Evolution of the Developer Led Landscape and Future trends
What led the Developer Tool landscape to explode? ...and how long will the fireworks last?
The number of software engineers in the world has increased from 15 million in 2010 to 25 million in 2020 and is expected to increase to 45 million by 2030. That’s a humble growth rate of 5% - 6% per year
In contrast, anybody not living under a rock can vouch for the meteoric rise that software and software first companies have seen over the same time period. Software has created hundreds of high-growth, high-margin, highly-defensible businesses. If numbers are what you believe, the global Information Technology industry was estimated to be worth $5.2 trillion in 2020!
Marc Andreessen’s 2011 prediction that “Software is eating the world” seems to have come true
How did this happen? How did software eat the world with just 2X as many software engineers today as 10 years ago?
Developers today have super powers
While the number of developers may not have grown exponentially, the powers that software developers wield today is almost supernatural. Just for ease of visualization, think about the transformation of the foot soldier from a medieval knight to modern infantry to Ironman!
Software engineers today are equipped with an enormous toolkit that helps them write insanely powerful code, insanely fast. This has created a whole industry of software tools that are sold to, purchase-influenced by, or consumed by software developers. We call this the Developer-led Landscape.
Rise of the Developer led Landscape
The number of companies/products in this space has been increasing steadily over the least three decades. Overall, the Developer-led Landscape accounts for products that generate somewhere between $49B - $95B in annual revenue and account for over $0.5 trillion in enterprise value. Additionally, this market has been growing at 22% - 28% CAGR y-o-y
While the exponentially growing demand for software has been the over arching trend, the growth of the Developer-led landscape can be mapped to three key factors:
1. Advancements in Programming Infrastructure
2. Innovations in Digital Technologies
3. Transformations in Industry Dynamics
To put it mathematically, (since everyone loves a good equation):
Advancements in Programming Infrastructure: A major driver has been the pursuit of developer productivity and productization of repetitive coding tasks. This has led to the rise of tools that made life easier and software development faster for developers. From, higher-level programming languages (such as Python and Javascript) to Integrated Development Environments (such as Eclipse, Visual Studio and IntelliJ IDEA) to Frameworks and Libraries (such as React, Angular, and Vue.js), developers today are able to build exponentially faster than two decades ago
Innovations in Digital Technology: The second dimension that has fueled the growth of the Developer led landscape are major technological advancements in digital infrastructure: Mobile platforms, Cloud computing, API infrastructure, Big data analytics, Blockchain technology and so on
2.1. The Flywheel effect
Every major innovation in technology has led to the rise of a whole new class of developer tools aimed at helping developers adopt the technology and advance it to the next level. This phenomenon has a flywheel effect where new technologies are getting adopted significantly faster in present times, which consequently pushes the boundaries of innovation and leads to further advancement of new technologies
For instance, the widespread adoption of API infrastructure led to the rise of API-specific tooling, making it easier and faster to build API products. As API products became ubiquitous, it led to the emergence of L2 tools that help manage API infra
As Cloud computing became all pervasive, thousands of developers tools emerged to help build and manage apps on the Cloud
Transformations in Industry Dynamics: Today major businesses and industries are being run on software and delivered as online services. Entrepreneurial, technology first companies are challenging incumbents for their role in defining the future. At the epicenter of this revolution are developers and developer tools
This has given rise to a whole class of verticalized developer tools and APIs that are tapping into industry specific opportunities and solving industry specific problems
Future outlook
The developer tool landscape is only going to get busier and more complex! As new technologies continue to emerge, it will bring waves of tools that help developers adopt those technologies and innovate. Here are 5 trends that we believe will lead to future waves of developer tooling:
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI, ML)
Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR, VR)
Blockchain technology (web3)
Internet of Things (IOT)
Quantum computing
The world is yet to realize the full potential of these technologies. Wide spread developer adoption and open innovation is the only way ahead, if we are to mine these technologies to the fullest. And for that to happen, a wave of developer tooling will be required that makes it easier for anyone to start building using these technologies
Another, major trend that has already taken root and will only amplify going forward is the emergence of specialized and super-specialized domains within software development. To help this sink in, consider the following Developer Roles that did not exist as recently as ten years ago:
Cloud Architect
DevOps Engineer
DevSecOps
Data Engineer
ML Ops Engineer
As new technologies emerge, the role of the developer will continue to become more specialized and complex, and the toolkit has to keep pace.
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