Developer experience is less well-known and sometimes given less importance in businesses than user experience. This common word defines the experience of users when using an application. Similarly, developer experience describes the interactions and emotions of developers when utilizing or working on a product to achieve a specific objective. A positive developer experience is crucial to improving developer effectiveness and organizational success. The term "developer experience" refers to all facets of a developer's engagement with a company, its resources, and its systems. Although everyone has distinct preferences, there are several aspects that all developers seem to agree increase work satisfaction, productivity, and retention. As a project manager, if you are wondering what specific actions you can do to enhance the developer experience for your team, then this article is for you. Below are product management tips for a better developer experience:
Creating a Team Where Developer Experience is a Priority
Getting the proper individuals working on your team is ultimately your job, regardless of how effective a leader you are or how hard you work. The infinite sum approach is a feature of the team that puts the developer experience first. The team's approach to enhancing the developer experience depends on the idea that it is an endless game with numerous opportunities for various players to triumph. A group that believes in the infinite sum would be willing to help developers produce and deploy more quickly by enhancing the developer experience.
Creating a Developer Portal
The developer portal, also called the application programming interface (API), serves as a bridge between API providers and API consumers. Using an API, you may configure how several software programs communicate with one another. The documentation for utilizing the API should be available on the API portal. The purpose of an API site is to promote API innovation and developer interaction. People are more likely to embrace and utilize a product with effective communication. So creating an API with easily accessible documentation enhances the entire development experience.
[Source](https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/compute/deploying-a-personalized-api-gateway-serverless-developer-portal/)
An API needs to be a central location where programmers can locate, access, research, and test out the API. Developers should be able to browse through the API directory, register for API keys, and access documentation and sample code at the very least. You can create a developer portal in several ways. Utilizing 3scale is one option. It has many administrative capabilities and automatically builds the developer portal. Another option is the Swagger Framework, which comes with a comprehensive CMS and features for making interactive documents.
Debugging
The built-in debugger capability integrated in programming environments like Visual Studio Code, IntelliJ Idea, and WebStorm makes them more accessible. A built-in debugger for web apps is a feature offered by all popular browsers. The program must make it simple to debug during runtime to improve developer experience.
Increase the Feedback Loop
Feedback allows you to respond to client needs and adapt to changes. Let’s say you were required to design a new user interface with an auto-complete field and a sophisticated search function. After completing the implementation, you should ask for input. Technically speaking, a short feedback loop reflects the implemented changes as rapidly as possible. With an integrated linter, your IDE will alert you to problems as you type during build time. However, the feedback loops for problems that first become apparent during run-time are the slowest.
Avoiding Time Wasters
There should be a few time-consuming things that slow down the process. Hardware no longer appropriate for the development task falls under this category. You must consider if your team has more proficiency with specific instruments or frameworks.
Programming Language Selection
Use TypeScript instead of JavaScript if you are a front-end developer and want to simplify your life. The support of IDEs, such as WebStorm, and the type safety provided by TypeScript speed up the discovery of numerous mistakes, such as attribute access to an undefined or null value. Additionally, TypeScript gives more capabilities than JavaScript, like you can not use JSX Factories, recursive conditional types, and template literal types with JavaScript.
Software Architecture
A simple architecture may cause more trouble down the road, but a complicated one will cause more problems throughout. These are things to remember while designing and implementing your software. An architecture that is challenging to comprehend or utilize frustrates developers and affects their experience. If the experience of working on your project is unpleasant, a skilled developer will go to another opportunity. But if he likes your design, it will show in the final product.
Scaffolding Tools
You may utilize the available scaffolding tools to speed up the project setup process. They produce code and offer a finished product that one can use as the basis for additional work. Modern frameworks come with their own unique and fantastic scaffolding tools. For scaffolding, Angular, Vue, and React frameworks each feature a separate command-line interface (CLI). Scaffolding technologies from AWS and NestJS, such as the AWS CDK CLI, are helpful on the server side. Yeoman is another tool that enables developers to produce and distribute their scaffolding blueprints.
Conclusion
Developers are happier, more productive, and less likely to quit their employment when they have a positive developer experience. It results in an improvement in the product's dependability, quality, and production. However, increasing the enjoyment and happiness at work also relies on other factors besides the technical aspects discussed in this article, including a non-toxic work environment and psychological safety within the team. I hope this article helped you gain a new perspectives to help you consider what matters for you when creating a positive development experience.