Swarmia

Developer experience surveys are great at exposing blind spots that you might miss if you’re just looking at system metrics. In this blog post, we explain how to combine developer feedback with system metrics to get a holistic understanding of developer productivity and experience.

“When software organizations start thinking about developer productivity, they often focus on individuals and teams — examining their processes, tooling, and ways of working. While team-level improvements are important, sustainable productivity gains require pulling levers at multiple levels of the organization.” Read the latest blog post from our Field CTO Rebecca Murphey to find out which challenges need team-level solutions versus organizational intervention, and how to advocate for changes that matter.

Understanding engineering effectiveness isn’t just about tracking pull request cycle time or measuring developer satisfaction — it’s about balancing three critical pillars: business outcomes, developer productivity, and developer experience. In this blog post, we explore how these pillars work together to create truly effective engineering organizations. Learn why focusing on any single pillar in isolation can lead to problems, and how to balance all three.

💌 Save the date: March 27, 2025 Swarmia Circle is a half-day virtual event that brings together seasoned engineering and product leaders to discuss the challenges and opportunities of leading and scaling engineering organizations. You’ll hear from Meri Williams, John Cutler, and Nathen Harvey who’ll share lessons they’ve learned about preparing for growth, designing ways of working, and measuring the impact of engineering organizations. Sign up today: https://lnkd.in/d_4z-N83

Kristen Foster-Marks recently joined us on the Engineering Unblocked podcast to break down why the viral "ghost engineers" claim falls apart under scientific scrutiny and to share insights on what makes research in developer experience truly credible. Key takeaway: When it comes to research, transparency is everything. Show your work, share your methods, make it replicable. Catch the full episode wherever you get your podcasts.

What’s the real impact of AI coding tools on developer productivity? The bad news is that there’s no single metric to help you answer that question. The good news is that you can form a good understanding by looking at: 🔹 Team collaboration and knowledge sharing patterns 🔹 Development process metrics 🔹 Batch size insights 🔹 Code quality indicators 🔹 Feedback from engineers … and more. Learn more about measuring the productivity impact of AI coding tools.

I’m excited to share that Swarmia has published a case study on Learnship’s engineering and product transformation journey, featuring an interview with me. In our conversation, we delve into how we’re using data to drive transparency, align teams around shared goals, and maintain a culture of continuous improvement—all while scaling across multiple countries. You can read the full story here: https://lnkd.in/dpCu-W5X One thing I’ve been reflecting on (and this is just my personal opinion) is that no matter how robust our processes become, the real differentiator is the mindset and trust we build in our teams. Process without buy-in is just bureaucracy—but strong culture combined with clear metrics can be a game-changer. I’d love to hear your take: how do you strike the right balance between structured processes and individual autonomy in your own organizations? Share your thoughts below!

New in Swarmia 🔹 Use Google authentication to log in to Swarmia 🔹 Measure the impact and adoption of AI tools with developer experience surveys 🔹 Filter flow and focus insights by any investment breakdown Read more in the changelog.

Developer experience surveys aren’t the only way to collect feedback from your engineers. In this blog post, we introduce User Experience Objectives (UXOs) as a solution for capturing real-time data about developer experience.

The secret to running more useful stand-ups in your engineering team? Focus on the work, not the people. In practice, that means “walking the board,” which entails: 🔹 Looking at a board that shows the current status of every item 🔹 Reviewing in-progress items one by one 🔹 Starting from the items that are closest to being finished and walking towards the items that have just been started