Creator Blog
Neill Gernon - 13/06/2025
Creators That Code
The Developer Support System We Forgot to Name
If you’ve ever felt like you sit between developer, educator, and community builder, this is about you.
I’ve long struggled to describe the people who quietly build the scaffolding developers use to learn and grow. From dev bloggers and YouTubers to podcasters or influencers, coding course creators, on the side meetup organizers, ad hoc conference speakers or part time DevRel contractors.
The roles are clear but the identity is not. Industry terms isolate each of these efforts into separate boxes, without a shared language or holistic view.
So here’s one: Creators That Code - people who create technical content, build developer communities, and help others learn, level up, and stay current. Their work is inherently educational and can overlap with product or SaaS building, where creators use their audience as distribution.
Creators Support the Entire Developer Journey
Creators That Code support developers at every step. From learning to code, to leveling up in their careers, to staying current with tools and trends. They’re educators, mentors, translators of complex trends, and trusted guides across the entire developer journey.
Having this defined term can give a legible reference to the entire industry, creating clarity and alignment for all creators, companies, and the broader ecosystem. Creators gain clarity on which content approaches to optimize for supporting their developer audience and how to align with a sustainable partner or pricing model.
This would also give developer focused brands a reference to think holistically about creator-led marketing strategies. It's a step in the right direction to encourage companies to not invite community contributions without truly investing or having a value proposition for the creators behind them.
Writers may fall outside the traditional “creator economy” definition, but in Devtools, they were the original creators. Blog posts, writing forums and docs have long been how developers share, teach, and influence.
From Creator Side Projects to Serious Careers
This is not a recent trend. The idea of sharing knowledge (content creation) and peer support (community building) living side by side is deeply ingrained in the characteristics of developer communities and developer culture. As a by-product of technology moving fast, content driven communities have long been a foundational need to support developers to learn, grow, and support one another.
A combination of open source culture, DevRel growth from the early days, devs transitioning to fulltime creator careers, the craziness of COVID and AI tools have helped establish the category.
While the open source movement moved away from its philosophical and moral origin, it reshaped the idea of freedom into something rooted in community. A model where individual empowerment doesn’t come from purity of ideology, but from shared resources, open collaboration, and collective progress. The focus shifted toward access, autonomy, and contribution, made possible through community, not control.
These principles didn’t just shape the software, they shaped the culture around it. Today, there’s a default expectation in developer communities: well-crafted educational content and peer-driven community support, often tailored to each developer niche
The birth of DevRel marked a turning point. A growing recognition of the value in partnering with external developer communities, not just marketing to them. Early Developer Relations teams understood something crucial: trust wasn’t earned through campaigns, but through community contributions and support. My earliest memory of this was watching Twilio launch in London in 2012, led by James Parton, who launched DevRel for EMEA. Sponsoring local meetups wasn’t just support, it was distribution, trust-building, and a gateway into tightly-knit word-of-mouth networks amplified via social media.
This model quietly redefined how companies built credibility with developers. It showed that when you support the people who support other developers, the organizers, writers, speakers, and community leaders don’t just gain awareness, they gain alignment. And over time, that’s what compounds into trust and brand loyalty.
Platforms like YouTube and later Udemy arrived, opening new paths to turn side projects into sustainable work. Whilst attempting to transition my career to software engineering in 2012, I stumbled across youtuber Brad Traversy. What began as a part-time contribution progressed into a full time career for Brad who became one of the main coding YouTubers and course creators on the internet. He quickly built a huge audience through consistent, high-quality education content for developers starting or progressing their careers.
Creators like Brad weren’t “influencers” in the traditional sense: they were educators, technical communicators, explainers and translators of the fast-moving tech and software development world. These creators quickly became part of the support infrastructure for how developers learn with peers, stay up to date with changes to frameworks and projects, and eventually choose tools.
Today, it's not unusual for a dev to learn a framework from a YouTuber, pick a tool because a course creator recommended it, or adopt best practices from a Twitter thread by an indie creator. The line between education, influence, and developer marketing has blurred — and Creators That Code now sit right in the middle of that intersection.
Changing of the Guard: New Creators, Advocates, and Coders
From 2021, several forces converged that accelerated the rise of Creators That Code.
