Jussi HacklinSoftware development productivity on a larger scale is infamously hard to calculate in absolute terms. On the other hand, productivity is a key factor for a well working software organization. So, what if we take a bit of another angle to this and talk about developer experience and why it should also be on the technology leaders table, not just the developers. Since when the developers are productive, so is the whole technology organization.
In my mind this boils down to the simple mantra of What you do, How you do it and Who do you do it with.
For a developer, the key issues are what you do and how meaningful the work is. Are you doing it with relevant tools and methods. And are you working with like-minded diverse professionals that support each other. When you get these ingredients right you create an environment that makes the development productive and where professionals want to join and stay.
Let us dissect the above statements a bit.
What you do means that whatever you are developing needs to be meaningful for the developer. It needs to serve a considerable user base and be in-line with, for example sustainability values.
In Elisa’s case, the services are large-scale consumer-facing solutions, serving a diverse range of Finns and Estonians. The operability and functionality of these services has significant societal and corporate responsibility implications, for example from an environmental perspective and ensuring critical communications.
A good example of the environmental side is Elisa Viihde’s new data transfer solution, which significantly reduced the amount of data being transferred, thereby lowering electricity consumption, and making the service even more economical and environmentally friendly.
A big part of what you do is also to be able to concentrate on what makes the most difference, in turn this means actively automating all the things that are mundane and don’t help build differentiation. In practice this means the work that SRE team and all the developers do through continuous automation and common tools, like CI/CD pipelines and cloud automation. [1]
How you do it refers to all the factors that influence a developer’s daily work. In practice, this includes everything from technology choices and development methodologies to internal company communities.
In recent years, Elisa has made deliberate efforts to invest in developer experience. Elisa employs a developer advocate whose role is to run several internal communities where developers share knowledge and develop their skills. Additionally, principles defined for application development, a unified technology stack, development metrics like DORA and a developer portal connecting development teams play a crucial role. The portal is based on Spotify’s Backstage platform and provides key resources related to digital development, significantly easing developers’ work. Next, the portal will include information related to design and data.
Externally, Elisa communicates through its digital development blog and has become an active meetup organizer in collaboration with its partners. This provides Elisa’s developers with new opportunities to display their expertise to a broader audience and gain learning in return. Institutions like Aalto University and JAMK (Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences) have also been involved, contributing their perspectives to product development and ideation.
Who you do it with refers to the group of colleagues that interacts daily.
Balanced digital development requires balanced teams. In practice, this means multi-competence teams comprising both early-career individuals and more senior experts working seamlessly towards shared goals. At Elisa, this is supported through active training, building career paths, and fostering a collaborative, open, and experimentation-driven culture. A good example of this is the Elisa Laitenetti service. Its prototype was developed in just a few days by a multi-skilled team during Camp Hack hackathon [2] and was available to consumers as a mature product a few months later. [3]
A well-run developer experience program delivers a multitude of benefits for technology leaders. It makes software production more efficient, accelerating the time-to-market for new services. It also ensures that top talent is attracted to and retained by the company. Additionally, visibility into operational performance improves significantly, facilitating focus and assessing the impact of any necessary changes. Increased efficiency also alleviates future commercial pressures as digitalization progresses and backlogs get bigger, ensuring that operation remains manageable due to improved productivity.
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