Engineering Enablement by Abi Noda
DX
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This is a weekly podcast focused on developer productivity and the teams and leaders dedicated to improving it. Topics include in-depth interviews with Platform and DevEx teams, as well as the latest research and approaches on measuring developer productivity. The EE podcast is hosted by Abi Noda, the founder and CEO of DX (getdx.com) and published researcher focused on developing measurement methods to help organizations improve developer experience and productivity.
Available episodes
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Oldest first
Nov 22, 2023
Building an internal developer platform at CVS Health | Jim Beyers (CVS Health)
This week's episode is with Jim Beyers, VP of Engineering Enablement at CVS Health. Jim joined CVS a year ago to lead an effort to build an internal developer platform. Abi and Jim discuss how Jim joined CVS to build an internal developer platform, what brought him to the job, and how the developer experience fits into the broader transformation goals of CVS. Additionally, this episode covers building the team, defining a strategy, and how he's thinking about winning the hearts and minds across his organization.
Discussion points:
* (1:15) How Jim was brought into CVS
* (2:39) How DevEx aligns with CVS’s transformation initiatives
* (6:06) Jim’s vision for developer experience
* (8:26) Building a DevEx team and working with product managers
* (15:06) Defining and communicating a DevEx strategy
* (19:37) Assessing Backstage and developing a platform
* (24:40) Working with developers and leaders
* (27:55) Working alongside colleagues tackling similar problems
* (29:26) Reporting on progress
Mentions and links:
* Jim Beyers on LinkedIn
* Jim’s talk on the Target Application Platform
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Nov 15, 2023
The Platform PM role at Spotify | Nils Loodin (Spotify)
This week we spoke with Nils Loodin, Platform Product Manager at Spotify. Nils describes how his role in platform product management works, including unique challenges, approaches, and career considerations. Nils also discusses some of the recent changes within Spotify's platform organization, including shifting teams from tech-centric to journey-centric.
Discussion points:
* (1:30) How Nils came into his role
* (3:59) How “developer experience” came into the picture at Spotify
* (5:30) How the Platform team is structured
* (8:52) Unique challenges of the Platform PM role
* (12:51) Defining the Platform PM’s focus
* (16:39) Staying close to their customers
* (21:09) Optimal background for someone in this role
* (24:43) Attracting PMs into Platform roles
* (29:40) How it is that Spotify’s leadership invests in developer experience
* (31:19) How a recent reorg shifted Platform’s focus
* (41:29) Improving onboarding for mobile engineers
* (47:33) Measuring onboarding
Mentions and links:
* Connect with Nils on LinkedIn
* The product management discipline in platform teams | Russ Nealis (Plaid)
* Spotify’s Engineering blog
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Nov 8, 2023
Evolving platform and enablement at Thomson Reuters | Justin Wright, Matthew Dimich (Thomson Reuters)
This week we’re joined by Justin Wright and Matthew Dimich, who lead Platform Engineering and Engineering Enablement at Thomson Reuters. Justin and Matt give an inside look at how they’ve evolved their organization’s structure and approach over the past 8 years.
Discussion points:
* (1:03) Founding the platform team
* (5:49) The current organizational structure
* (9:00) Key initiatives the platform organization is focused on
* (12:55) The enablement function within platform
* (16:44) What drove the engagement function’s growth
* (19:42) The value of having an enablement function
* (24:05) Marketing the enablement team’s work
* (29:47) How enablement interfaces with other platform teams
* (33:22) Managing the work enablement focuses on
* (36:55) The balance of requests vs proactive work
Mentions and links:
* Connect with Justin and Matt on LinkedIn
* Manuel Pais’ Platform as a Product talk
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Oct 25, 2023
Key findings from the 2023 State of Devops Report | Nathen Harvey (DORA at Google)
This week’s episode dives into the DORA research program and this year’s State of DevOps Report. Nathen Harvey, who leads DORA at Google, shares the key findings from the research and what’s changed since previous reports.
Discussion points:
* (1:10) What DORA focuses on
* (2:17) Where the DORA metrics fit
* (4:35) Introduction to user-centric software development
* (8:05) Impact of user-centricity on software delivery
* (9:40) Team performance vs. organizational performance
* (13:50) Importance of internal documentation
* (15:19) Methodology for designing surveys
* (19:52) Impact of documentation on software delivery
* (23:11) Reemergence of the Elite cluster
* (25:55) Advice for leaders leveraging benchmarks
* (28:30) Redefining MTTR
* (33:45) Changing how Change Failure Rate is measured
* (36:45) Impact of AI on software delivery
* (41:25) Impact of code review speed
Mentions and links:
* Connect with Nathen on LinkedIn
* Listen to the previous episode with Nathen
* Read the 2023 State of Devops Report
* The DORA Quick Check
* Blog post: Documentation is like sunshine
* Join the DORA community
* DevEx: What Actually Drives Productivity
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Oct 18, 2023
Atlassian’s journey with developer experience | Preeti Kota (Atlassian)
This week we’re joined by Preeti Kota, the Head of Engineering for Compass at Atlassian. Preeti walks us through Atlassian’s journey with developer experience: including how they measure DevEx, and how they drive improvements through efforts at both the organization and team levels. Preeti also talks about how this journey has led to the development of Atlassian’s newly released internal developer portal, Compass.
