Head of Developer Communities - DevRel

PayPal•San Jose, CA

22h•Hybrid

About The Position

PayPal has been revolutionizing commerce globally for more than 25 years. Creating innovative experiences that make moving money, selling, and shopping simple, personalized, and secure, PayPal empowers consumers and businesses in approximately 200 markets to join and thrive in the global economy. We operate a global, two-sided network at scale that connects hundreds of millions of merchants and consumers. We help merchants and consumers connect, transact, and complete payments, whether they are online or in person. PayPal is more than a connection to third-party payment networks. We provide proprietary payment solutions accepted by merchants that enable the completion of payments on our platform on behalf of our customers. We offer our customers the flexibility to use their accounts to purchase and receive payments for goods and services, as well as the ability to transfer and withdraw funds. We enable consumers to exchange funds more safely with merchants using a variety of funding sources, which may include a bank account, a PayPal or Venmo account balance, PayPal and Venmo branded credit products, a credit card, a debit card, certain cryptocurrencies, or other stored value products such as gift cards, and eligible credit card rewards. Our PayPal, Venmo, and Xoom products also make it safer and simpler for friends and family to transfer funds to each other. We offer merchants an end-to-end payments solution that provides authorization and settlement capabilities, as well as instant access to funds and payouts. We also help merchants connect with their customers, process exchanges and returns, and manage risk. We enable consumers to engage in cross-border shopping and merchants to extend their global reach while reducing the complexity and friction involved in enabling cross-border trade. Our beliefs are the foundation for how we conduct business every day. We live each day guided by our core values of Inclusion, Innovation, Collaboration, and Wellness. Together, our values ensure that we work together as one global team with our customers at the center of everything we do – and they push us to ensure we take care of ourselves, each other, and our communities. Job Summary: As Head of Developer Communities, you will lead the transformation and global scale of PayPal’s Developer Relations (DevRel) community strategy. This role provides strategic leadership for building trusted, inclusive developer and merchant communities that accelerate adoption of PayPal products and improve end-to-end developer experience. You will lead a globally distributed team responsible for community programs, advocacy initiatives, advisory boards, and engagement across online and in-person channels. Acting as the voice of the developer, you will partner closely with Engineering, Product Management, Marketing, Sales, and Corporate Communications to translate community feedback into improvements across APIs, SDKs, documentation, onboarding, and platform capabilities. This role ensures PayPal delivers a consistent, high-quality, and brand-aligned experience across the global developer ecosystem while driving measurable business impact.

Requirements

10+ years relevant experience and a Bachelor’s degree OR Any equivalent combination of education and experience.
Proven ability to manage large, complex engineering programs.

Nice To Haves

10+ years of experience leading developer communities, DevRel, or product-adjacent programs at global scale.
Proven experience managing distributed, cross-functional, and international teams.
Strong background in developer platforms, APIs, SDKs, and web or ecommerce architectures.
Experience influencing product and engineering roadmaps through community insights and data.
Demonstrated success building advocacy, advisory, and ambassador programs.
Deep familiarity with open-source technologies and developer ecosystems, ideally within FinTech or ecommerce.
Exceptional communication, storytelling, and stakeholder-management skills.
Data-driven mindset with experience leveraging analytics, testing, and feedback loops to optimize engagement.
Passion for coaching, mentoring, and developing high-performing teams.
Ability to drive alignment and execution across complex organizations.
Willingness to travel approximately 20–30% to support global community initiatives.

Responsibilities

Create, lead, and scale PayPal’s global developer and merchant community strategy across online and offline channels.
Identify, launch, and grow developer communities where PayPal products deliver the strongest value, driving experimentation, adoption, and long-term engagement.
Own and evolve community presence across third-party platforms (e.g., Discord, Reddit, Stack Overflow) in addition to PayPal-hosted properties.
Design and operate developer and merchant advocacy programs, including Champions programs, advisory boards, beta communities, and early-access initiatives.
Serve as the primary advocate for developers by translating community feedback into actionable insights for Engineering and Product teams.
Partner with Product and Engineering to influence roadmaps, improve APIs, SDKs, documentation, onboarding experiences, and developer tooling.
Lead global social, content, and communications strategies tailored to developers, including blogs, videos, technical content, and messaging platforms.
Coordinate community and advocacy services provided to business units and product teams to ensure consistency, quality, and scale.
Plan, host, and participate in developer and merchant events, meetups, and conferences to grow awareness and strengthen relationships.
Establish success metrics and reporting frameworks to measure engagement, sentiment, adoption, and business impact.
Collaborate cross-functionally with Corporate Marketing, PR/Comms, Legal, Sales, and regional teams to ensure aligned, compliant, and brand-consistent execution.
Build strong external relationships with developers, merchants, partners, industry leaders, and media.
Stay current on AI, FinTech, ecommerce, and developer-platform trends to continuously evolve community strategy.
Manage budgets, resources, and vendor partnerships to support global community programs at scale.