Alex Circei, CEO and cofounder of Waydev.
Developer experience (DX) is developers’ overall experience while working within a company’s environment with its tools and processes. This is important because DX fosters productivity and innovation, making the software development teams more engaged, while poor DX will cause inefficiencies and frustration among developers. Despite its significant impact on business outcomes, leaders tend to focus more on the customer experience, neglecting the developer’s side of things.
Good developer experience (DX) allows engineering teams to deliver high-quality software efficiently, collaborate effectively and stay motivated. However, when DX is neglected, there will be some hidden costs, ranging from increased turnover to larger cycle time. To keep your teams high-performing and achieve better business results, leaders need to understand the hidden costs of DX and start implementing solutions.
Hidden Costs Of Poor Developer Experience
1. Low Retention Rates; Increased Turnover Costs
One significant consequence of poor DX is developer turnover. Developers who face constant friction due to inefficient tooling or unclear expectations are more likely to switch jobs, and we know that replacing a skilled developer can be very expensive, including recruitment, onboarding, and lost productivity as new hires ramp up. More than that, frequent turnover disrupts team dynamics and slows overall development progress.
2. Reduced Productivity Due To Inefficient Workflows
Efficient workflows are important as developers thrive in environments that allow them to focus on solving complex issues and problems rather than dealing with lots of unnecessary friction.
Poor DX can mean outdated tools, inefficient CI/CD pipelines or lack of access to proper documentation. When developers must navigate cumbersome processes or wait long periods for deployments, their productivity declines.
3. Decreased Code Quality
The entire engineering output will be affected by poor developer experience, not just the developers. When your teams are frustrated, it’s more likely for them to rush through tasks, leading to technical debt, lower-quality code and even security vulnerabilities. When there are inefficient systems in place, your teams’ ability to experiment and innovate will diminish.
Ways To Fix The Hidden Costs Of Poor DX
Measuring DX through regular feedback loops can help identify pain points that contribute to turnover and limit it. Surveys, exit interviews and one-on-one meetings can provide the insights you need into what frustrates developers. Addressing these concerns can improve the retention of your team members and reduce turnover-related costs.
Tracking your teams’ efficiency through metrics such as cycle time and deployment frequency can highlight inefficiencies. This way, you can spot bottlenecks and any inefficient processes.
How To Measure And Improve Developer Experience
To improve DX, you first need to understand the challenges the developers in your company face. As a leader, you can achieve this through qualitative and quantitative methods:
• Surveys: One way to get direct insight into the areas that need improvement is regularly surveying software developers with developer experience surveys.
• Engineering Metrics: Tracking key metrics such as cycle time, lead time and deployment frequency can help identify bottlenecks in the development process.
• One-On-One Conversations: Not everything can be captured in surveys. One-to-one conversations might reveal deeper insights into the frustrations of your teams, as they would feel more comfortable sharing pain points in one-to-ones.
Conclusion
A strong developer experience is not just a perk—it’s a business need. Neglecting this leads to hidden costs such as high turnover, reduced productivity and lower code quality. Leaders can address these challenges quickly and effectively by measuring DX through surveys, engineering metrics and direct feedback. By investing in DX, you improve the satisfaction of developers and the success of the engineering team. By prioritizing DX, companies can build and sustain high-performing teams that drive long-term success.
Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?
