There are plenty of lists out there for the tech lover, dog lover, fashion lover, coffee lover—but what about that hard-to-shop-for developer?
Here are a few ideas:
A Docker Thermos
Everyone just loves that cute whale, even if they don’t know what Docker is. We also know how much caffeine is consumed by the average developer. You can buy it at their cafe press store.
A GitHub Octocat Sticker Pack
I bet you’ve seen this weird little squidy looking cat somewhere. It stares at you with that cute whiskery face through one of the several hundred stickers on your partner’s laptop. Help them deck up their naked electronics and vehicles with a Octocat sticker pack! I guarantee the other developers will be super jealous.
IFTTT Deployment Love Button
Impress that important person in your life by showing off your IFTTT skills. While they’re immersed in writing script, they’ll get an email reminding them how much you care. If they’re really smart, they’ll take it as a hint to bring ice cream home for dinner.
Raspberry Pi
Rarely does a developer get to enjoy the thrill of building something with their hands. With this handy dandy $5 slice of Pi, they can craft their own teeny super computer without breaking the bank. Also, the photo below is much larger than the actual Pi… whoooaaaa (a la Keanu Reeves).
The Continuous Delivery Book
This is the book that started a movement. No, seriously. David Farley and Jez Humble helped create the DevOps bible. It’s quoted in almost every article, at every conference, and in every office.
10 Port USB Charging Station
The DevOps lifestyle peeps are sometimes early adopters. They have smart watches, smart phones, smart headphones, smart luggage, smart shoes, smart this and smart that. Well, what’s not so smart is the lack of USB outlets to charge them all at once. Fret no more with this multiple port charging station!
Hopscotch
Do you have a junior DevOps person in your life? Look no further than Hopscotch, where a usually wasted hour on your family iPad can turn into a programming lesson. Great if you hope for your kid to support you later in life, which we all secretly yearn for.
Big Red Button
Continuous Delivery can be really unsatisfying (in a good way). Bring a little more action to it by getting them a BIG RED BUTTON for their deployments. They’ll feel like Dr. Evil every time they push it.
Cord Clippy Thingy
Ridiculously useful clippy thingies for all those cords that slip off your desk. You’ll even want them for yourself, so go ahead and buy a second set while you’re at it.
Laptop Desk
Ease your neck pain and stop reaching three feet to grab your coffee with one of these fancy pants bamboo laptop desks. It even features a little drawer to store your candy in for when you’re too tired to go to the kitchen and get it yourself. Bonus: it doubles as a breakfast-in-bed table for those weekends that you’re significant other makes you that awesome omelet you love so much.
Sound Canceling Headphones from Bose
There’s the 'innie' crowd and the 'outtie' crowd, but we chose the 'outties' for one very important reason: people will know to leave you alone if they can see these on your head. Bam! That combined with the power of the noise cancelation and it’s like you’re in your very own deprivation chamber.
An earlier version of this article was published in Continuous Delivery, a Medium publication.
Disclaimer: The statements and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Thoughtworks.