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Problem with selling developer tools is that devs have no purchasing authority

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Re: Problem with selling developer tools is that devs have no purchasing authority

#131

Post by al_borland »

flakeoil wrote: post #26
animuchan wrote: post #21

So true. Getting a Copilot subscription for $10/mo was an uphill battle. My daily supply of coffee alone costs the company more that that.

Wow, they must use expensive coffee beans.

When I was in an office of about 200 people, the facilities manager told me the coffee machine cost him $60k/year. That doesn’t include the coffee people brewed outside of using that machine. That works out to about $25/person/month. That assumes everyone drinks coffee from that machine, which they did not.

I also heard that number at least 10 years ago, so I’m sure that price has only gone up.

Re: Problem with selling developer tools is that devs have no purchasing authority

#132

Post by rendall »

kmac_ wrote: post #40

It depends on the company. One company I worked for had a policy of "Just buy what you need that makes your work easier: books, licenses, and even hardware. Management time spent on decisions is too expensive, so we default to instant approval." Did developers go on a buying spree? No, the same amount of stuff was bought as before the policy. And it did make life easier.

Similar experience. Everyone got a credit card and was encouraged to use it.

Re: Problem with selling developer tools is that devs have no purchasing authority

#133

Post by sys_64738 »

kmac_ wrote: post #40

It depends on the company. One company I worked for had a policy of "Just buy what you need that makes your work easier: books, licenses, and even hardware. Management time spent on decisions is too expensive, so we default to instant approval." Did developers go on a buying spree? No, the same amount of stuff was bought as before the policy. And it did make life easier.

> Management time spent on decisions is too expensive, so we default to instant approval.

This is the problem. Management inserting themselves into any and every decision. People think management are there to help but they cause more problems than they solve. They are truly incompetent at best and a better idea is to fire a few managers and use their salaries as the discretionary budget. Win-win.

Re: Problem with selling developer tools is that devs have no purchasing authority

#134

Post by sys_64738 »

rrr_oh_man wrote: post #71
redditor98654 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix?

Don’t hire idiots and assholes and this policy becomes pretty self policing.

This rarely works as it requires a strong personality to set the standard. That's a lot of trust in developers otherwise.

Re: Problem with selling developer tools is that devs have no purchasing authority

#135

Post by bartonfink »

usrusr wrote: post #121
kmac_ wrote: post #40

It depends on the company. One company I worked for had a policy of "Just buy what you need that makes your work easier: books, licenses, and even hardware. Management time spent on decisions is too expensive, so we default to instant approval." Did developers go on a buying spree? No, the same amount of stuff was bought as before the policy. And it did make life easier.

I really like that idea and I don't want to suggest that it can't ever work, but the sudden purchase frenzy that did not happen is far from the only failure mode. Leave it running a decade or two and things might look very different. Slow, invisible expenses creep and in the end you have a culture where those who spend a little slower than others are shamed into buying stuff just to make the others not look wasteful.…

> "leave it running a decade or two"

What expense policy survives a decade or two completely unreviewed and unexamined? The rest of the bullshit you spewed isn't worth reading after that bizarre hypothetical.

Re: Problem with selling developer tools is that devs have no purchasing authority

#136

Post by vinay_ys »

I've been a decision maker on $100M+ of engineering hardware/software/services spend per quarter and here's my perspective on this problem:

1. If you are making developer tools, make sure current/existing developers find it super useful and are strong advocates for your tool.

2. Make sure you don't tick any of the 'veto' boxes – there are a few – opaque contracts, lockins, data security/privacy challenges, sso/auth integration challenges etc.

3. Make sure your pricing makes sense – if it scales linearly with some variable it is likely not going to make sense in some finance spreadsheet. A simple per developer per month fee makes a ton of sense. A site-wide floating seat license makes even more sense. For some, a lumpsum fee for site wide unlimited license makes even more sense. On the last option, you can still charge for your consumables – cloud compute/storage charges you incur – just pass it on as-is. Even better if you can deploy to customer's cloud account directly (that solves for all data privacy/security issues as well).