Mentions and links:
* Learn about Compass, Atlassian’s newly released internal developer portal
* Connect with Preeti on LinkedIn
* Atlassian’s CTO, Rajeev Rajan, on the key to unlocking developer productivity
Discussion points:
* (1:43) Where Atlassian’s journey with developer experience began
* (5:36) Who is championing the focus on DevEx at Atlassian
* (9:30) How the company arrived at their level of investment in DevEx
* (13:47) Defining developer experience
* (18:19) How the program for improving developer productivity is structured
* (21:19) The Developer Productivity Champions group
* (23:53) Two metrics in focus: Self-serve documentation and self-serve dependency maintenance
* (25:56) How Atlassian surveys developers
* (29:59) Types of projects the centralized teams tackle
* (31:19) Getting buy-in for investing 10% time toward DevEx projects
* (33:13) How leaders get teams to feel they have permission to invest 10% of their time toward DevEx projects
* (36:19) The backstory behind Compass, Atlassian’s new product
* (38:10) What Compass is, who it’s for, and how it is unique
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Sep 27, 2023
Shopify’s developer happiness survey | Mark Côté (Shopify)
This week we’re joined by Mark Côté, who leads the Developer Infrastructure organization at Shopify, to learn about their developer survey program. Mark shares what went into designing and running the survey, what they’ve done to drive participation rates higher, and how they interpret their data.
Mentions and links:
* Follow Mark on LinkedIn
* Read Shopify’s engineering blog
Discussion points:
* (1:32) Starting the survey
* (3:20) How the survey has evolved
* (4:22) Three types of information gleaned from the survey
* (7:37) Designing and running the survey
* (12:28) Participation rates
* (15:12) Why there's an increase of interest in the results at Shopify
* (17:42) What's affecting participation rates
* (23:03) Selecting survey questions
* (27:01) Refining survey questions
* (28:54) Survey length
* (30:56) Analyzing the results
* (33:31) How the data is stored and shared
* (35:56) Sending targeted surveys to the right developers
* (37:40) Using the results as a Developer Acceleration organization
* (39:29) Confidence in the data
* (41:27) The value of a developer survey
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Aug 22, 2023
Leading platform engineering at Trivago | Thomas Khalil (Trivago)
Thomas Khalil, Head of Platform and SRE at Trivago, describes how the teams reporting into him are structured, the tactics they’re using to increase awareness of their work, and how they demonstrate their impact.
Discussion points:
* (1:17) The pillars of the Central Platform organization
* (2:18) The organization’s focus on time to market and efficiency
* (3:09) The differences in developer experience between teams
* (4:37) Deciding whether to consolidate services
* (5:57) How platform, developer experience, observability, and SRE teams interact
* (8:40) How these problems were being tackled previously
* (10:09) A failed attempt at rolling out Backstage
* (13:48) How SRE squads are organized
* (15:39) How to motivate platform teams
* (17:23) Demonstrating the impact of the organization
* (18:42) How the data is collected
* (22:32) How they’re increasing awareness for their work
* (23:42) The DevEx pillar
* (25:46) How the DevEx roadshow will work
* (27:56) How DORA metrics fit into their measurement program
Mentions and links:
Connect with Thomas on LinkedIn
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Aug 16, 2023
Enabling teams to drive their own productivity improvements | Jenny McClain (Toast)
This week’s guest is Jenny McClain, who leads R&D Team Enablement at Toast. Jenny’s team focuses on enabling individual teams at Toast to drive their own productivity improvements, and this conversation dives into how they tackle this problem.
Discussion points:
* (1:19) How the R&D Enablement team works
* (2:50) Why the team was formed
* (4:31) The types of work the team focuses on
* (7:31) Identifying the problems this team would solve
* (11:23) How team embeds work
* (17:19) The learning resources the team develops and maintains
* (20:55) Who creates and maintains the learning resources
* (23:10) How enablement stays connected with teams at scale
* (25:51) How the team plans work with qualitative and quantitative measures
* (29:37) Formats for sharing knowledge between teams
* (33:05) How other companies can think about the enablement function
* (37:40) Enablement as a career path
Mentions and links:
Follow Jenny on LinkedIn
Tuckman’s stages of group development
Working Agreements template from Steve Sobel, Director of Engineering at Toast - one of the resources featured in Toast’s Team Health Toolkit
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Aug 2, 2023
How Google measures developer productivity | Ciera Jaspan, Collin Green (Google)
This week we’re joined by Ciera Jaspan and Collin Green, who lead the Engineering Productivity Research team at Google. Ciera and Collin have written several papers from studies they’ve conducted, and this discussion covers the insights from their research as well as their work more broadly at Google.