The post-COVID online wave hadn’t subsided. Developers were online more than ever, launching side projects, building in public, and creating content. YouTube exploded with new technical creators. Blogs on Substack, Dev.to, and Hashnode multiplied. Reddit and Hacker News were constantly buzzing. It felt like there was always someone launching a new side project, getting torn apart in the comments, or sparking a heated debate. The developer internet got louder, denser, more opinionated, and more reliant on trusted curators to make sense of the noise.
Companies took notice. DevRel and developer marketing roles began favoring candidates with built-in reach, not just technical credibility, but distribution. One of the clearest examples was Steven Tey. He joined Vercel with a strong audience of React developers, grew it through quality tutorials and educational content on twitter, and eventually left to found dub.co: a SaaS company he’s built utilizing his content and audience. His content isn’t just education, it’s storytelling, distribution, and adoption in one.
The arrival of AI-native tools like Replit, Bolt, and Loveable lowered the barrier to building software powered tools. The vibe coder was born and brought in a wave of semi-technical builders who don’t always identify as “developers” but are now building real products and prototypes all the same. These AI-native tools blur the line between writing and prompting code, expanding the definition of coder and broadening the devtools surface area, welcoming a new wave of builders.
With more builders comes more tools, and with more tools emerges the increased need to learn. The Creator That Codes now supports traditional developers and this new generation of AI-assisted makers and builders. They translate, teach, and build trust across these technical categories, making creators essential infrastructure for an industry that’s becoming less gated by complexity and more driven by curiosity.
Building This Category Through Community
Creators That Code isn’t just a label, it’s a clear anchor statement that opens a door of opportunities. It’s a signal to creators that your hybrid work, part educator, part engineer, part community builder is not a nice to have, but an essential asset shaping how developers and the new coder world learns, adopts, and grows.
Without a name, this group stays misunderstood, under-utilized, and siloed into mismatched roles. With one, we open the door to more support, more sustainable careers, and a more connected developer ecosystem.
If you’ve been creating content, teaching devs, or building community, you’re not on the fringe. You’re the infrastructure. And now we have a name for it.
We've built a community for Creators That Code on Plug.Dev. Join us; your friends may already be here.
Creators That Code: Coders who create technical content, build developer communities, and help others learn, level up, and stay current.
FAQ
Creators That Code
What does “Creators That Code” mean?
Creators That Code, people who create technical content and/or build developer communities. They’re coders who produce technical content like tutorials, videos, blog posts, or live demos. They help others learn by turning their knowledge into accessible, educational content. Some build audiences independently; others work within companies in DevRel, developer advocacy, or marketing roles.
Do you need a big following to be a creator that codes?
No. Impact doesn’t always come from reach. Some creators publish through company blogs, documentation portals, or OSS projects without a personal audience. Others teach through internal enablement or conference talks. It’s about clarity and usefulness, not just visibility.
Can creators that code work inside companies?
Absolutely. Many are part of DevRel, developer advocacy, education, or content marketing teams. They blend content creation with product insight and community engagement. Others stay independent and collaborate with companies through sponsorships, affiliate programs, or project-based partnerships.
How do you become a Creator That Codes?
Start by teaching what you know, through blog posts, repo READMEs, short videos, live coding streams or text threads across social platforms. Choose a medium that suits you. Focus on helping others. Whether you're publishing for a company or on your own, consistent, useful content builds momentum.
Why are Creators That Code important to DevTool marketing?
Because they explain complex tools in real-world terms. Whether internal or independent, creators help bridge the gap between product and developer driving education, trust, and adoption. They’re often the most effective way to show how a tool works in practice.
Where do Creators That Code typically publish?
Platforms include YouTube, GitHub, X (Twitter), LinkedIn, Dev.to, Hashnode, Twitch, newsletters, reddit, hackernews and company blogs or documentation sites. The format depends on their strengths—writing, coding, speaking, or visual explanation.
How do Creators That Code grow their influence or earn income?
For independents: sponsorships, affiliate programs, courses, and paid content. For in-house creators: career advancement, speaking invites, and visibility across the dev ecosystem. In both cases, content builds trust, which often leads to new opportunities.
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