The best of engineering enablement in 2024
The top newsletter issues and podcast episodes from this year.
Welcome to the latest issue of Engineering Enablement, a weekly newsletter sharing research and perspectives on developer productivity. This issue recaps the most popular newsletters and podcast episodes from this year.
2024 was another eventful year for developer productivity, as we saw companies continuing to focus on efficiency with intense attention on AI and making right-sized platform bets.
In this year-end issue, I’ve collected my favorite newsletter issues and podcast episodes from this year and organized them by topic.
Adopting AI tools
The impact of AI tooling on engineering at ANZ bank: Results from a structured Copilot experiment show users completed tasks 40% faster and found "hard" tasks less difficult. Metrics included the average time spent on tasks and developers’ self-reported difficulty of those tasks. Link.
Copilot productivity gains at a Fintech company with 2K+ engineers: This company measured the number of PRs merged and self-reported time savings, comparing Copilot users to non-users. Active Copilot users delivered 25% more PRs than non active users. Users also reported saving at least 1 hour per week thanks to the tool. Link. Additionally, this company found that providing a structured trial with support and training made a meaningful impact on long-term adoption and satisfaction. Link.
How Google identifies use cases for AI tools: They use their developer survey to identify problems impacting productivity, then use that data to inform where to make AI investments. Link.
2024 DORA report: A key finding from this year’s report was that while AI helps individual productivity, it hurts software delivery performance. Link.
🎧 Measuring and rolling out AI coding assistants: Eirini Kalliamvakou, staff researcher at GitHub, shares findings from her research on how AI coding assistants impact productivity. Link.
Platform engineering
How top tech companies measure developer productivity: A breakdown of top-level metrics used by DevProd teams at 17 companies, including Etsy, Notion, and Peloton. Link.
When to establish a developer productivity team: Insights into when 20 companies hired their first dedicated DevProd team. Link.
Platform vs DevEx teams: Responsibilities of 14 Platform and DevEx teams, with an analysis of how their roles differ. Link.
🎧 CTO buy-in, measuring sentiment, and customer focus: Snowflake leaders share how developer productivity became a company-wide priority and the changes they made. Link.
🎧 Bootstrapping a developer portal at DoorDash. An inside look at DoorDash’s journey with their developer portal. Link.
Frameworks and benchmarking data
Introducing the DX Core 4: A new unified framework for measuring developer productivity that encompasses DORA, SPACE, and DevEx. Link.
Applying the SPACE framework: How to think about and apply the SPACE framework. Link.
State of Developer Experience report: Findings from a survey with 900 developers and over 1,000 engineering leaders, including the amount of time developers lose due to inefficiencies and the disconnect between leaders’ and developers’ perspectives. Link.
🎧 The science behind DORA: Derek DeBellis, lead research on Google’s DORA team, takes us through DORA’s research process step by step. Link.
🎧 SPACE framework, PRs per engineer, and AI research: Brian Houck, Applied scientist for developer productivity at Microsoft, discusses activity metrics—including why they were included in the SPACE framework, his thoughts on measuring pull request throughput, and more. Link.
Thanks for reading. If you’re finding this newsletter valuable, share it with a friend or spread the word on LinkedIn.
This is the final issue of the Engineering Enablement newsletter in 2024. Enjoy the holidays, and I’ll see you in January.
-Abi