Discussion points:
* (1:19) About the Engineering Productivity Research team
* (3:57) How the team interacts with the rest of the organization
* (5:58) The different backgrounds included on the team
* (13:11) How Google measures developer productivity
* (18:54) Evaluating discrepancies between qualitative and quantitative data
* (28:40) Google’s quarterly developer survey
* (32:02) Distributing survey results back to the organization
* (40:25) Misunderstandings about surveys
* (43:51) Ciera and Collin’s paper on why measuring productivity is difficult
* (50:35) Reductionist metrics for measuring productivity
* (55:26) Examples of other fields that have struggled with measurement
* (59:00) Google’s study on measuring technical debt
* (1:08:05) Human judgment in measurement
Mentions and links:
Follow Ciera and Collin on LinkedIn
A Human-Centered Approach to Measuring Developer Productivity - Paper, Abi’s summary
Enabling the Study of Software Development with Cross-Tool Logs - Paper
Defining, Measuring, and Managing Tech Debt - Paper, Abi’s summary
Google’s Goals, Signals, Metrics framework - Paper, Abi’s summary
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Jul 12, 2023
A customer service approach to improving DevEx | Jason Kennedy (One Medical)
This week we’re joined by Jason Kennedy, Senior Engineering Manager of Developer Experience at One Medical. Jason’s team takes a uniquely customer-driven approach to improving the developer experience, and in this episode he describes their philosophy and how it works in practice. Jason explains how they shadow developers, how they run surveys, and more.
Discussion points:
* (1:02) Renaming from Engineering Efficiency to Engineering Experience
* (4:17) How Platform and DevEx teams differ
* (5:38) How One Medical’s approach to customer experience inspires this team’s work
* (7:01) Mapping out the developer journey
* (11:14) Jason’s career transition from VPE to a line manager role
* (14:14) Challenges some companies face with getting buy-in for a DevEx team
* (16:22) Taking a customer service approach to DevEx
* (19:12) Jason’s experience with DORA metrics
* (22:19) Lessons learned about ownership
* (24:18) The “Gemba” practice used at One Medical
* (28:02) How information from the Gemba practice is stored
* (30:59) Using weekly polls to surface pain points
* (34:03) Tracking trends in the poll
* (35:00) Using a quarterly NPS survey for overall sentiment
* (37:08) How sentiment is measured and evaluated
* (41:44) The biggest challenges with surveys
Mentions and links:
Follow Jason on LinkedIn
Listen to the podcast episode with Jasmine James
Book about Disney: Be Our Guest
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Jun 13, 2023
Behind the scenes with Extend’s developer experience team | Matthew Schrepel and Luke Patterson (Extend)
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
* (48:30) Being rigorous in leveraging metrics
Mentions and links:
Connect with Matthew…
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Jun 7, 2023
Platform teams vs enabling teams | Manuel Pais (Team Topologies)
Manuel Pais delves into one of the concepts covered in his book “Team Topologies”: platform and enabling work. Manuel shares how he views the strategy behind when and how to invest in platform or enabling work. This conversation also goes into each type of work in more detail, covering topics such as measuring cognitive load and where platform engineering may be heading in the future.
* (2:13) How enabling teams and platform teams are different
* (10:28) What it looks like for a team to own both platform and enabling work
* (17:04) How to deliver enabling work in an organization
* (22:28) Whether enabling teams should be temporary
* (30:10) Platform team anti-patterns
* (47:10) Measuring cognitive load
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May 24, 2023
A close look at Peloton’s developer experience survey | Thansha Sadacharam (Peloton)
Thansha Sadacharam, who leads Tech Learning and Insights at Peloton walks us through the journey of building the company’s developer experience survey. She shares what went into the survey’s design, rollout, and maintenance, as well as the different teams involved.
Discussion points:
* (1:19) Where the idea for running a developer survey originated
* (6:36) Advice for other leaders getting buy-in for these initiatives
* (11:27) The first steps in designing the survey
* (18:21) How the survey incorporated benchmarking
* (20:30) Measuring developer satisfaction
* (22:37) Refining the question items
* (25:50) How long the survey was
* (26:50) What was involved in trimming the questions
* (29:28) Writing survey questions
* (33:12) How much time was spent developing the survey
* (35:19) The communication plan for launching the survey
* (42:05) Driving participation rates
* (45:21) Sampling and how often surveys are being sent
* (49:21) How the information w…
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May 16, 2023
A better way to measure developer productivity | A special episode with Laura Tacho and Abi Noda
In this episode, Abi is interviewed by Laura Tacho about the new paper he co-authored with Dr. Nicole Forsgren, Dr. Margaret-Anne Storey, and Dr. Michaela Greiler. Abi and Laura discuss the pitfalls of some of the common metrics organizations use, and how the new paper builds on prior frameworks such as DORA and SPACE to offer a new approach to measuring and improving developer productivity.
