Measuring Developer Productivity at Meta

"Measuring developer productivity is fundamental now that we're observing the largest change in software engineering in a decade. I'm happy we have our traditional productivity metrics in a good place so we can better observe the effect of AI." 

Moritz Beller is a software engineering researcher at Meta, and in this episode of the Hangar DX podcast, he talks to Ankit Jain, CEO and co-founder of Aviator, about how Meta came up with their foundational metric DAT - Diff Authoring Time, why time is one of the least gameable metrics, how AI-assisted development changes the meaning of “productivity,” and why investments in tooling drive far more value than surface-level optimizations.

00:00 Introduction 
01:04 Understanding Developer Insights at Meta
04:42 Defining Diff Authoring Time (DAT)
07:48 Evolution of DAT: From Version 1 to 6
11:17 Telemetry and Data Collection for Productivity
14:01 Challenges in Measuring Software Engineering Productivity
15:56 Impact of AI on Software Development Metrics
17:48 Case Studies: Productivity Gains from Metrics
22:26 Counterintuitive Findings in Productivity Metrics
24:43 The Challenges of Measuring Productivity
30:04 Qualitative Feedback and Developer Insights
33:28 Advice for Engineering Leaders on Data-Driven Practices
35:14 Future of Productivity Measurement in Software Engineering

About Moritz Beller 
Moritz is a software engineering researcher at Meta. 

In 2024, she began a part-time Master’s of Engineering in Software Engineering at the University of Auckland, researching the impact of AI on the profession itself. His interest lies in creating and empirically evaluating tools that help developers be more productive.

About Hangar DX (https://dx.community/)
The Hangar is a community of senior DevOps and senior software engineers focused on developer experience. This is a space where vetted, experienced professionals can exchange ideas, share hard-earned wisdom, troubleshoot issues, and ultimately help each other in their projects and careers.

We invite developers who work in DX and platform teams at their respective companies or who are interested in developer productivity.