Head of Developer Experience

Head Of Developer Experience

Los Angeles, San Francisco

About HeyGen

At HeyGen, our mission is to make visual storytelling accessible to all. Over the last decade, visual content has become the preferred method of information creation, consumption, and retention. But the ability to create such content, in particular videos, continues to be costly and challenging to scale. Our ambition is to build technology that equips more people with the power to reach, captivate, and inspire audiences.

The Role

We're looking for a Head of Developer Experience to make HeyGen the default video and avatar layer for AI agents and developer workflows — and to own how developers discover, evaluate, adopt, and build on our platform.

The AI agent ecosystem is growing fast, projected to reach $120B+ by 2032. Every company building agentic AI that needs a human-facing interface will need video generation, voice, and real-time interactive avatars. HeyGen already has the foundation — a V3 API, CLI, MCP server, and Skills for AI coding agents — plus first-mover advantage in avatar quality. What we need is someone who can take that foundation and turn it into the developer platform builders reach for first: through narrative and community, but also through direct ownership of the product surface developers actually touch.

This is a senior leadership role with significant scope across both product and go-to-market. You'll be the founding leader of HeyGen's developer experience function, starting as a solo operator powered by AI tools and agent workflows, with the opportunity to build a team across both sides as the function scales.

What You'll Do

Developer Positioning & Story

• Define and own HeyGen's positioning for the AI builder and developer audience: software developers, AI/ML engineers, and technical founders building products that incorporate video, voice, and avatar capabilities.
• Craft the narrative that HeyGen is essential infrastructure for AI agents that communicate with humans — not just a video creation tool.
• Translate the full developer platform (V3 API, CLI, MCP, Skills) and core models (Video Agent, Avatar IV, Video Translation, Lipsync) into developer-native messaging that resonates in technical communities.

Developer Community & Ecosystem

• Build HeyGen's presence where developers live: GitHub, Hacker News, X, Discord, ProductHunt, and AI framework communities.
• Develop relationships with AI agent and developer tool ecosystems (OpenAI Agents SDK, LangGraph, CrewAI, Google ADK, OpenClaw, Cursor, Claude Code) to drive integration partnerships and ensure HeyGen is a first-class plugin across platforms.
• Get HeyGen front and center at hackathons, AI builder meetups, developer conferences, and other events where the target audience gathers. Sponsor, speak, judge, and build demo experiences that make HeyGen the tool people reach for.
• Create and curate "build with HeyGen" content: tutorials, sample apps, integration guides, and technical blog posts.
• Launch developer programs that drive API adoption and create evangelists.

Drive Developer Adoption

• Own the developer adoption motion end-to-end, from awareness through activation and expansion.
• Plan and execute launches targeting the developer audience, including new API capabilities, CLI updates, MCP and Skills integrations, and partner announcements.
• Drive adoption across all three integration paths: MCP for AI assistants (Claude, OpenClaw, Cursor), Skills for AI coding agents (Claude Code, Cursor), and Direct API/CLI for full programmatic control and CI/CD pipelines.

Own The Developer Product Surface

• Own the developer experience as a product. You'll have meaningful influence over the roadmap and direct accountability for how the platform feels to developers — from first API call to production deployment.
• Drive the strategy and quality bar for the surfaces developers touch: documentation, SDKs, code samples, onboarding flows, sandbox environments, error messages, CLI ergonomics, and pricing models.
• Identify gaps in the developer surface and ship solutions — sometimes by pushing roadmap with engineering, sometimes by building or commissioning the work directly (sample apps, starter templates, integration libraries, reference architectures).
• Be the loudest internal voice for what developers need. Translate community signals, support tickets, and integration friction into a prioritized roadmap that engineering builds against.

AI Agent Infrastructure Positioning

• Lead the effort to position HeyGen as the default video, voice, and avatar layer for AI agents — the infrastructure that gives agents a face.
• Identify and amplify early adopter stories of developers building agent-powered video workflows and interactive avatar experiences on HeyGen.
• Develop the category narrative around AI agents that can see, speak, and present — powered by HeyGen.

Measurement & Growth

• Define and track developer experience metrics across both adoption and quality: API signups, time-to-first-call, developer activation, integration volume, retention, community growth, and developer-sourced pipeline.
• Build feedback loops between developer community signals and product/engineering strategy.

What Success Looks Like

Success in this role means HeyGen becomes the name developers think of first when building AI applications that need video, avatars, or real-time human-like interaction. Examples include:

• Meaningful growth in API developer signups, CLI installs, and active integrations via MCP and Skills
• HeyGen featured in "awesome lists," framework documentation, and AI developer toolchains
• Partnerships with leading AI agent frameworks that put HeyGen in their ecosystem
• HeyGen as a visible presence at major hackathons and developer events, with measurable adoption lift
• A thriving developer community that creates content, shares integrations, and advocates for HeyGen organically
• Developer-sourced pipeline becoming a meaningful and growing revenue channel
• A developer surface — docs, SDKs, onboarding, sandbox — that developers consistently rate as best-in-class, with time-to-first-call and activation metrics that reflect it

What We're Looking For

• 7–10 years of experience spanning some combination of developer experience, developer marketing, developer relations, technical product management, or technical product marketing — with at least 3 years in a leadership capacity.
• Track record of driving developer adoption for an API-first or platform product. Ideally in AI, ML, or infrastructure.
• Deep familiarity with the AI/ML ecosystem, agentic AI landscape, and how developers evaluate and adopt developer tools.
• Strong technical fluency. You can read API docs, understand SDKs and CLIs, write working code when you need to, and credibly engage with engineers as a peer.
• Experience building developer communities from early stage, not just scaling existing ones.
• Excellent content instincts. You know what gets developers' attention and what gets ignored.
• A product builder's mindset. You treat the developer experience as a product surface, hold a high bar for quality, and ship — sometimes by driving roadmap, sometimes by building directly.
• Comfortable operating as a solo founder-type within a fast-moving startup. You don't wait for a team to get things done.

AI-Native Mindset

We believe the best operators today are AI-native.

You should be deeply fluent in AI agent workflows and comfortable using AI tools to research, create, ship, and multiply your output. We're not looking for someone who dabbles in AI. We want someone who builds with it daily and can credibly speak to developers doing the same.

Location

• Preferred: Los Angeles or San Francisco
• Remote candidates will also be considered for the right fit.

Compensation And Benefits

$200,000 – $270,000 annual base salary

Total compensation includes cash compensation, equity, and benefits.

Please note that the salary information is a general guideline only. HeyGen considers factors such as scope and responsibilities of the position, candidate's work experience, education/training, key skills, and internal equity, as well as location, market and business considerations when extending an offer. As part of our total rewards package, HeyGen offers comprehensive