How well do you know your developers in 2018 ?

If you’re in tech in 2018, and not paying attention to what happened with developers in the last two decades, don’t worry, I will fill you in.

In this short article, I will try to shed some light on what I’ve learned, and observed, from personal experience, in the last twenty years, as a developer and a manager.

Note: The opinions expressed in this article are solely my own and do not necessarily express the views and opinions of my current and previous employers :-)

Another Note: also, what I am stating here may or may not represent all developers in today’s companies.

Let’s get to the 11 things I think you should know about Developers in 2018:

• Developers have more power than you think (Some might go as far as describing them as the new Kingmakers)

• What IT decision makers think is being used (in terms of tech and tools) inside the company is actually much smaller than what is actually being used by the developers.
• Developers are not afraid to build a tool, if they don’t have one, or don’t like what’s available (The biggest example is Linux :-))
• They are driving the bottom-up buying process, and competing with the CIO or top-down procurement process. Maybe you don’t see it yet, but it will come to a theatre near you, one way or another.
• With the explosion of *aaS(or anything as a service), virtualization, and Open Source, the barriers that kept them from becoming the decisions makers are going away, and going away fast. They got freed from the dreaded software procurement process, and the control of IT managers, watch out!

• Developers trust only other like-minded developers who share their work and help others on “Social Coding” and “Developer Community” sites
• They have seen other Developers build and grow multi-billion dollars companies. They have more confidence, today, in their abilities and the favourable market conditions, to build, market and sell services & products, much more than 15 years ago.
• Developers seek the freedom to innovate and use the best tool for the job. They can smell BS and prefer to hear from other developers when it comes to marketing.

• They’re suspicious of vendor-led, commercially oriented technical standards (designed by committee where Developer Experience is a secondary concern). Does anybody remember WS-* standards ?

• They are immune to the majority of traditional software marketing approaches (they use AdBlock, don’t care about white papers, hate analyst webinars…). They don’t care about the message, they care more about the code. You have to show them first, teach them later.
• The majority of Developers want to contribute to Open Source projects, and value employers that allow that.

In conclusion, today, developers are unquestionably one of the most important assets a business has, they have fuelled the exponential revolution in technology in the last ten years and will continue to do so, regardless of what industry it is.

The Developers movement out of the shadows into the light as new influencers on society and business will fuel the next era of unprecedented opportunity, hang on, and stay connected.