Marcos Placona

Co-Founder

United Kingdom20 yrs 5 mos experience
Most Likely To Switch

Key Highlights

  • Secured 2,500+ signups in a single launch.
  • Led award-winning DevRel teams at Twilio and Circle.
  • Expert in turning developer tools into community favorites.
Stackforce AI infers this person is a SaaS expert with a strong focus on Developer Relations and community engagement.

Contact

Skills

Core Skills

Start-up LeadershipProduct DevelopmentDeveloper RelationsComputer Science

Other Skills

User Experience (UX)AnalyticsStrategic PlanningMarketing StrategyBusiness StrategyTechnical DocumentationSEOContent CreationGo-to-Market StrategyAgile Methodologies.NETJavaUnit TestingMVCjQuery

About

Your product is ready. Your docs are polished. But developers aren't signing up. You're posting on ๐•, writing tutorials, answering questions in Discord. Still, crickets. Meanwhile, your competitors are building loyal communities while you're stuck at 100 signups. ๐“๐ก๐ž ๐ฉ๐ซ๐จ๐›๐ฅ๐ž๐ฆ ๐ข๐ฌ๐ง'๐ญ ๐ฒ๐จ๐ฎ๐ซ ๐ฉ๐ซ๐จ๐๐ฎ๐œ๐ญ. ๐ˆ๐ญ'๐ฌ ๐ญ๐ก๐š๐ญ ๐ง๐จ๐›๐จ๐๐ฒ ๐ค๐ง๐จ๐ฐ๐ฌ ๐ข๐ญ ๐ž๐ฑ๐ข๐ฌ๐ญ๐ฌ. Developers don't respond to traditional marketing. They need to see your tool in action, understand it quickly, and trust that it solves their problem better than building it themselves. I help DevTool startups (Seed to Series B) turn launches into traction. ๐–๐ก๐š๐ญ ๐ˆ ๐๐จ: ๐Ÿ‘‰ Launch strategy that gets developers actually signing up (not just lurking) ๐Ÿ‘‰ Technical content that ranks and converts (SEO + developer authenticity) ๐Ÿ‘‰ Community programs that turn users into advocates ๐Ÿ‘‰ Onboarding that gets developers from signup to "aha moment" in minutes ๐‘๐ž๐œ๐ž๐ง๐ญ ๐ซ๐ž๐ฌ๐ฎ๐ฅ๐ญ๐ฌ: Airtop: 2,500 signups at launch, #1 Product Hunt, 400% community growth Liblab: 180% traffic increase, 250% more leads, 85% better trial-to-paid conversion Client docs overhaul: 50%+ increase in unique views, stronger SEO conversions ๐Œ๐ฒ ๐›๐š๐œ๐ค๐ ๐ซ๐จ๐ฎ๐ง๐: ๐Ÿ‘‰ 7 years at Twilio building international DevRel (grew team from 1 to 18 across 8 countries) ๐Ÿ‘‰ Scaled Circle's global DevRel from 0 to 5 people internationally ๐Ÿ‘‰ Won DevRel Con's Best DevRel Team 2023 ๐Ÿ‘‰ 20+ years shipping code ๐ˆ ๐ฐ๐จ๐ซ๐ค ๐ฐ๐ข๐ญ๐ก: ๐Ÿ‘‰ DevTool companies, Seed to Series B ๐Ÿ‘‰ 10-50 person teams ๐–๐ก๐จ: ๐Ÿ‘‰ Are building APIs, platforms, or developer tools ๐Ÿ‘‰ Need signups and revenue, not just community vibes ๐‘๐ž๐š๐๐ฒ ๐ญ๐จ ๐ญ๐ฎ๐ซ๐ง ๐ฒ๐จ๐ฎ๐ซ ๐ฉ๐ซ๐จ๐๐ฎ๐œ๐ญ ๐ข๐ง๐ญ๐จ ๐š ๐๐ž๐ฏ๐ž๐ฅ๐จ๐ฉ๐ž๐ซ ๐Ÿ๐š๐ฏ๐จ๐ซ๐ข๐ญ๐ž? ๐Ÿ“ฒ Book a 15-minute strategy call โ†’ https://zcal.co/mplacona/15min ๐Ÿ“ง Email: marcos@devrelbridge.com ๐ŸŒ Visit: https://DevRelBridge.com

