Why Developers Hate Your Marketing Copy
And what you can do about it.
TL;DR
Developers don’t hate marketing.
They hate marketing that wastes their time, insults their intelligence, or hides the truth.
If your copy sounds amazing but explains nothing, you’ve already lost them.
Table of Contents
- The Developer Mindset
- The Most Common Copy Crimes
- Buzzwords Developers Actively Avoid
- A Real Example (Bad vs Good)
- What Developers Actually Want
- How to Fix Your Copy
- A Quick Checklist
- Final Thoughts
The Developer Mindset
Developers are trained to think in terms of:
- Inputs and outputs
- Constraints
- Trade-offs
- Failure modes
They read documentation, RFCs, and error messages all day. When they encounter marketing copy, they subconsciously ask:
- What problem does this solve?
- How does it work?
- What’s the catch?
- Will this break in production?
If your copy doesn’t answer these, they assume the worst.
The Most Common Copy Crimes
1. Saying Everything Means Nothing
“An AI-powered, next-generation, scalable solution for modern teams.”
That sentence contains zero actionable information.
2. Hiding the How
Developers don’t trust magic.
If you say:
- “No setup required”
- “Works out of the box”
- “Just integrates seamlessly”
They immediately think:
Cool. Until it doesn’t.
3. Talking to Executives, Not Users
Many landing pages are written for buyers, not users.
| Executives Care About | Developers Care About |
|---|---|
| ROI | Latency |
| Market leadership | API limits |
| Vision | Error handling |
| Strategy | Debuggability |
If developers feel ignored, they disengage.
Buzzwords Developers Actively Avoid
- Synergy
- Revolutionary
- Disruptive
- Best-in-class
- Game-changing
These words trigger the same reaction as a compiler warning:
⚠️ This is probably lying.
A Real Example (Bad vs Good)
❌ Bad Marketing Copy
Our platform leverages cutting-edge AI to deliver seamless performance and unparalleled scalability for your business.
✅ Good Developer-Friendly Copy
Our API uses a stateless architecture with request-level isolation.
Average response time is 42ms at p95 under a 10k RPS load.
Horizontal scaling is handled via Kubernetes HPA.
Same product. Completely different reaction.
What Developers Actually Want
Developers don’t want to be sold.
They want to be informed.
They look for:
- Clear problem statements
- Honest limitations
- Concrete examples
- Technical specificity
Even this tiny detail helps:
{
"rate_limit": "1000 requests/minute",
"auth": "OAuth 2.0",
"regions": ["us-east-1", "eu-west-1"]
}