Discussion topics:
* (2:20) Laura’s background
* (3:59) Laura’s view on git metrics
* (11:05) What developer experience (DevEx) is
* (14:37) How the authors came together for this paper
* (18:55) How DORA and SPACE are different
* (22:38) Limitations of DORA metrics
* (24:43) Employing the DORA metrics at GitHub
* (27:47) What the SPACE framework is
* (30:44) Whether to use DORA or SPACE or both
* (33:54) Limitations of the SPACE framework
* (37:29) The need for a new approach
* (38:46) What the new DevEx paper solves
* (40:13) The three dimensions of developer exper…
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May 2, 2023
The developer experience of building a database | Tara Hernandez (MongoDB, Google)
Tara Hernandez, the VP of Developer Productivity at MongoDB, joins the podcast to give an inside look at what the developer experience looks like at an organization that develops a database. Here, Tara shares what it looks like to develop, test, and release changes at MongoDB, while also providing insight into how the company invests in developer productivity more broadly.
Discussion points:
* (0:57) What was going on at the time Tara joined
* (4:37) Tara’s perspective on the buzz of platform engineering
* (7:38) What’s involved in building and testing a database
* (10:11) The development environment at MongoDB
* (13:14) How testing works
* (16:50) What the release process looks like
* (19:27) What goes into performance testing a release
* (21:31) MongoDB’s investment in engineering enablement
* (22:39) Takeaways from working on databases
* (24:24) Affecting cultural change
* (26:40) Opportunities Tara’s team identified to change culture
* (29:12) Mana…
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Apr 25, 2023
How teams use productivity metrics at LinkedIn | Max Kanat-Alexander (LinkedIn, Google)
Max Kanat-Alexander, the Tech Lead for the Developer Productivity and Insights Team at LinkedIn, shares an inside look at LinkedIn’s metrics platform and how teams across the organization use it.
Discussion points:
* (1:31) Why Max shares how his team is measuring productivity
* (3:20) Why some teams use metrics and some don’t
* (6:03) The types of metrics Max’s team focuses on
* (12:59) The role of TPMs
* (17:05) How Max would measure productivity if he weren’t at LinkedIn
* (25:04) Surprises in how teams are using metrics at LinkedIn
* (31:27) The tooling required to enable metrics for teams to use
* (36:41) Qualitative versus quantitative metrics
* (40:39) Measuring code quality at Google
* (46:16) Whether a centralized team should own measurement
Mentions and links:
Connect with Max on LinkedIn or Twitter
Read the article, Measuring Developer Productivity and Happiness at LinkedIn
Listen to the first interview with Max and his colleague Or Michael Ber…
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Apr 18, 2023
Inside Etsy’s multi-year DevEx initiative | Mike Fisher (Etsy, PayPal)
Mike Fisher, the former CTO at Etsy, spearheaded a multi-year developer experience initiative aimed at improving developer happiness and efficiency during his time at Etsy. Here, he shares the story of that initiative, including the pillars of the program and the investment that went into it. Towards the end of the conversation, Mike also shares his perspective on measuring developer productivity.
Discussion points:
* (1:31) What was happening at Etsy when Mike joined
* (4:08) The scaling challenges Etsy faced
* (6:08) Deciding on the term “developer experience”
* (9:35) Whether developer experience is a new approach
* (11:24) The pillars of Etsy’s DevEx initiative
* (15:49) Converting the length of time required for this initiative
* (18:11) The investment allocated to the initiative
* (20:04) Talking about the ROI of devex initiatives
* (22:50) Who was actually leading this work
* (24:37) Etsy’s experience with platform teams
* (30:42) Advice for leade…
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Apr 4, 2023
Implementing a developer portal | Karl Haworth (American Airlines)
Karl’s team at American Airlines were early adopters of Backstage, and in this episode he shares their journey of implementing and rolling out a developer portal. He also describes two of the extensions his team has built for their portal.
Discussion points:
* (1:24) Where the idea of building a developer portal came from
* (7:24) What the developer experience looked like before the portal
* (10:41) Initiating the project
* (14:16) The decision to choose Backstage
* (16:28) The V1 scope for the portal
* (19:14) Getting adoption for the portal
* (23:35) Defining success for the portal’s adoption
* (28:04) The ideal state for how developers will use the portal
* (30:56) Who should or shouldn’t invest in building a developer portal
* (33:14) Custom extensions Karl’s team has developed for their portal
* (37:46) What’s difficult about developing a new plugin for the backstage platform
Mentions and links:
Follow Karl on LinkedIn
The Runway platform at…
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Mar 28, 2023
Bringing the product management discipline to platform teams | Russ Nealis (Plaid)
As product lead, Russ Nealis has been focused on introducing the discipline of product management in the Developer Foundations organization. This episode discusses the reasons why PMs are currently uncommon in platform organizations, examples of when having a PM has been helpful, and more.