4. Provide sufficient cost controls – put an upper limit on billing, put an upper limit on usage. don't let anyone turn on any knob that can result in expensive usage charges etc. Also provide sufficient usage reporting facilities.

5. If you do a good job, you can sign multiyear contracts with committed spend. Make sure your service is reliable and you do a quarterly check-in with your large account customers to understand if they are happy or have specific unmet needs.

6. Remember, you can provide and charge for whiteglove professional services (dedicated butts in seat engineers, support etc). This is highly lucrative and also sometimes critical to win and keep certain types of customers. Sometimes your product is controversial inside the customer's company and there maybe detractors who will make your product fail. By having professional services do the initial integration/implementation job you can ensure your product reaches its intended users without much meddling from the IT gatekeepers.

7. Don't bother trying to sell something that a customer strongly believes they can build in-house (even if they are wrong). Even if you win initially, you will lose eventually.

Re: Problem with selling developer tools is that devs have no purchasing authority

#137

Post by calvinmorrison »

jimnotgym wrote: post #5

Nearly right. I don't think many sales and finance people have that kind of authority either. That's why you see everyone using the company tools or free tiers. You need to sell to peoples bosses. Save time, make projects more transparent, take away freedom, that sort of thing. This is probably why Excel is so ubiquitous. Also that Excel is the most powerful tool that Corporate IT will let you have. Try and get Corpo…

Even as a boss getting tools approved can be a hassle to sell to higher ups. 80/mo per user is practically free compared to payroll but is aways a hurdle.

Re: Problem with selling developer tools is that devs have no purchasing authority

#138

Post by sys_64738 »

cjk2 wrote: post #78
elric wrote: post #25

I only had this issue the one time while I was an employee: I wanted a Thinkpad, but management insisted I got a shitty Dell. In the end, they got me a Thinkpad. Other than that, whenever I've asked for a book or some tool, I simply got it, even expensive split keyboards. Now that I'm self employed, I just buy what I need. Which isn't much, really. Very few "developer tools" are useful enough to spend money on, let a…

Corporate life... I got a shitty Dell. It broke. I got another shitty Dell. That broke. I got another shitty Dell. That broke. I got a shitty Dell. BUT WE ONLY HAVE A CONTRACT WITH DELL. Perhaps you shouldn't have a contract with Dell? Silence. Then the brain gets going. You realise the best bits of your life are when the Dell breaks because it takes 5 days for them to work out how to send a new one out through the l…

Companies like Dell hit every market segment from 150$ crap laptops through 4 hour on-site service support. It's all down to the support contract your organization has and which product segment they're buying from.

Re: Problem with selling developer tools is that devs have no purchasing authority

#139

Post by spicyusername »

jt2190 wrote: post #129
bjt12345 wrote: post #86

I purchase my own software licences and claim it on tax. Because it's a false economy. I've won awards at work, became indispensable on certain projects, and have been given pay rises, choose the work I want to do, through finding the affordable right tools for the job and purchasing them. My Jetbrains licenses are a classic example of this. I couldn't imagine refractoring code without it. If the cost cutting stopped…

> … claim it on tax. How does a U.S. employee (exempt, W2 form) do this?

And how do you get above the standard deduction... Jetbrains is like $200 / year. Only $27,500 more to go!

Re: Problem with selling developer tools is that devs have no purchasing authority

#140

Post by netman21 »

jt2190 wrote: post #129
bjt12345 wrote: post #86

I purchase my own software licences and claim it on tax. Because it's a false economy. I've won awards at work, became indispensable on certain projects, and have been given pay rises, choose the work I want to do, through finding the affordable right tools for the job and purchasing them. My Jetbrains licenses are a classic example of this. I couldn't imagine refractoring code without it. If the cost cutting stopped…

> … claim it on tax. How does a U.S. employee (exempt, W2 form) do this?

If you qualify for itemized deductions, which you do if you have a mortgage, you can claim things you need for professional development, etc. Subscriptions are a good catch-all. The IRS meant magazine subscriptions, but...
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