Affiliate Marketing for Devs: Do It Right or Don't Do It at All

I made $47 from my first affiliate link. Then I felt terrible about it. It was 2019, and I'd just recommended a coding course to my newsletter subscribers. Twenty-three people bought it through my link, earning me a commission. Instead of feeling excited, I felt like I'd somehow tricked my audience into buying something. The guilt lasted weeks. That experience taught me something valuable: affiliate marketing isn't inherently evil, but it's incredibly easy to do wrong. After three years of experimenting (and making plenty of mistakes), I've learned how to approach it in a way that actually helps people while building trust instead of destroying it. Why Developers Make Natural Affiliates (But Often Terrible Ones) We have a weird advantage in affiliate marketing. Our audiences trust our technical opinions. When we recommend a tool, framework, or service, people listen because they know we understand the underlying tech. But here's where most of us screw up: we treat affiliate marketing l