The Pragmatic Engineer

Measuring the impact of AI on software engineering – with Laura Tacho

422 snips
Jul 23, 2025
Laura Tacho, CTO at DX and expert in developer productivity, joins to dissect AI’s reality in software engineering. She reveals insights from her research across 180+ companies, emphasizing that AI's benefits aren't always as clear as advertised. They delve into why developers resist AI tools and how oversimplified media portrayals mislead perceptions. Laura highlights the significance of measuring developer experiences before AI rollouts and discusses how AI-generated documentation varies from human writing, challenging traditional productivity metrics.
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INSIGHT

AI Saves Time Analyzing Stack Traces

  • Developers save more time using AI for stack trace analysis than for mid-loop code generation.
  • AI excels where there's structured pattern, but less so for novel code generation tasks.
INSIGHT

AI Can Decrease Developer Satisfaction

  • AI speeds up coding tasks developers like, but leaves undesired tasks more apparent.
  • This can reduce overall developer satisfaction despite time savings.
ADVICE

Architect for AI and Humans

  • Create clear service boundaries and clean interfaces to improve AI tooling effectiveness.
  • Adapt documentation for AI with code examples rather than visual dependencies for better AI assistance.
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