Developer Experience: "Build With Us"

Many of you know how passionate I am about open source and inner source, as well as creating awesome dev experiences and tech culture. In this post, I want to take a complementary concept... “build with us”.?

In the open source world, many of the projects, tools, libraries and services out there are built by developers from enterprise companies. In addition, many enterprise companies also use open source code in their internal development. A recent report from RedHat stated that 90% of IT leaders use enterprise open source. They also reported that the growth and adoption of enterprise open source for edge computing and AI/ML is the rise - stating that for iOT/edge computing, expect an increase from 55% to 72% in the next two years and for AI/ML, expect an increase from 48% to 65% in the next two years as well.

There is definitely a lot of adoption from the open source community out there. But what about a complementary model? I call it the “build with us” model. This is a model where companies, large and not so large, create tools, APIs and SDKs to enable third party developers to create solutions (for their own customers). This model has two types, the free model and the monetized model. In the free model, as a developer/engineer, you can take the APIs/SDKs provided and use them on your own projects or platform without paying for it. You are, most of the time, required to create an account and asked to provide feedback or content. In the monetized model, you may start with the free option first but you will most likely need to pay for more robust APIs/SDKs.

In this post, I took a look at several companies and created a list of “rockstar” features that deliver great developer experience and help developers be successful. I am sharing what I think is pretty cool across the various developer experiences. If you have other inspirations, please do share in the comments below. Okay, here goes…

Let's start with Square , Square hosts Unboxed Conference and here are a couple of highlights. This video is a great storyteller and I’ve been using it as a model for how you can illustrate sample code and its application. It’s also really cool to see case studies for inspiration. Here. you see the Martial Arts on Rails, Flash Order and Shopwave case study. The case studies help developers/engineers understand the breadth of potential solutions using Square's capabilities.

Now, let's go to Intuit Developer . I really like how Intuit Developer provides sandbox company to test what you built. On this screen below, you see the step by step instruction on how to test with a sandbox company.

It’s also cool to see that developers have an opportunity to leverage Quickbooks customer base when you publish to Quickbooks app store. Great visibility for your app!

Next, is Stripe and Stripe hosts Stripe Sessions conference. What I really like about Stripe's developer experience is their focus on YouTube tutorials. Being on YouTube makes it super accessible for folks like me (sometimes, it’s just easier to follow on a video, you know what I mean?)

Stripe's YouTube channel also directly links to their Github which shows examples. Wow, I like the convenience of this!

On to Twilio . Twilio hosts the Signal Conference for developers. There are two things I'd like to share... Twilio is the first I’ve seen where low code and no code options exist. This helps broaden their community who can use their tools.

The second feature I like is the "Talk to an expert" option

I also took a look at Microsoft Azure's developer experience.

I’ve checked out Azure in the past and I still really like this navigation section of their documentation site. The labels are action oriented and easy to understand what to expect.

I’m still a fan of their quickstart guides in how they write the steps and also how they make use of both left and right navigation to give the developer a sense of place.

Now, on to Amazon's AWS Developer Center . I really like the focus on community. I like how they integrated open source as well.

AWS “Get Started” page shows a newbie the two steps they need to take (1) Learn how but getting to know the AWS Cloud (they provide a video - woot) and 2. Launch your first application.

“This is my architecture” page shows a series of videos that teaches how to architect solutions on AWS Cloud

Let's check out Docker . Getting started on Docker feels really simple and not overwhelming. When you decide to click on “Getting Started”, you go to this page and you have three choices which makes the experience feel direct and uncluttered.?

I love the use of word “play” because we all learn through play and fun. I also think it is more inviting for anyone new (like me) to their platform.

I like that they have language specific guides because this provides flexibility for me as a developer. I clicked on that and found Node, Python, Java and Go are supported!

Here's IBM's Developer Experience. On the main page, I like how they created these uber topics of AI, Analytics, Node.js, App modernization, Containers, Java. Once you pick one, the rest of the catalogue shows up (Huge!).

If you are new to IBM Developer, I really like that they have learning paths and they also showcase upcoming events.

Tutorials are step by step guides and I like that the instructions are short and they show pictures of what to expect. There may be sub-steps but those have only 2-5 steps as well. In addition, it’s nice to get an overview of a high level architecture design

I love love love Call for Code! It’s an awesome way to solve pressing, global problems using tech. I am so inspired by this. I know, it sounds like HackerOne’s Hack for Good - it is inspiring to see large enterprise companies like IBM rally the globe to solve problems like racial injustice. Wow!

The final company I reviewed is Autodesk's Forge Accelerator program. This program is pretty cool - it’s a one week immersive experience designed to help developers/engineers build solutions with direct support from the Forge Team. It’s almost like having a TA (Remember all those helpful teacher assistants?) helping you along the way

Well, that's it folks! These are my top feature pics of awesome developer experiences across these companies who are embracing "Build with Us" model. I would love to hear about what you think are delightful in these developer experiences. Please do share :)