I am hiring for Developer Advocates / Developer Evangelists. Any suggestions or a good group / community to tap into for this talent profile?

I should have a better answer to this than Twitter, but I haven’t actually hired for that role in a long time, so might be out of touch, sorry!

One thing I’ll say, and this might be a bit controversial, but I’m personally cautious of high-profile developer evangelists. There is absolutely a ton of value in building a public profile, and the role lends itself to community, but a strong advocate is someone who spends more of their time talking with customers, less time talking with other evangelists. The best ones I’ve seen balance this very well, all grounded in being helpful – engage with the community to drive awareness and interest, and engage with customers to drive projects forward.

Depending on the nature of your product, folks who have historically ran user groups are often the best evangelists – they have a genuine passion for the technology, know how to bring people together, and have a knack for being public-facing. Might be useful to browse some adjacent meetups/user groups.

One suggestion would be to see if you have any talented sales engineers that may want to make the move. These individuals have spent a lot of time speaking with customers, understanding their technical needs and frustrations. 

It is not always the case that you will find an ideal candidate there, or want to "poach" someone from that group, but just something to keep an eye on as they already know your company and customers well. 

I don't have a recommendation on the group, but a good next step if you don't get an answer here would be networking with a couple of PMMs at companies that sell to/engage with developers to get their perspective. Folks at Atlassian or Github, for example, could probably give you some really great insights.