The industry often treats engineers as if they are manual laborers, but knowledge work does not function that way.
Engineers have a limited capacity for deep focus work, typically around four hours a day.
Metrics that prioritize more hours of work do not necessarily lead to increased output in knowledge work.
The value that engineers produce should be properly defined and measured.
Matthew and Luke lead Extend’s Developer Experience team, a team that has approached their work in a way that is more forward-thinking than most. In this episode, they cover how they deliver impact at multiple levels of the organization, their journey with productivity metrics, and how they’ve made DevEx a C-level concern.
Discussion points:
(1:40) How the DevEx team started and where it fits at Extend
(5:08) Tradeoffs of DevEx reporting into Platform
(6:40) The mandate and tasks they focus on
(12:07) The impact of learning and development efforts
(16:33) How to drive team-level improvements
(18:44) Why developer experience is becoming more prevalent
(26:17) How they made DevEx a C-level concern
(30:27) Their journey with productivity metrics
(33:10) Advice for presenting DevEx data to executives
(34:52) The team’s experience using git metrics tools