DevEx in Action A study of its tangible impacts

Abstract

Somewhere, right now, a software developer is pulling open a ticket from the project backlog, excited by the prospect of working on something new. As the developer begins reading through the description of the task, their laptop is suddenly flooded with alerts from the team's production error-tracking system, disrupting the developer's ability to focus. Eventually, returning to the task at hand, the developer studies the requirements described in the ticket. Unfortunately, the task lacks context and clarity, so the developer asks for help, which will take days to resolve. Meanwhile, the developer checks on a previous task, which has been stuck in the queue waiting for approval for several days. The tests and builds repeatedly flake out, halting the progress of reviewers each time they attempt to verify the changes. As the developer hops from task to task, hoping finally to immerse in some deep work, they realize that today's experience isn't as good as it should be to allow for their best work. For many professional software developers, this anecdote is all too similar to their daily experiences. Friction is abundant, the development lifecycle is riddled with red tape, and successful delivery of code to production is a frustratingly infrequent event. Even worse, the problems keep compounding. Developers look on helplessly as upper management fails to intervene, leading to standstill velocity and the departure of top engineers. How is it that organizations end up in this predicament? Today, DevEx (developer experience) is garnering increased attention at many software organizations as leaders seek to optimize software delivery amid the backdrop of fiscal tightening and transformational technologies such as AI. Intuitively, there is acceptance among technical leaders that good developer experience enables more effective software delivery and developer happiness. Yet, at many organizations, proposed initiatives and investments to improve DevEx struggle to get buy-in as business stakeholders question the value proposition of improvements. "What is developer experience?", many of them challenge. "And why does it matter?".