How I Help API-First Companies Build Developer Programs That Actually Work
Most companies know they need a developer program. Fewer know how to build one. And almost none want to wait 18 months for a full-time hire to figure it out.
That’s where I come in. I’m Phil Johnston, and I run a fractional developer relations practice focused on API-first companies that need to go from “we should probably do something for developers” to a functioning program with measurable results, fast.
The Problem I Keep Seeing
Here’s a pattern I’ve watched play out a dozen times: a company ships a solid API or SDK, gets some organic traction, and then realizes they need developer relations. So they open a job req. Six months later they’ve either hired someone junior who’s learning on the job, or they’ve burned through a senior candidate’s patience with a process that took too long.
Meanwhile, their competitors launched an MCP server, published a getting-started tutorial, and showed up in the first three results when a CTO asked Claude or ChatGPT for a recommendation.
The window for developer mindshare is shrinking. AI tools are reshaping how developers discover, evaluate, and adopt new platforms. If your product isn’t visible to LLMs and coding assistants, you’re invisible to a growing share of your audience.
What I Actually Do
I operate as a fractional Head of Developer Relations. That means I embed with your team part-time and run DevRel the same way I would as a full-time leader, just scoped to what matters most right now.
In practice, that usually covers four areas.
Developer onboarding and experience. I audit your docs, quickstart guides, and time-to-first-integration. Then I fix the gaps. At HERE Technologies, I rebuilt the developer onboarding flow and brought in 15,000 new developers during 2020, when every conference and in-person event had shut down. The answer wasn’t “wait for events to come back.” It was tutorials, video content, community engagement, and a relentless focus on reducing friction.
Program strategy and partnerships. At GoPro, I built the Developer Program from zero. No existing partners, no SDK, no documentation. Within a few years it had 330+ partner companies, including NASA, Google, BMW, and Jaguar Land Rover, with a team of 10 engineers supporting the ecosystem. At BMW, I led the application integration program that brought Audible, Pandora, and other major brands into the connected car. These weren’t marketing exercises. They were engineering programs with real technical integrations.
AI discoverability and tooling. This is the part most DevRel teams haven’t caught up to yet. I help companies become visible to AI assistants, coding tools, and agent frameworks. That means structured data, llms.txt files, MCP server implementations, prompt-friendly documentation, and content strategies designed for how developers actually find tools in 2026. I’ve built RAG-based tutorial generation pipelines and custom social monitoring tools. I hold a Prompt Engineering certification from the team behind Meta’s Llama project. This isn’t a bolt-on service; it’s woven into everything I do.
Content and advocacy at scale. Across my career, I’ve produced over 123 developer tutorial videos, written technical documentation for multiple platforms, and served as the on-camera advocate for brands like GoPro and 1Password. I understand the full content pipeline from planning to production to distribution, and I know which content actually moves developers from “browsing the docs” to “shipping in production.”
Why Fractional
The honest answer: most companies at the Series A to Series C stage don’t need a full-time VP of DevRel. They need someone who’s done it before, can stand up the program, set the metrics, create the content engine, and either hand it off to a full-time hire or continue running it on a part-time basis.
I’ve built developer programs from scratch three times at companies that had never had one: BMW, GoPro, and 1Password. At each one, the challenge was the same. Make the case internally, define what success looks like, hire the right people, and ship results before anyone loses patience. Fractional lets me do that for more than one company at a time, and it lets you move faster than a traditional hiring process allows.
The AI Angle
Here’s what I think most DevRel leaders are underestimating: the shift in how developers discover tools.
Five years ago, developer discovery was Google, Stack Overflow, Hacker News, and word of mouth. Today, a meaningful and growing percentage of developers ask an AI assistant first. They paste an error into Claude. They ask ChatGPT for library recommendations. They use Cursor or Windsurf with MCP servers that pull in documentation automatically.
If your API isn’t visible in those contexts, you’re losing evaluations you never even knew were happening. No one sends you a “we evaluated your product and passed” email when the AI assistant simply never mentioned you.
At HERE Technologies, I took a cloud API marketplace from a narrow vertical to a 2,250x expansion of its serviceable obtainable market by combining developer experience strategy with product management rigor. That same kind of thinking applies to AI discoverability today. It’s not just about SEO anymore. It’s about whether your product shows up when an AI agent is building a solution for someone.
Who This Is For
I work best with API-first companies, developer tool startups, and platform teams that have a working product but haven’t yet built the developer go-to-market motion around it. If you have an API and you’re wondering why adoption is flat, or if you’ve heard about llms.txt and MCP servers but don’t know where to start, that’s my wheelhouse.
I’m based in Portland, Oregon, and I’ve been remote-first since 2019. I’ve worked across automotive (BMW), consumer hardware (GoPro), location intelligence (HERE Technologies), and cybersecurity (1Password). The common thread across all of them: building ecosystems that turn a product into a platform.
If any of this resonates, I’d like to hear about what you’re building. You can reach me through the contact form on my site.