Experience

20 yrs 5 mos
Total Experience
2 yrs 10 mos
Average Tenure
3 yrs 7 mos
Current Experience

Linkintel

Founder

Aug 2025 โ€“ Present ยท 9 mos

  • At LinkIntel, Iโ€™m leading the vision, product, and growth of a SaaS platform that helps marketing teams unlock deeper insights from their LinkedIn Company Pages.
  • โœ… Designed and launched analytics dashboards that go beyond LinkedInโ€™s native reporting
  • โœ… Built โ€œBest Time to Postโ€ tool to help companies maximize reach, launched free to the community
  • โœ… Developed competitor benchmarking, audience segmentation, and AI-powered content insights
  • โœ… Drove product development end-to-end: architecture (Supabase, React, PostHog), pricing model, and GTM strategy
  • โœ… Secured early traction with marketers, agencies, and growth teams across SaaS and B2B industries
  • Our mission: Democratize advanced LinkedIn analytics while ensuring 100% data ownership.
Start-up LeadershipUser Experience (UX)

Developer relations foundation

DevRel Structure and Organization Manager

Nov 2024 โ€“ Nov 2025 ยท 1 yr

Airtop

Fractional Head of DevRel

Oct 2024 โ€“ May 2025 ยท 7 mos ยท Remote

  • Led Developer Relations for Airtop, an AI-powered web automation platform, from pre-launch to post-launch growth. Focused on developer acquisition, onboarding, and engagement to drive product adoption and long-term retention.
  • Key achievements:
  • ๐Ÿš€ Drove a DevRel-first launch strategy that secured the #1 Product of the Day on Product Hunt, generating thousands of site visits and high-quality inbound leads.
  • ๐Ÿ“ˆ Increased developer signups on the platform by 7X through targeted content, distribution, and onboarding improvements.
  • ๐Ÿง  Developed Airtop's first set of technical and SEO-optimized blog posts, helping establish early search visibility and credibility with automation engineers and growth hackers.
  • ๐Ÿ” Led an SEO strategy that increased organic traffic by 220% within three months, focusing on high-intent, long-tail keywords for web scraping and AI automation.
  • ๐Ÿ“ฃ Created and distributed engaging launch content across Twitter, LinkedIn, Hacker News, and Reddit to maximize reach and trial conversion.
  • Played a key role in positioning Airtop as a category-defining product in intelligent browser automation.

Devrel bridge

Founder

Sep 2024 โ€“ Present ยท 1 yr 8 mos ยท England, United Kingdom

Developer RelationsStrategic PlanningMarketing StrategyBusiness StrategyTechnical DocumentationStart-up Leadership+1

Marcos placona

Founder

Jun 2024 โ€“ Present ยท 1 yr 11 mos

  • I build tons of tools to help developers be more efficient.

Krunch

Strategic Advisor

Oct 2022 โ€“ Present ยท 3 yrs 7 mos

  • Advisor to the founders of Krunch, a data analytics platform to grow and measure your developer relations impact and make it easier to communicate it.

Circle

Director of Global Developer Relations

Sep 2022 โ€“ Jun 2024 ยท 1 yr 9 mos ยท Remote

  • As Director of Developer Relations at Circle, I led the initiative to establish and grow the developer relations function from the ground up. My role encompassed:
  • Building and managing a global team of developer advocates, program managers, and operations specialists
  • Creating comprehensive educational programs to support developers in adopting Circle's technology
  • Developing a robust content strategy to engage and inform the developer community
  • Organizing and executing impactful events to foster connections and knowledge sharing
  • Systematically collecting and analyzing developer feedback to inform product decisions
  • Key accomplishments:
  • Bootstrapped the entire developer relations function, setting the foundation for Circle's developer ecosystem
  • Launched successful educational initiatives, including tutorials, workshops, and documentation
  • Established a content program featuring blog posts, videos, and social media engagement
  • Created and scaled a global events strategy, including hackathons, conferences, and meetups
  • Built and led a diverse, high-performing team across multiple geographies and experience levels
  • Significantly increased developer adoption and engagement with Circle's products and APIs

Twilio inc.

