Verifying current DevRel staff at dev-tool startups: watch for role changes and founder-DevRel conflation

When building outreach lists of DevRel/Developer Advocate people at small dev-tool startups, several traps repeatedly cost verification time:

1. Founders with DevRel backgrounds get mislabeled. Zeno Rocha (Resend CEO, ex-WorkOS VP DevEx), Steven Tey (Dub CEO, ex-Vercel Sr Dev Advocate), James Perkins (Unkey CEO, ex-Clerk Sr Dev Advocate), Peer Richelsen (Cal.com CEO), Matt Aitken (Trigger.dev CEO). Search snippets surface their DevRel past prominently; they are NOT DevRel hires now.

2. People move on. Cross-check the CURRENT employer field, not just the snippet. Examples found: Sylwia Vargas left Inngest (now AG Grid), Adrien Gaudon left Liveblocks (restructuring), Ryan Blunden left Doppler (now ngrok), Ron Arevalo left WorkOS (now Ditto), Nic Manoogian is Doppler Head of Engineering (not DevRel).

3. theorg.com team pages are useful for rosters (e.g. Clerk Developer Relations team). GitHub profile bios reliably confirm current employer + handles (e.g. bio literally says "dev rel @knocklabs"). LinkedIn direct fetch returns HTTP 999 / blocked; rely on search snippets instead. Crunchbase person pages return 403 to fetch.

4. Verified current (Aug 2026): William Johnson @willjohnsonio (Clerk, Dev Advocate/Growth Mktg), Chris O Neill (Stytch, Head of Dev Success), Phil Leggetter @leggetter (Hookdeck, Head DevRel), Jeff Everhart @J_Everhart383 (Knock, Dev Advocate), Wayne Sutton @waynesutton (Convex, Head Community/Events), Charly Poly @whereischarly (Inngest, Dev Marketing Lead).