Top developer-focused Youtube influencers
A curated list of the most active developer influencers
Top developer-focused Youtube influencers (For dev tooling companies that want to sponsor wisely)
There's no better time to get your dev tool in front of a hyper-engaged audience than right now and YouTube is still the best platform for it. Why? Because unlike Twitter/X or TikTok, YouTube offers creators real estate to go deep, build trust, and walk developers through tools and tech in meaningful ways. Plus, it's easier than ever for new creators to go viral fast.
But where do you start? Who's worth sponsoring? Who's underrated? And who's secretly pulling in insane viewership with only 3 videos posted?
Let's break this down. This is a very subjective ranking, just based on watching and self-teaching coding for the past 15 years and keeping up with new creators regularly.
The absolute peak: Andrej Karpathy
Before jumping into tiers, a personal favorite that deserves a separate mention: Andrej Karpathy.
While he's not a full-time influencer in the traditional sense, every video he puts out is absolute gold. It's deep, thoughtful, and often trend-defining. Whether he's coding a GPT from scratch or breaking down neural nets - this is top-tier, S-class dev content. If he ever accepts sponsorships (rare!), it's probably the best value you could ever get.
🔺 The holy trinity (A tier)
Right now, there's a "holy triangle" of dev influencers. These three dominate attention, relevance, and consistency:
Fireship – The most consistent and trend-aware dev creator on the platform. Bitesize, fast-paced, insanely high-quality. Almost always hits.
Theo (t3.gg) – Strong opinions, great energy, and deeply connected with the fullstack & open source crowd. Huge X/ Twitch presence too.
The Primeagen – Vim, C++, TypeScript, performance rants - all wrapped in a chaotic, entertaining dev experience. Massive Twitch + YouTube crossover.
If your budget allows it, sponsoring one of these three gives the highest certainty of results - but expect top-tier pricing.
honorable A-tier: Computerphile & 3Blue1Brown
Not exactly dev only centric but consistently great. Educational, thoughtful, and highly relevant. Worth supporting for credibility and long-term visibility.
B tier – Still massive and high-quality, though some no longer generate as much hype.
These creators pull great numbers - sometimes even more than A-tier - but aren't riding the algorithm quite as hard right now. Still, they're legends with deeply loyal audiences:
Code Bullet – Wild, chaotic AI & game dev experiments
John Hammond – Security & hacking deep dives
Web Dev Simplified – Consistent frontend & JS tutorials
Traversy Media – Bread-and-butter dev content, great for beginner to intermediate reach
Code with Ania Kubów – Fullstack tutorials, creative projects
Kevin Powell – CSS wizardry and design-focused frontend content
Programming with Mosh – Polished, course-style videos
The Coding Train – Wholesome, creative coding with Processing & JavaScript
I'm probably missing a lot here. Honestly, if that's the case, I'm sorry. This is purely based on what the algorithm served me, and I hope I didn't forget you further down below.
C Tier? Nah - Let's Just Break It into Categories
Truth is, ranking creators below B doesn't make much sense. Instead, let's split them into specialized categories. I'd consider all of these B-tier - some even A-tier - but since they serve more specific audiences, a lot of them just pull lower numbers. However, if you're a company focused on DevOps, for example, you'll probably get more value sponsoring a DevOps-focused channel than someone like Theo. It all depends on timing and the topic of the content you're sponsoring.
🧠 AI / Machine Learning Focused
Yannic Kilcher – Paper breakdowns, smart and snarky
Umar Jamil – Python-heavy AI tutorials
sentdex – Python ML, practical projects
Krish Naik – Data science + ML education
StatQuest – Clear, simple breakdowns of ML concepts
🔐 Security / Hacking
LiveOverflow – Hacking tutorials and CTFs
NetworkChuck – Entertaining and educational networking/security content
David Bombal – Networking, security, certs
STÖK – Bug bounty and hacking content with style
⚙️ DevOps / Infra / Cloud
🧬 Blockchain / Web3
Nader Dabit & Patrick Collins are honestly the most important people in the space, have a huge following and relevance. If you really want to do something here on YT, you should talk to these guys as they are well known in the industry. Patrick is especially focused on security in Web3. Nader has also been dabbling into the AI intersection and is a really cool guy. I know both and have met them many times, so I can really recommend them. There are for sure a few more like EatTheBlocks and some others that I don't want to mention because I've seen them promoting crypto stuff I honestly didn't think they should, so I'll leave it here.
📈 How to Pick the Right Creator for Sponsorships
Here's the key advice:
Check the last 10 videos. Are they pulling over 100k consistently? That's premium. Below 100k? You're looking at micro-influencer pricing.
Don't sponsor an experiment. Make sure your ad goes on a proven format. Check their highest performing videos and match that style.
Stay contextual. If you're a DevOps tool, don't sponsor a beginner React crash course.
🧨 Ultra-Upcoming Creators (Secret Weapons)
These folks have just started, but they're already hitting big view counts. Perfect for early sponsorships and long-term relationships.
Some of these creators have fewer than 10 uploads but already hit 100k+ views per video. They're hungry, flexible, and still learning the ropes on sponsorships - a perfect sweet spot for early partnership.
👋 Final Thoughts
The dev YouTube scene is booming. With the right targeting and research, sponsoring creators can be one of the most efficient ways to get developer eyeballs on your product whether you're launching an SDK, pushing a CLI tool, or getting feedback on your cloud service.
Start with the A-tier if you've got the budget. But don't sleep on the up-and-comers, they might be tomorrow's Fireship.
