Developer experience
“The best way to help developers achieve more is not by expecting more, but by improving their experience.”
–Nicole Forsgren, Founder of DORA metrics and Partner Research Manager, Microsoft
What is developer experience (DevEx)?
Empowering developers
For years, organizations have focused on boosting developer productivity to accelerate their business. However, focusing only on developer productivity can have negative consequences such as burnout, mistakes, and decreased retention.
The paradigm has shifted. The prominent conversation is no longer about outcomes like developer productivity or developer velocity, it's now about how to achieve these outcomes in sustainable ways using developer experience (DevEx).
DevEx is about helping developers not only write code, but write code in an environment that is optimized for writing code.
Nicole Forsgren, Partner Research Manager, Microsoft
Why is DEVEX important?
Optimizing DevEx improves business outcomes
Measuring DevEx
Introducing the SPACE framework
The SPACE framework offers a new holistic way of understanding and assessing the developer experience. “Productivity is about more than the individual or the engineering systems; it cannot be measured by a single metric or activity data alone... The SPACE framework was developed to capture different dimensions of complex concepts like productivity and developer experience.”
–Nicole Forsgren, Founder of DORA metrics and Partner Research Manager, Microsoft
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Satisfaction: How fulfilled do developers feel with their work, team, tools, or culture?
Wellbeing: How healthy and happy are developers?
Example metrics• Developer satisfaction
• Developer retention
• Engagement
• Burnout -
Evaluate the outcome of a system or process. Performance is difficult to quantify because there are so many variables.
Example metricsQuality of code:
• Reliability
• Absence of bugs
• Ongoing service healthImpact of code:
• Customer satisfaction
• Customer adoption and retention
• Feature usage
• Cost reduction -
Understand the number of actions or outputs completed in the course of performing work.
Example metrics
• Number of code reviews completed
• Coding time
• Number of commits
• Lines of code
• Story points completed
• Deployment frequency -
Capture how people and teams communicate and work together.
Example metrics• Code review score (quality or thoughtfulness)
• Pull request merge times
• Quality of meetings
• Discoverability of documentation and expertise -
Gauge how well developers and teams can make progress on their work or complete it without interruptions or delays.
Example metrics• Developer's perceived ability to stay in flow and complete work
• Code review timing
• Number of handoffs between people/teams in a process
• Number of interruptions
Latest DevEx research
Learn how to help developers thrive
DevEx tools
Modern developer tools to optimize DevEx
Streamline development with tools that work together, right out of the box.
DevEx quick check
DevEx maturity quick check
Use this quiz to determine the DevEx maturity of your organization and receive guidance on how to improve.
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If yes:
Move onto 02.If no:
Understanding your developers' pain points is the first step to improving your DevEx.Recommended next steps:
Run a survey with your developers and ask them questions like:
- What is the hardest part about doing your work, and why?
- When thinking about your development tools and processes, what is the biggest barrier to your productivity?
- If you could change one thing about the way our team builds software, what would it be?
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If yes:
Move onto 03.If no:
DevEx is multi-faceted, so it requires a multi-faceted framework to understand it—that's why we invented the SPACE framework. It considers five dimensions of DevEx: satisfaction and well-being, performance, activity, communication and collaboration, and efficiency and flow.To assess your DevEx, we recommend tracking metrics/KPIs across at least three dimensions of SPACE.
To learn more about the SPACE framework and to see example metrics from each dimension, read the research paper.
Recommended next steps:- Learn about the SPACE framework.
- Select three dimensions of SPACE to prioritize in your organization (they should align to your developer pain points).
- Select or create metrics for each of those three dimensions.
- Implement a method of tracking those metrics over time (for example, a DevEx dashboard) and use them to assess the impact of your DevEx efforts. Adjust your approach accordingly.
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If yes:
Move onto 04.If no:
It's important to define clear, realistic goals for each metric. In addition, it's important that these goals align with your developer pain points.It can be challenging to set your goals. Some choose to reference metrics from other high-performing teams or companies, some reference industry benchmarks. It's also important to note that your goals can change over time to reflect continued improvement.
To learn more about how to quantify the impact of DevEx and the possible ROI, read our blog and research paper.
Recommended next steps:- Set clear, realistic goals for each of your DevEx metrics.
- Hold quarterly meetings to examine these metrics and review your DevEx progress.
- Adjust your DevEx efforts and investments based on the impact you're seeing.
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If yes:
Move onto 05.If no:
The only way to improve your DevEx is to improve the way your developers work. Usually, this means investing in tools that make their lives easier or streamlining key processes. For increased effectiveness, we recommend focusing and tracking your DevEx improvement work with the metrics you've identified.Here are some tips to guide your DevEx investments:- Remove toil from your workflows. Developers who cite “inefficient work processes” as a top work challenge are 2x as likely to report feeling unproductive and 67% more likely to be looking for other jobs. Streamlining planning and work management processes and improving compliance workflows can be an effective way to reduce developer toil.
- Get modern development tools. This can also reduce toil. Modern tools like GitHub Copilot can help developers complete tasks up to 55% faster and reduce the amount of time spent on routine tasks like documentation.
- Shift security left. By prioritizing security earlier in the software development lifecycle, organizations can address issues before they reach production, reducing costs and saving developers time. Modern developer tools can help with this by scanning for vulnerabilities during code creation.
Recommended next steps:- Begin improving the way your developers work by investing in new tools or streamlining processes in alignment with their pain points and your DevEx metrics.
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If yes:
Move onto Continue your journey.If no:
Sometimes, organizations make the mistake of holding their developers accountable for their DevEx, but this is unfair because developers do not design their company's toolchain or processes—the leadership team does.DevEx initiatives should be spearheaded by the leadership team with the explicit goal of improving the experience of their developers, and the leadership team should be held accountable for the success of those initiatives.
This is not to say that developers should not be involved with DevEx initiatives. These initiatives are designed to address developer pain points, so of course developers should be consulted and involved throughout the process, but at the end of the day, the leadership team should be held accountable for improving DevEx in their organization.
Recommended next steps:- Establish DevEx champions on the leadership team to spearhead DevEx efforts.
- Hold quarterly reviews to examine your DevEx metrics and assess your progress.
- Include developers at all stages of the DevEx journey, their input is invaluable.
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Your DevEx is more mature than most, but the journey is never complete. Stay ahead of the competition by reading our latest DevEx research and exploring modern developer tools that can improve DevEx.
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Begin your DevEx journey today
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Learn more at the DevEx Lab
Explore the latest DevEx publications from Microsoft and GitHub's joint research lab.
Get expert help
If you'd like Microsoft's guidance on optimizing DevEx, contact our sales team and they will put you in touch with the proper resources.
Explore the SPACE framework
For a deep dive on measuring DevEx, read the full SPACE framework research paper.