Discussion points:
* (1:23) Russ’s role at Plaid
* (2:49) Why platform product managers are uncommon
* (3:28) Backgrounds to look for when hiring a platform PM
* (4:58) Deciding whether to hire a platform PM
* (6:20) Signs that bringing in a Product Manager would be beneficial
* (9:16) How Russ personally became a platform PM
* (12:15) Whether a platform PM is a career path
* (14:55) Articulating the business impact a platform PM has
* (18:56) Challenges Plaid’s platform team has faced without a PM
* (19:19) Symptoms of a need for product management in an internal-facing team
* (30:15) Whether Twilio had platform PMs
* (31:22) Example projects where PMs have been crucial…
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Mar 7, 2023
Intercom’s approach to a great on-call experience | Brian Scanlan (Intercom)
In this deep-dive episode, Brian Scanlan, Principal Systems Engineer at Intercom, describes how the company’s on-call process works. He explains how the process started and key changes they’ve made over the years, including a new volunteer model, changes to compensation, and more.
Discussion points:
* (1:28) How on-call started at Intercom
* (10:11) Brian’s background and interest in being on-call
* (14:06) Getting engineers motivated to be on-call
* (16:37) Challenges Intercom saw with on-call as it grew
* (19:53) Having too many people on-call
* (23:20) Having alarms that aren’t useful
* (26:03) Recognizing uneven workload with compensation
* (27:22) Initiating changes to the on-call process
* (30:08) Creating a volunteer model
* (33:02) Addressing concerns that volunteers wouldn’t take action on alarms
* (34:40) Equitability in a volunteer model
* (36:36) Expectations of expertise for being on-call
* (40:56) How volunteers sign up
* (44:15) Th…
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Feb 15, 2023
How Instagram Reels manages reliability | Jack Li (Instagram, Shopify)
Jack Li explains how his production engineering team rolled out a new incident review process, how they’ve made the case for investing in reliability, and specific tools his team has built to improve reliability.
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Discussion points:
* (1:25) How Jack became interested in reliability
* (3:24) Where the Instagram Reels team fits into the broader organization
* (4:05) What Jack’s team focuses on
* (4:55) The role of production engineering at Instagram versus Shopify
* (8:32) The essence of DevOps
* (10:44) Pros and cons of having product-focused teams
* (13:35) How Jack’s team defines and tracks quality
* (15:46) Signals the team monitors outside of systems
* (18:10) Revamping Instagram Reel’s incident management process
* (19:46) Making the case for improving the incident review process
* (28:10) How their incident review process works
* (31:55) The roles involved in an incident review
* (33:40) The value of having incident reviews
* (35:55) Why…
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Jan 24, 2023
A masterclass on DORA – research program, common pitfalls, and future direction | Nathen Harvey (Google)
Nathen Harvey, who leads DORA at Google, explains what DORA is, how it has evolved in recent years, the common challenges companies face as they adopt DORA metrics, and where the program may be heading in the future.
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Discussion points:
(1:48) What DORA is today and how it exists within Google
(3:37) The vision for Google and DORA coming together
(5:20) How the DORA research program works
(7:53) Who participates in the DORA survey
(9:28) How the industry benchmarks are identified
(11:05) How the reports have evolved over recent years
(13:55) How reliability is measured
(15:19) Why the 2022 report didn’t have an Elite category
(17:11) The new Slowing, Flowing, and Retiring clusters
(19:25) How to think about applying the benchmarks
(20:45) Challenges with how DORA metrics are used
(24:02) Why comparing teams’ DORA metrics is an antipattern
(26:18) Why ‘industry’ doesn’t matter when comparing organizations to benchmarks
(29:32) Moving beyond DORA metrics to o…
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Jan 17, 2023
An inside look at the SPACE framework | Dr. Margaret-Anne Storey (co-author, SPACE)
This week's guest is Dr. Margaret-Anne Storey, who goes by the name Peggy. Peggy is a professor of Computer Science at the University of Victoria, the Chief Scientist at DX, and co-author of the SPACE Framework, which is the topic of focus in this episode. Today’s conversation discusses what the SPACE framework is and what went into developing the metrics and categories. Peggy also shares where she sees this line of research heading next.
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Discussion points:
(1:29) Peggy’s background
(4:01) What the SPACE framework is
(5:55) Why the researchers came together for this paper
(7:27) The process of writing this paper
(9:52) How the SPACE categories and acronym emerged
(11:50) The authors’ intention for how this framework would be received
(13:26) Finding a definition for what developer productivity is
(17:08) The metrics included in the SPACE framework
(24:48) How SPACE is different from DORA
(26:17) Why lines of code and number of pull requests were included as example metrics…
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Jan 10, 2023
Spotify’s failed #SquadGoals | Jeremiah Lee (Spotify, Stripe)
This week’s guest is Jeremiah Lee, who was previously a manager at Stripe and product manager at Spotify. This conversation focuses on org structure, and specifically Jeremiah’s experience with the popular squad model from Spotify. Jeremiah provides the backstory on where the model came from, what parts of the model were a challenge, and advice for leaders either already adopting the model or considering doing so.
