How to Measure Developer Performance (And Why You Should)

Developer performance has a direct impact on a company’s bottom line. If engineering teams are slow, the company can’t keep up with the competition and is late to the party with innovative features consumers demand.

When cost optimizations become necessary, tech leaders must decide who stays and who leaves. They certainly don’t want to mistakenly fire high performers who perhaps aren’t as loud as some B players. Or worse, let go of people solely based on tenure.

Finally, measuring developer performance can help spot inefficiencies in resource allocation early and distribute tasks that play to each teammate’s strengths. But how do you measure something so abstract, complex, and creative as software development? Let’s find out.

Challenges of Measuring Developer Performance

Whether you’re considering DORA, SPACE, McKinsey’s, or any other framework, remember that it may not entirely suit your organization, especially because many engineers are either unfamiliar with them or find them ineffective.

Another challenge with measuring developer performance is that creating software is a team effort. You may lose the necessary context when using DORA to measure individual performance. Also, developers tackle tasks of varying complexity -- some build new features, while others handle reviews and testing.

Whenever you introduce a metric, people will try to score high on it by any means possible. They’ll try to game the system because no one wants to lose a bonus because of a dumb statistic.

Steer Clear of Vanity Metrics

Businesses may pay a hefty price for focusing on the wrong numbers -- from lowered team morale to a significant drop in productivity.

Here are a few examples of vanity metrics that, besides being uninformative, can incentivize wrong behavior:

• Hours worked. Equating long hours with productivity creates a culture of overwork and meaningless “busy work.” Time spent doesn’t necessarily translate to effective output.
• Lines of code. Lengthy code is usually a sign of poor quality. If leaders tie performance to the lines of code written daily, they prompt developers to stick to bad practices to meet their KPIs.
• Code commits. Again, more commits don’t necessarily indicate greater efficiency or a positive business outcome. Developers may purposely submit smaller changes more frequently to game the system or rush their commits, overlooking code quality.
• Bugs fixed. Not all bugs are equally complex. Some developers may deliberately pick easily fixable bugs to inflate their numbers while neglecting more challenging issues.
• Deployment frequency. While valuable for assessing teams or systems, deployment frequency depends on everyone fulfilling their roles and is not a reliable indicator of individual performance.

What to Actually Measure

Don’t overthink it. Choose a few reasonable metrics and combine them with qualitative data from one-to-one meetings, self-assessment surveys, and peer reviews. At our company, we repeat this process every quarter. You’ll have enough data to understand how well the developer handles their workload, how engaged and invested they are, and what skills they need to improve.

Meeting Deadlines

Before starting any coding, developers estimate how long a certain feature will take them. This is extremely important for proper project planning. However, if a developer constantly misses deadlines, they create bottlenecks and prolong time to market. Looking at historical data of similar projects can help PMs understand whether the problem lies in inaccurate estimates or the developer’s sluggishness.

Code Quality

Code quality significantly impacts long-term business profitability. Poorly written code is difficult to reuse and will require expensive refactoring. Also, newcomers may spend hours deciphering it, which slows down feature development. To prevent this, teams conduct regular peer reviews or hire external experts for comprehensive code audits.

Tracking the bug rate (number of bugs found during testing) is another way to identify code quality issues. This metric, usually a ratio or percentage of bugs per unit, like lines of code, reveals potential codebase problems. A high bug rate suggests significant issues, while a low rate indicates relative stability.

Problem Resolution Skills

Given the abundance of AI-powered code assistants, writing quality code that adheres to industry standards is now less challenging for developers. The true value of a developer lies in their ability to solve problems. Do they readily dismiss challenges as “impossible,” or do they actively research and propose solutions

Communication and Collaboration

A high-performing engineer is someone who consistently produces quality code and collaborates well with the rest of the team. They are proactive in communicating potential risks or blockers, initiate improvements to a feature implementation, clearly explaining why that would be a better approach, and are ready to support their teammates to achieve a quality result.

Job Satisfaction and Well-Being

Software development, like any other creative or demanding job, requires the right mindset. Hence, the team culture, tooling, and other factors will affect a developer’s productivity. Exhausted, distracted, or unwell developers are more likely to engage in “negative work” -- work so poorly done that it requires a complete overhaul.

Final Thoughts

Measuring developer performance should be used for improvement, not comparing one developer to another based on their metrics. Use it to identify factors that may lead to higher or lower productivity. Also, it should be a collaborative effort between managers and developers to create an environment in which every developer can thrive and contribute to the company’s success.