succeed, backed by the culture and support to ensure they are enabled to truly own their careers. We are motivated individuals who tackle unique technical challenges at scale and solve them as a team. Together, we deliver innovative and ethical solutions that help businesses achieve their ambitions faster.

Head of Developer Relations

We’re looking for a Head of Developer Relations to help shape and scale an industry-leading developer experience for Adyen’s customers and partners. This is a strategic, product-focused role within our Developer Experience (DevX) group. Your influence will stretch from internal engineering teams to the external developers building on our platform every day.

In this role, you’ll play a key part in co-leading Adyen’s global Developer Experience strategy by partnering deeply with engineers, product teams, and external developers to drive meaningful improvements to our platform. Your goal is to ensure that developers have a seamless, powerful experience building on Adyen – and that their voice directly influences our roadmap.

You’ll champion a content strategy and turn friction logs into product opportunities, ensuring developers’ feedback is heard, understood, and acted upon. At the same time, you’ll help grow and lead a team of developer advocates who empower developers and guide them toward long-term success with Adyen. The focus is on driving real product impact through technical insight, empathy for developers, and strong internal alignment.

What You’ll Do

Build an industry-leading developer experience

• Champion the end-to-end developer journey across Adyen’s APIs, SDKs, documentation, and tooling - with a relentless focus on removing friction and increasing adoption.

• Design and scale structured feedback loops with developers (customers, partners, and the broader ecosystem) to identify pain points and surface actionable insights.

Co-lead Adyen’s Developer Experience strategy and execution

• Collaborate with engineers, product designers, and product managers to prioritize and shape features based on real developer needs. Identify and address friction, inconsistencies, and gaps across the developer experience - from onboarding to ongoing usage.

• Co-develop go-to-market strategies for new developer-facing tools and capabilities. Oversee our developer experience content strategy and the creation of high-quality content like tutorials, blog posts, and videos in close collaboration with product, engineering, and marketing.

Be a trusted technical counterpart to customers and partners

• Build trusted relationships with high-impact developers in our customer and partner ecosystem.

• Run early adopter programs, conduct listening tours, leverage friction logs and engage in strategic technical conversations that shape how we build.

Lead our community engagement efforts

• Represent Adyen authentically in developer communities through blogs, meetups, open discussions, and conferences. Foster relationships with key influencers and community leaders in the developer space.

• Focus on building meaningful relationships with the community rather than just brand visibility - but collaborating with marketing where useful.

Lead and scale the developer advocacy function

• Grow and manage a high-performing team of developer advocates. Set direction, mentor team members, and ensure alignment with the broader DevX strategy.

• Foster a culture of curiosity, empathy, and technical excellence - always rooted in driving product value.

Who You Are

• You have deep empathy for developers and a strong technical foundation - you’ve built or supported APIs, SDKs, dev tools, integrations, or products meant to improve developer experience.

• You’re a strong communicator, able to translate technical feedback into product opportunities - and vice versa. You are comfortable representing Adyen in front of internal and external technical audiences, including senior product and engineering leaders at customer organizations.

• You have a strategic mindset, closely follow industry trends and like to try getting hands-on experience with new technology.

• You’ve worked closely with product and engineering teams and know how to advocate for user needs in a way that drives meaningful product improvement. You thrive in cross-functional environments - partnering across engineering, product, implementation, and commercial teams.

• You have experience in community engagement, but you care most about influencing the product. You understand how community and product advocacy can reinforce one another when done right.

What You Need to Succeed

• Track Record: 8+ years of experience in developer advocacy, developer relations, or a related technical role, ideally in fintech or big tech.

• Leadership: 5+ years of experience leading teams.

• Technical Skills: Deep understanding of APIs, SDKs, and developer tools. As well as expertise in one or two major programming languages.

• Strategic Thinking: Strong ability to design and execute plans that drive developer adoption and engagement. Fast learner with a passion for technology and a launch-fast-iterate mindset.

• Communication Skills: Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to clearly explain complex technical topics. Confident public speaker and experienced presenter in both technical and business contexts. Full professional proficiency in English.

• Product Collaboration: Proven experience working closely with product and engineering to influence roadmaps and deliver improvements.

• Team-first Approach: Collaborative, low-ego leader who prioritizes the growth and success of the team.

• Global Outlook: International experience is preferred.

Other Job Details

• We have a hybrid workplace and value in-person collaboration; this is not a remote-only role.

• Some domestic and international travel is required (mostly US and Europe).

The annual base salary range for this role is $180,000 - $267,000, plus RSUs; to learn more about our compensation philosophy, please click here. This position is based out of the Chicago office.

Our Diversity, Equity and Inclusion commitments

Our unique approach is a product of our diverse perspectives. This diversity of backgrounds and cultures is essential in helping us maintain our momentum. Our business and technical challenges are unique, and we need as many different voices as possible to join us in solving them - voices like yours. No matter who you are or where you’re from, we welcome you to be your true self at Adyen.

Studies show that women and members of underrepresented communities apply for jobs only if they meet 100% of the qualifications. Does this sound like you? If so, Adyen encourages you to reconsider and apply. We look forward to your application!

What’s next?

Ensuring a smooth and enjoyable candidate experience is critical for us. We aim to get back to you regarding your application within 5 business days. Our interview process tends to take about 4 weeks to complete, but may fluctuate depending on the role. Learn more about our hiring process here. Don’t be afraid to let us know if you need more flexibility.

Adyen is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based on race, color, ethnicity, ancestry, national origin, religion, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, disability, veteran status, genetic information, marital status or any legally protected status.

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.