Discussion points:
(1:40) What the Spotify model is
(4:39) Jeremiah’s impression of the Spotify model as he joined the company
(7:29) Spotify’s progress in adopting the model as Jeremiah joined
(9:55) Challenges with matrix management
(12:02) The role of engineering managers
(14:40) What the model was designed to solve
(15:54) Good autonomy versus toxic autonomy
(18:51) How Agile coaches were used at Spotify
(21:39) Advice for teams who are struggling to implement the Spotify model
(24:50) Advice for leaders who are starting to think about org design
(27:3…
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Jan 4, 2023
How much to invest in platform work | Jean-Michel Lemieux (Shopify, Atlassian)
Jean-Michel Lemieux, former CTO of Shopify and VP of Engineering at Atlassian, explains how to advocate for investing in platform work, which projects to fund, and what distinguishes a great platform leader.
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Discussion points:
(1:38) Jean-Michel’s definition of platform work
(6:44) Why reliability, performance, and stability do fall within platform work
(7:24) The consequences of lacking a product mindset in platform
(9:20) Why and how to advocate for investing 50% of R&D spend in platform work
(12:31) How Jean-Michel arrived at 50% as the percentage of R&D spend that should be allocated to platform
(16:09) Jean-Michel’s experiences with different levels of investment in platform work
(21:59) What percentage of platform investment should go towards keep the lights on work
(24:01) Whether the allocation changes at different company stages
(27:05) Why platform work is consistently underinvested in
(29:00) Why having a platform team could be an anti-pattern
(32:32) Ho…
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Dec 19, 2022
Principles for driving adoption and platform team growth | Jonathan Biddle (Wayfair)
Jonathan Biddle, Director of Engineering Effectiveness at Wayfair, shares the story of how his team found repeat success and subsequently grew in size and scope. He shares lessons they’ve borrowed from startups, including understanding the adoption curve and knowing your core users, and offers advice for other platform teams looking to move to the next stage.
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Discussion points:
(01:15) How Jonathan moved into his role
(05:30) Why Platforms teams are in a position of leverage, but also ambiguity
(07:18) The initial work Jonathan’s team focused on
(10:07) Creating transactional versus recurring value
(11:36) The difference between startups and platform teams
(14:12) Expanding the team’s scope and rebranding to Developer Acceleration
(18:20) What drove the platform team’s success
(21:05) Three adoption concepts to understand
(24:41) Knowing your core customers
(27:36) Adoption metrics and feedback gathering mechanisms
(33:37) When to mandate adoption or rely on org…
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Dec 13, 2022
Leading infrastructure change at scale | Ian White (DAT)
Ian White, Director of Platform Engineering at DAT, joined the company to scale their Kubernetes-based cloud infrastructure, which has come under stress as their business has grown over the past couple years. Here he shares how he partnered with developers to learn about their challenges, how we conveyed a vision for how the company needed to evolve, and how he’s been working with development teams and business stakeholders to successfully drive change.
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(01:00) - The challenges DAT was facing as Ian joined
(05:13) - How Ian used customer interviews to understand problems
(10:48) - The typical journey companies take as they scale their infrastructure as they grow
(16:20) - How early changes were positioned and received
(20:00) - The four personas Ian identified
(25:14) - How Ian evangelized the vision
(28:48) - Areas of pushback Ian foresees as they introduce new changes
(33:00) - Handling teams that want to stay on self-managed infrastructure instead of moving to a manag…
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Dec 7, 2022
Positioning platform work in a down market | Brian Guthrie (Orgspace, Meetup)
Brian Guthrie, co-founder and CTO at Orgspace and former VP of Engineering at Meetup, has the unique experience of having previously decommissioned his Platform team. In this episode, Brian talks about that story openly, and shares advice for Platform teams to make sure they’re well positioned within their organizations.
Discussion points:
* Brian’s background and story at Meetup - [00:02:20]
* Brian’s perspective on Platform work, generally - [00:06:40]
* The conversation around dissolving the Platform group - [00:12:05]
* Advice for Platform groups positioning their teams - [00:16:55]
* Making sure Platform groups are focused on the right problems [00:21:21]
* How Platform groups can think about communicating with the business [00:23:50]
* Bringing engineering teams into the planning process - [00:25:43]
* Deciding to build vs buy in a down market - [00:28:40]
* How developer happiness is part of positioning platform work [00:32:30]
Follow Brian:
* Brian…
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Nov 30, 2022
A deep-dive on real-time feedback and personalized surveys | Max Kanat-Alexander, Or Michael Berlowitz (LinkedIn)
Max Kanat-Alexander and Or Michael Berlowitz (Berlo), share how they gather both periodic and real-time feedback from developers.
