# Why I love building developer products

DevFeed: [Why I love building developer products](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/why-i-love-building-developer-products-41212.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://www.craigkerstiens.com/2019/03/12/why-i-love-building-developer-tools/>)

Author: Map

Published: 2019-03-12T20:55:56Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Craig Kerstiens](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/craig-kerstiens.md>)

Topics: [Software](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/software.md>), [coding](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/coding.md>), [systems](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/systems.md>), [scaling](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/scaling.md>), [service](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/service.md>)

Tags: [developer](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/developer.md>), [developer-products](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/developer-products.md>), [opinions](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/opinions.md>), [philosophies](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/philosophies.md>), [product](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/product.md>), [scaling](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/scaling.md>), [software](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/software.md>), [systems](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/systems.md>)

## AI overview

An opinion piece explains why the author enjoys building developer-focused products. It highlights the potential for software and systems to improve life at scale, the challenge of serving skeptical developers, and the author's personal familiarity with developer-product work.

## Source excerpt

For much of my career I've been focused on building out developer or data focused products with the customer in some form or fashion being a developer on the other end. I fully realize now that I'm destined to spend the rest of my career in that space, either that or trying my hand at wine making. There are a few things that I personally find rewarding about the space that I've shared with a number of people individually lately and thought I would share more broadly. First, software really is eating the world. Often developers and entrepeurs ask about what they could build that would be a good business. The reality is about anything that has not been modernized to as a service and improved with software could be. We have far less developers in the world than we need to execute on all the ways we could improve products and life. To me what is interesting is the last part of that last sentence. It is not that the market for developers is huge, which I do believe it is. It more that when we automate with systems we can get amazing economies of scale. I know folks that reminisce and talk about how we're more stressed being always connected and such and that in the old days people got out and worked the fields and enjoyed the sun. They also absolutely physically exhausted their bodies in the process. The ability to make life better at scale is an interesting one and often done through systems we develop. The second reason is the challenge and the reward. Developers are notoriously tough critics. If it feels/smells like marketing then they have an allergic reaction, and that is probably because much of it is done poorly. If they experience really positive/great marketing they latch on more than the average person. Most developers are by nature a bit skeptical... for some reason this resonates with me. But, I've found they are the largest/biggest supporters once they're excited about something. Personally I'd rather folks more critical and then have a few diehard fans than a