Developer Experience: the key numbers and what they mean for productivity

A good DevEx reaches the end user: 69% of respondents said a good developer experience improves the end-user experience. Forrester, 2022

DevEx and competitiveness: 75% of respondents say their ability to compete in the market is directly tied to how fast they ship quality software. Forrester, 2022

Formal DevEx programs: 45% of organizations already run formal developer experience programs. Gartner, 2023

What DevEx improves: A better developer experience lifts team morale, productivity, and development speed. Forrester, 2022

Goals of DevEx programs: The most common goals are to increase speed and productivity, improve software quality, and strengthen developer engagement. Gartner, 2023

Returns on investing in DevEx: More than 70% of organizations that invested in DevEx saw positive results, including revenue growth, higher developer satisfaction, and better productivity. Forrester, 2022

DevEx as part of strategy: 94% of respondents said their organization has a DevEx strategy, but only one in four consider it mature and delivering value. Forrester, 2022

DevEx and business goals: More than two-thirds of respondents believe improving DevEx will help business goals such as attracting and keeping customers, revenue growth, and profitability. Forrester, 2022

A priority for leadership: 58% of software engineering leaders said developer experience is a highly critical priority for their leadership. Gartner, 2023

Support for many roles: 66% of organizations include not just internal employees but also external developers or outsourced teams in their DevEx programs. Gartner, 2023

Planned DevEx investment: 76% of organizations plan to invest more in developer experience next year, expecting higher productivity and satisfaction. Atlassian, 2024

A gap between expectation and reality: Only 23% of developers are satisfied with how their organization invests in DevEx, which points to a wide gap between expectations and reality. Atlassian, 2024

DevEx and keeping talent: 86% of leaders believe it will be nearly impossible to attract and keep top talent without improving DevEx. Atlassian, 2024

Tools that pay off: Investing in tools and automation raises productivity, profitability, and developer satisfaction. Forrester, 2022

Deployment automation: Automated application deployment, access to open-source software, and prebuilt CI/CD pipelines stood out as the capabilities that move the developer experience the most. Forrester, 2022

Platform engineering: Platform engineering can improve productivity and organizational performance, but only with the right approach to changing process and technology. DORA, 2024

Internal developer platforms: 89% of respondents use an internal developer platform, which raises individual productivity by 8% and team productivity by 10%. DORA, 2024

Automation comes first: Automated application deployment was named the single most important capability for a better developer experience. 59% of respondents said it is key to improving DevEx. Forrester, 2022

The cost of friction: 69% of developers said they lose 8 hours or more per week to inefficiencies in their role, which hits team productivity hard. Atlassian, 2024

DORA metrics: Elite teams deploy changes 127x faster and fail 8x less often than low-performing teams. DORA, 2024

The four key metrics: The best teams excel across all four software delivery metrics (lead time, deployment frequency, change failure rate, and time to recover from a failed deployment), while the worst teams trail on all four. DORA, 2024

Platform engineering, with a catch: Platform engineering brings a 6% increase in software delivery and operational performance, but also an 8% drop in throughput and a 14% drop in change stability. DORA, 2024

Reducing friction: 58% of respondents said the main goal of investing in DevEx is to cut friction in team processes, for example with tools that automate task handoffs or speed up debugging. Forrester, 2022

What inefficiency costs: Losing 8 hours a week to inefficiencies in a company with 500 developers can cost roughly $6.9 million a year. Atlassian, 2024

Stable priorities: When organizational priorities keep shifting, productivity drops and burnout rises. Stable priorities do the opposite: they raise productivity and improve developer well-being. DORA, 2024

Transformational leadership: Transformational leadership improves productivity, satisfaction, and team performance, and lowers the risk of burnout. DORA, 2024

A stable environment: A stable work environment, where priorities do not change constantly, leads to a small but real gain in productivity and a lower chance of burnout. DORA, 2024

The role keeps getting harder: 99% of leaders agree the developer's role has grown more complex, mainly because of inadequate staffing, technology, and tools. Atlassian, 2024

Low trust in AI: 39.2% of respondents say they have low or no confidence in AI, which can affect their productivity and the quality of their work. DORA, 2024

Where AI helps: 75% of respondents reported that adopting AI improved their productivity, with more than a third reporting moderate to extreme gains. DORA, 2024

AI in daily work: 75.9% of people rely on AI for their daily professional tasks, most often to write code (74.9%) and to summarize information (71.2%). DORA, 2024

AI, quality, and docs: AI improves documentation quality by 7.5% and code quality by 3.4%, while speeding up approvals and reviews. DORA, 2024