4 roles

Head Of Developer Relations, EMEA & LATAM

Promoted

Dec 2020 โ€“ May 2022 ยท 1 yr 5 mos

  • Led the Developer Relations team in EMEA, responsible for outreach and engagement with developers and driving adoption of company products and services in the region.
  • Defined and executed the company's developer relations strategy in EMEA, aligning with overall business goals and objectives.
  • Managed DevRel budget and delivered high quality programs and events within budget.
  • Grew the LATAM team from 0 to 4 people, while increasing developer adoption of company products by 45%.
  • Built strong relationships with key developer communities and evangelists across LATAM, resulting in increased mindshare and market share for the company.

Head of Developer Evangelism, EMEA

Apr 2020 โ€“ Dec 2020 ยท 8 mos

Developer Relations

Developer Evangelist, Manager

Oct 2017 โ€“ Apr 2020 ยท 2 yrs 6 mos

Developer Relations

Developer Evangelist

Oct 2014 โ€“ Oct 2017 ยท 3 yrs

Developer Relations

Web reservations international/hostelbookers

Principal Software Engineer

Apr 2013 โ€“ Sep 2014 ยท 1 yr 5 mos ยท London, United Kingdom

  • Building interesting distributed, scalable systems using .Net technologies and in charge of a team of .Net developers.
  • Currently working with Memcached, Enterprise Queuing Systems and API integrations. Mainly using SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) to improve the information flow between HostelBookersโ€™ & its newly integrated sister company (Hostelworld). We are now also working towards full PCI compliance.
Developer Relations

Hostelbookers

3 roles

Technical Lead

May 2012 โ€“ Mar 2013 ยท 10 mos ยท London, United Kingdom

  • As a technical lead, I was in charge of designing, architecting and prototyping applications that must perform and scale under heavy load. With one of our applications being on the top 3.5k most accessed according to Alexa.
  • I carried out researches on what technologies are the most suitable for our ever-demanding applications, and made sure all code delivered by the development team met the coding standards established.
  • I have worked on automating our AdWords integration with Google's API, which manages and automates around 26k ads a month. This required constant communication with partners and product team.
Computer Science

Lead Software Engineer

Aug 2010 โ€“ Apr 2012 ยท 1 yr 8 mos ยท London, United Kingdom

  • As a lead Software Engineer, I was in charge of two Agile development teams (.NET and ColdFusion) of various skill levels.
  • I was required to provide technical assistance and mentoring to team members, write technical specifications for new projects, and assure standards were met prior to delivery.
  • I have managed to get 100% unit test coverage on new projects and automated our builds through the use of build tools such as MS Build, Ant and Jenkins CI.
Computer Science

Senior Software Engineer

Oct 2008 โ€“ Aug 2010 ยท 1 yr 10 mos ยท London, United Kingdom

  • As a senior Software Engineer I was in charge of developing Hstelbookers' main website, as well as its partner API's.
  • During that time I have participated on an entire rebuild of the website including its core functionalities such as the booking engine and payment processing, and the addition to its 11 languages via resource bundles.
Computer Science

Urnox ltd

Founder

May 2012 โ€“ Apr 2014 ยท 1 yr 11 mos ยท London

European commission

System Analyst

Apr 2007 โ€“ Sep 2008 ยท 1 yr 5 mos ยท Brussels Area, Belgium

  • As a system analyst, I was in charge of developing internals systems for one of the most important entities in the European Commission (DG TREN, Energy and Transport). I worked on internal integrations between their Java Backend, and client facing ColdFusion websites.
  • I have also participated on the first test automation project of the EU, and built a website generation script that used their template.

Pjtv

Consultant Senior Developer

Jan 2007 โ€“ Mar 2007 ยท 2 mos ยท Marlow, United Kingdom

London web communications

Software Engineer

Feb 2005 โ€“ Jan 2007 ยท 1 yr 11 mos

Education

The Open University

BSc (Honours) Computing & IT

Jan 2011 โ€“ Jan 2014

SOAS University of London

Chinese Language and Literature

May 2025 โ€“ Jul 2025

Universidade Ibirapuera

Bachelor of Science (BSc) โ€” Computer Science

Jan 2002 โ€“ Jan 2005

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