Tech firms are finding it increasingly useful to create developer communities
As we have witnessed massive technological growth in the last decade, developers have taken the centre stage in businesses across industries. The global developer population is expected to reach 28.7 million people by 2024, increasing 3.2 million from the number of developers in 2020, as per a report from Statista. With this rise in demand, developers would require a common meeting ground to discuss, review, and improve upon their work. This is where the presence of the developer communities come into the picture and can be of great help as a connecting platform. AWS re:Post The big tech firms surely know of this need and have come up with such communities/forums to address issues that developers may face. Just a few days back, tech mammoth Amazon introduced AWS re:Post, a question and answer (Q&A) service. It is a part of the AWS Free Tier system and will involve crowd-sourced, expert-reviewed answers to any technical questions about AWS. In a blog post, Amazon said that community members will be able to earn and build up their community expert status by providing accepted answers and reviewing answers from other users. There are so many such developer communities that exist already which are immensely popular among software developers. Some common ones are: Stack Overflow – Started in 2008, it is a question and answer format for programmers with a wide range of resources on topics in computer science and programming.Google Developer Groups – Google Developer Groups have documentation on using Google developer tools and APIs along with discussion groups and blogs for developers using Google’s products.Meta Developer Circle – Here, members receive coaching from experts and interact with peers working in the same space. Meta says that each developer circle is managed by a developer community leader who hosts local events, supports an online Facebook group built for it and shares the updates on Meta products.Kaggle – It is one of the known platforms for data scientists and machine learning engineers. It allows participants to publish data sets, build models and enter data science competitions too.Microsoft developer communities – Tech giant Microsoft, too, has developers communities for Azure, Game Devs, Power Apps, and Security, among others.GitHub – It is one of the most popular platforms to host open source projects which sees reviews, comments and improvements from developers globally. Why build such communities A tech firm can have different reasons to actively participate in developer community building. Some of them include: Community building, sense of togetherness Essentially, we all want to belong somewhere with like-minded people having common skills, knowledge and goals. A person may be working in a company catering to its needs and be completely isolated from all the potential happenings by not engaging with the right people. Tech firms usually built such platforms to bring in the feeling of belonging and sense of togetherness. Solve faster, knowledge sharing As new things keep happening in technology everyday, it is not possible for every developer to know everything. A community of professionals working in the same domain can be a great source to reach out to, if one faces an issue with the code and its deployment. Developers around the world forming a part of the community can check and review the problem posted by an individual and come up with solutions quickly. This can greatly accelerate the work of a developer, which, in turn, will be of immense help to the business in terms of time and money. Open Source platforms ensure good networking opportunities From the perspective of developers, it is a great way to build and advance their career. Developers can learn new skills from their peers, understand what skills will be needed to upgrade, and get insights inside new job openings, among others. Tech giants can expand their footprint and establish their brand name One of the biggest reasons for tech firms to create such developer communities is to build their brand name. As the developer communities become more and more popular and their goodwill spreads over word of mouth, it helps to solidify the company’s image in front of a global audience – be it clients or customers. Companies, then, can expand their footprint to newer regions as the goodwill is already created in the customer’s mind. Identifying the right talent fit Often, such developer communities can be the goldmine for tech firms to find the right talent for their company. These companies may host hackathons and competitions to identify the people with the required skills for a job role in the company. Developer communities are an essential part of learning for professionals now. They can greatly help developers reach the right people at the right time for their software related needs.
With the rise in the need for developers in business models, there also is a need for platforms where developers can connect and learn
With the rise in the need for developers in business models, there also is a need for platforms where developers can connect and learn
["code", "developer community", "review", "Technology"]
["data science", "Go", "API", "machine learning", "AWS", "AI", "R", "Git", "Technology", "code", "developer community", "review", "GitHub", "Azure"]
["AI", "machine learning", "data science", "AWS", "Azure", "R", "Go", "Git", "GitHub", "API"]
I am a technology journalist at AIM. What gets me excited is deep-diving into new-age technologies and analysing how they impact us for the greater good.

Reach me at sreejani.bhattacharyya@analyticsindiamag.com