Discussion points:
* Overview of the listening channels used by Max and Berlo’s team - [00:00:58]
* Origin story of the Developer Engagement and Insights team - [00:02:49]
* Perspectives on volume metrics - [00:05:00]
* How the periodic surveys work - [00:08:51]
* Investment required to build the periodic surveys and real-time feedback - [00:14:20]
* How results are handled - [00:15:28]
* How the real-time feedback tool works - [00:21:40]
* Where the idea for the real-time feedback tool came from - [00:25:15]
* Building an MVP for the real-time feedback tool - [00:028:58]
* Other stakeholders involved in triaging feedback - [00:35:40]
* The experience developers have when encountering the real-time feedback tool - [00:37:34]
* How feedback collected via surveys differs from that of the real-time feedback tool - [00:40:44]
* Advi…
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Oct 26, 2022
How to define your team's scope and charter | Mark Côté (Shopify)
Mark Côté, Director of Engineering of Developer Infrastructure at Shopify, explains an exercise the Infrastructure group went through to define their boundaries of work. He shares their areas of focus, the team’s guiding principles, how they use their developer happiness survey to decide what to prioritize, and more.
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Discussion points:
(0:48) Mark's background
(1:43) How the Developer Acceleration org is structured
(4:43) The Infrastructure team's chart
(5:35) Three opportunities for impact
(7:49) Identifying the opportunities for impact
(10:51) Why they created a charter
(17:34) Infrastructure's guiding principles
(19:32) How they decide what to focus on
(21:44) Why they don't have product managers
(24:17) Ideas for reducing cognitive load
(29:05) Balancing customer requests with strategic roadmap items
(32:08) How Shopify's Developer Happiness survey works
(35:32) Who is involved in the Dev Happiness survey
(36:51) The survey's sampling strategy
(37:30) How t…
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Oct 12, 2022
Dropbox's journey with developer productivity metrics | Utsav Shah (Vanta, Dropbox)
Utsav Shah, who leads Platform at Vanta and previously led Developer Effectiveness at Dropbox, shares the story of Dropbox’s journey with measuring developer productivity. Utsav discusses what he learned about both system and survey-based measures, his opinion on the usefulness of common Git metrics, and more.
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Oct 5, 2022
Using customer interviews to inform your roadmap | Michael Galloway (Doma, Netflix)
Michael Galloway (Doma and ex-Netflix) describes his process for interviewing developers to understand where his team should focus. He also explains how he thinks about the strategic value of a Platform team.
Resources mentioned:
* Customer Interview Guide
* Customer Interview Questions
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Sep 28, 2022
Establishing a DevEx team in a high-growth company | Willie Yao (Notion, Airbnb)
In this episode, Willie Yao, Head of Infrastructure at Notion and former Head of Developer Infrastructure at Airbnb, provides a unique perspective on how Developer Experience teams work in hypergrowth companies. He shares how Airbnb developed a customer-first mindset internally, what it took to get Airbnb’s leadership invested in that effort, and how he’s approaching DevEx at Notion today.
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Sep 13, 2022
A model for managing requests and complaints from developers | Jasmine James (Twitter)
Twitter’s Developer Experience team is more mature than most. Here, Jasmine James, a Senior Engineering Manager - Developer Experience, explains how her team manages support requests, why they consider personas as part of their prioritization, and how they present the ROI of the team’s work.
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Sep 1, 2022
From DORA to SPACE to DX - A Fireside Chat with Nicole Forsgren
In this special episode, Dr. Nicole Forsgren, author of award-winning book Accelerate and co-author of "The SPACE of Developer Productivity", talks about her work with DORA, the inspiration behind the SPACE framework, and how she's thinking about developer experience.
Watch the on-demand fireside chat or read the announcement of Nicole joining DX as a strategic advisor.
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Aug 24, 2022
The people side of engineering and an open conversation about Agile | Brent Strange (GoDaddy)
Brent Strange, Director of Engineering Excellence at GoDaddy, has a unique perspective on the role of an internal enablement team because he focuses more on the people and processes instead of tooling. Here he shares his perspective on org structure, as well as the role of agile coaches and his response to some of the negative views that exist towards Agile.
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Aug 10, 2022
Moving Slack's development experience to remote environments | Sylvestor George (Slack)
Sylvestor George (Staff Software Engineer on Slack’s Internal Tools Team) led a project to move the entire development experience to remote environments, which was widely regarded as a “dramatically better experience”. Here he shares the full story of that project, including how they identified the problem, the solution they created, and how they convinced engineers to adopt the new workflow.
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Aug 3, 2022
Snyk’s journey with developer experience and productivity | Crystal Hirschorn (Snyk)
In this episode Abi Noda is joined by Crystal Hirschorn, who leads Platform Infrastructure, SRE, and Developer Experience at Snyk. In their conversation, Crystal shares the story behind the recently founded Developer experience group, including why they named the team Developer Experience, how she calculates the cost of the problems they solve, and how they partner with engineering teams.
