Engineering Enablement by Abi Noda Leveraging sentiment data, driving org-wide action, and executive engagement
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Jan 31, 2025 David Betts, leader of Twilio’s developer platform team, shares his expertise in leveraging developer sentiment data to enhance platform engineering. He discusses the shift from traditional metrics to sentiment-driven insights and the innovative tools his team created for CI/CD workflows. David elaborates on aligning platform investments with organizational goals and highlights the importance of real-time feedback over quarterly surveys to boost developer experience. His insights reveal how to capture actionable data that resonates with executives and proves ROI.
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From Deploys to Developer Platform
- David Betts joined Twilio through the Segment acquisition and initially led the "Deploys" team.
- This team evolved into the Developer Platform team, focusing on release engineering, infrastructure enablement, and developer enablement using Backstage.
Building Custom CD Tooling
- Twilio uses BuildKite for CI and a custom-built tool called Shipwright for CD within their Kubernetes-based environment.
- They moved away from fragmented, engineer-specific deployment solutions.
Shifting to Sentiment-Based Data
- Twilio shifted from traditional system metrics to sentiment-based data for driving platform improvements.
- This aligns with Twilio's "ask your developer" value and yielded high survey response rates.
