Founding Developer Relations Lead
About the role
We are looking for someone who lives at the intersection of code and creativity – deeply technical, genuinely plugged into the generative AI space, and excited to build the developer community around some of the most advanced video and image models. This is a high-ownership, high-visibility role with real influence over how developers experience Runway.
Responsibilities
- Own the Developer Funnel, End-to-End
- Own the full developer funnel from awareness to activation; drive adoption and engagement across our API user base with a structured, data-informed engagement strategy
- Design onboarding experiences that get creative developers from zero to their first successful API build as quickly as possible
- Manage the motion from self-serve to enterprise API relationships – identify high-potential developers through usage and spend signals and route them into the right engagement track
- Track, analyze, and report on developer funnel metrics and API engagement using BI tools and data
- Build & Energize the Creative Developer Community
- Own hackathons, sponsorships, and developer events end-to-end – from concept and logistics to execution and follow-through
- Build and nurture a community of creative technologists, researchers, and developers pushing the boundaries of generative video and image
- Represent Runway at conferences, meetups, and online communities; be a recognizable and trusted presence in the generative AI developer ecosystem
- Surface developer sentiment, emerging use cases, and market signals back to internal teams to inform product direction
- Produce Content That Gets Developers Building
- Produce high-quality tutorials, demos, sample repos, and technical walkthroughs that showcase what's possible with our models and API
- Own social and X content strategy for the developer audience – rapid demos, creative experiments, prompting tips, and technical threads
- Run regular developer communications including email newsletters, changelogs, and recurring developer office hours
- Prototype creative, targeted content that meets developers where they are
- Champion Developers Internally – and Runway Externally
- Serve as the primary point of contact for the developer community; be genuinely accessible, responsive, and useful
- Build a tight, structured feedback loop between developers and the Product and Engineering teams – surface trends, flag blockers, and advocate for developer needs
- Partner with Marketing and GTM to create developer-focused activation campaigns that resonate with a technical, creative audience
- Define and track success metrics tied to developer activation, API engagement, and community growth
Requirements
5+ years in developer relations, developer advocacy, or a highly technical, community-facing role – ideally within AI/ML, creative tech, or a research-adjacent organization
Deep, hands-on familiarity with generative video and image models; you've built with them, you experiment constantly, and you follow this space closely
Strong engineering fundamentals – you can write code, build demos independently, debug API integrations, and speak credibly with technical audiences
A genuine creative sensibility – you understand the needs of designers, filmmakers, and creative technologists, not just traditional software engineers, and you move fluidly between those worlds
Proven track record of driving developer community growth and API adoption with measurable outcomes
Experience producing developer-facing content across formats: documentation, video demos, short-form social, and live technical presentations
Experience running developer events end-to-end: hackathons, workshops, sponsorships, and office hours
Deep enthusiasm for generative AI; you stay close to the technology, build with it, and have a strong point of view on where it's going