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Jul 28, 2022
Supporting 100,000 engineers | Max Pugliese (IBM)
Max Pugliese, formerly the Director of Developer Experience at IBM, offers a look at what it’s like to support tens of thousands of engineers. He explains why it’s important to think about the culture and processes surrounding the tooling changes a team tries to implement, how to stay close to developers, and more.
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Jul 13, 2022
The value of having a PM on a platform team | Jelmer Borst (Picnic Technologies)
In this episode Abi speaks with Jelmer Borst, Product Manager for Picnic Technologies’ Platform group. Jelmer explains what the value is of having a PM in an internal-facing team, and shares his process for gathering feedback from developers to understand where they’re experiencing friction.
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Jul 6, 2022
Common pitfalls in adopting engineering metrics | Mojtaba Hosseini (Zapier)
In this interview, Mojtaba Hosseini (Director of Engineering at Zapier) talks about how to approach using metrics, pitfalls teams run into, and the common evolution teams go through as they adopt metrics.
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Jun 29, 2022
Advocating for the voice of the developer | Julio Santana (Workday)
Julio Santana from Workday shares how he thinks about the ideal scope of a Developer Experience team, getting buy-in for DX initiatives, how his team gathers feedback from developers, and more.
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Jun 22, 2022
Why founding a DevEx team is like starting a startup | Minh Pham, Titus Stone (Ibotta)
In this episode we’re joined by Minh Pham and Titus Stone from Ibotta’s Developer Experience team. You’ll hear their story about how the DX team came into existence, why they view a DX team as a “startup within a startup”, and their vision for what DX at Ibotta will become.
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Jun 16, 2022
The ultimate guide on Engineering Operations | Ryan Atkins (Asana, Stripe, Dropbox)
In this episode Abi Noda speaks with Ryan Atkins, Asana’s Head of Engineering Operations. They talk about the role of EngOps and when it’s needed, founding an EngOps team, how these teams work in large companies, and more.
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Jun 8, 2022
Staffing infrastructure teams | Will Larson (Calm, Stripe, Uber)
Will Larson, the CTO at Calm, covers a wide range of topics including whether Infrastructure Engineering is chronically understaffed, the role of Eng Ops, how his opinion on the “build vs buy” question has changed, his thoughts on metrics, and more.
Helpful resources:
* Will's Infraeng book
* Will's article, Infrastructure planning
* Will's article, How to invest in infrastructure
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May 25, 2022
Supporting autonomous teams | Victoria Morgan-Smith (Financial Times)
Joining us for this episode is Victoria Morgan-Smith, the Director of Delivery for Engineering Enablement at the Financial Times. Victoria shares some of the tradeoffs in having an autonomous, “you build it, you run it” culture. She also shares how her group equips engineering teams with metrics, best practices, and more.
Follow Victoria on LinkedIn
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May 12, 2022
What it looks like to hire Engineering Effectiveness too late | Peter Seibel (ex-Twitter)
In this episode Abi talks with Peter Seibel. Peter previously was the Director of Engineering for the Democratic National Committee, and before that led Twitter’s Engineering Effectiveness (EE) team. In this interview, Peter reflects on his experience at Twitter, sharing why it’s better to invest in EE early and his vision for how EE teams can fulfill their potential.
Useful links:
* Follow Peter on Twitter and LinkedIn
* Read Peter's post about leading Engineering Effectiveness at Twitter: Let a 1,000 Flowers Bloom. Then Rip 999 of Them Out by the Roots
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May 4, 2022
Tactics for driving service adoption | Varun Achar (Razorpay)
In this episode, Varun Achar (Director of Engineering at Razorpay) explains how the Platform org has grown from a 15-person team owning everything, to 3 separate subteams. He also shares how they think about creating a culture of productivity, and some of the tactics they’ve used for increasing service adoption.
Helpful links:
* Connect with Varun on LinkedIn
* Read Varun's blog post, The Platform Engineer
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Apr 20, 2022
How DoorDash’s developer productivity team prioritizes projects | Marco Chirico (DoorDash)
In this episode, Marco Chirico shares the strategies DoorDash’s Developer Productivity group uses to prioritize their work. He also explains how the Developer Productivity group has evolved over time, and how they measure their success today.
Useful links:
* Connect with Marco on LinkedIn
* Read DoorDash's Engineering blog
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Apr 13, 2022
How GitHub’s developer experience team has evolved | Liz Saling (GitHub)
Liz Saling, Director of Engineering at GitHub, shares the story of how the Developer Experience group was founded and why GitHub paused features for a quarter to focus on making developer experience improvements.
Helpful links:
* Watch Liz’s GitHub Universe talk, “Paying Down Technical Debt”
* Find Liz on LinkedIn or Twitter
* Read Liz’s blog at lizsaling.com
* Read GitHub’s engineering blog
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