Leveraging Developer Productivity Engineering Practices for Greater Impact as an IC

Hey, my name is Mikhail Levchenko. I've changed my job and became a full-time developer productivity engineer. Let me share a little story. Imagine being a wealthy trader in 15th century Europe. Delivering spices for profit was not an easy task. Middle East nations heavily taxed any traders. But the Portuguese sailed around Africa using the Mariner's Astrolabe. Fast forward, Gerardo Mercator invented a map perfectly suited for deep ocean navigation. The Dutch East India Company became the new king of the spice trade. Developer productivity is about building a cozy environment for developers, solving hard problems, and identifying process bottlenecks. It focuses on the whole development process as a product. By leveraging this perspective, you can drive change among developers and other roles. Observing developer processes as a product involves meeting stakeholders, formulating a vision, creating a model and metrics, finding productivity problems, and proposing solutions. The stakeholders include developers, CEOs, CTOs, engineering managers, and other roles involved in software development. The goal is to make everyone more productive, guided by the motto of happier developers building better software faster. There are three highlighted frameworks in this talk: DORA, DEVX, and Mertrix. DORA focuses on speed and reliability with metrics like acceleration frequency, lead time, failure rate, and recovery time. DEVX addresses the human factor with metrics related to feedback loops, cognitive load, and flow state. DX4 is a recent metric that combines DORA and DEVX, introducing proprietary metrics for top management. It includes a failure rate to encompass reliability and a percentage of time spent on new features. Engineer-developed metrics like the reliability metrics from Dora and the percentage of time spent on new features are valuable additions. Talking to top management about changes is made easier with a cool metric. Research concerning metrics, consult stakeholders, and read literature to improve understanding. Try prototypes before developing custom tools as a last resort. Confirm success with empirical metrics. Release managers often feel constantly interrupted and overwhelmed by the task of supervising a release. Sharing the role with the entire team proved to be ineffective, leading to forgotten procedures. Automation and streamlining of the release process improved satisfaction and reduced delayed releases. Make developer productivity part of company goals and culture code. Advocate for developers to top management. Drive change by starting small, experimenting, and using tools as a last resort. Find ways to make teammates more productive.