Developer Experience : From Hype to Reality

The term “developer experience” (DevEx) emerged in the early 2010s as a response to the growing importance of developer communities in the tech industry, ensuring happy and productive developers through a seamless experience. While numerous theoretical guidelines exist for DevEX, this talk focuses on practical implementation and case studies. Drawing from our own experiences in large organizations like Rabobank & Bol.com, we explore diverse approaches to fostering a DevEx culture. We will show how different high-level incentives behind DevEx Culture adoption, change the strategies of big and medium size organizations toward the implementation. Finally we will also introduce qualitative metrics that guide strategic decisions while fostering a culture of continuous improvement.

Transcript

1. Autonomy Alignment Clarity Flexibility Compliance Governance Efficiency Developers Managers Doing the Right Thing Doing it the Right Way Predictability Cohesion Accountability Observability Safety Developer Experience: From Hype to Reality Soroosh Khodami Makan Sepehrifar Devoxx Belgium 2024
2. Developer Experience is a broad topic with many different aspects, big enough that some people think it’s a Buzz word, while Good Developer Experience is very difficult to achieve, bad Developer Experience is easy to recognize.
3. Who We Are Soroosh Khodami +15 Years of Software Development Experience Platform Engineering and DevSecOps Researcher Solution Architect at Rabobank @SorooshKh linkedin.com/in/sorooshkhodami Makan Sepehrifar +20 Years of Software Development Experience Principal Engineer at Code Nomads, Solution Architect at Rabobank linkedin.com/in/makan1869/ @makan1869
4. Developer Experience
5. DevEx Aspects ▪ +500 Talks, Articles and Books ▪ Countless Buzzwords ▪ Hundred Softwares And Solutions ▪ A lot of conflicting success metrics Reference https://practicalpie.com/cognitive-load-theory/ Developer Experience: Concept and Definition (2012) - University of Helsinki https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=developer+experience
6. How Developers See It Readmore Happy Developers write better code by Roy Braam - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nPCiNiiEOo
7. Two Sides of The Game Manager Developer BALANCE
8. How We See It Readmore Why ending illegal pregnancy discrimination is so hard - https://bbc.com/worklife/article/20220114-why-ending-illegal-pregnancy-discrimination-is-so-hard Pregnant, laid off and unable to find new work - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/pregnant-laid-off-maternity-discrimination-twitter-google-meta- b2336568.html
9. Autonomy Alignment Clarity Flexibility Compliance Governance Efficiency Developers Managers Doing the Right Thing Doing it the Right Way Predictability Cohesion Accountability Observability Optimum Developer Experience Safety
10. Autonomy Alignment Clarity Flexibility Compliance Governance Efficiency Developers Managers Doing the Right Thing Doing it the Right Way Predictability Cohesion Accountability Observability Safety
12. Time to First Hello World
13. Time to First Hello World
14. Time to First Hello World
16. Time to First Hello World (TTFHW) Matters ! Knowledge Infrastrucutre Security Checks Bureaucracy Influencial Factors
17. Influencial Factors Reference Cambridge The t-shaped design engineer – using cohorts to Explore how skills profiles differ through CAREER STAGES - https://tinyurl.Com/cambridge-t-shape Competence-driven engineering education: A case for T-shaped engineers and teachers - https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1246395.pdf Google 2019 Accelerate State of DevOps Report - https://research.google/pubs/2019-accelerate-state-of-devops-report/ Knowledge Infrastrucutre Security Checks Bureaucracy Time to First Hello World (TTFHW) Matters ! Predictibilty
18. Knowledge Infrastrucutre Security Checks Bureaucracy Influencial Factors Time to First Hello World (TTFHW) Matters ! Predictibilty
19. Knowledge Infrastrucutre Security Checks Bureaucracy Influencial Factors Read more OWASP DevSecOps Guideline - https://github.com/OWASP/DevSecOpsGuideline https://www.nowsecure.com/blog/2017/05/10/level-up-mobile-app-security-metrics-to-measure-success/ https://www.packtpub.com/product/practical-cybersecurity-architecture/9781838989927 Time to First Hello World (TTFHW) Matters ! Predictibilty Tools For Automation
20. Knowledge Infrastrucutre Security Checks Bureaucracy Influencial Factors Time to First Hello World (TTFHW) Matters ! Predictibilty
21. Organizational Adoption Someone read a Book Research and Development Evaluation Principles Processes Compliance IT Governance
22. Different Principles Books to Read !
23. Example: Let’s Start Writing Kotlin Code From Tomorrow Readmore Google's Journey from Java to Kotlin for Server Side Programming - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o14wGByBRAQ
24. Let’s Start Writing Kotlin Code From Tomorrow Readmore Google's Journey from Java to Kotlin for Server Side Programming - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o14wGByBRAQ What will happens after 3 years?
25. Our Organization: Kotlin-PHP-Angular-React-Vue-LEAN-SAFe-ITIL-OKR-SCRUMBAN https://www.boredpanda.com/animals-hybrids-photoshop/ https://www.pinterest.com/pin/402438916706636393/ https://awkward.com/20-hilarious-animal-hybrids-thatll-make-you-look-twice/
26. Introduction to Processes Startup / Small Company Tight Collaboration ( < 50 people ) Mid-Sized Enterprise Bureaucracy introduction (~ 150 People) Large Enterprise Process Heavy Environments ( ~ 500 People ) Organization Navigating the Enterprise (1000+ People) Processes start shaping the Organization I know Soroosh’s Favorite Color I get periodic Progress update from Soroosh at Coffee Corner I know there is a person called soroosh who is responsible for System X I don’t know soroosh anymore, all that I have is a System X and a functional Mailbox
27. “Your org structure isn’t solving your problem. It’s an artifact of how you’ve solved it before.” – Adam Jacob
28. Outcome Legacy Processes Conflicting Processes Everyday Changing Processes Fraustration Loop Hole Slowness Deadlock In-Consistnecy Confusion Reason Result
29. Recommendations What you want to Achieve Principles Processes Measurement Refinement
30. Principle of Least Surprise Proper Risk Assessment leads to more Idiomatic Processes.
31. Autonomy Alignment Clarity Flexibility Compliance Governance Efficiency Developers Managers Doing the Right Thing Doing it the Right Way Predictability Cohesion Accountability Observability Safety
33. What Manager Wants HAPPY CUSTOMER BUSINESS CONTINUITY OMNI CHANNEL SUPPORT
34. Life as a DevOps ... 85 70 99
35. All-In-One AI Powered Developer IDE Tasks Issues Emails Wiki Dashboard VirtualThreadWebServer Pull Requests # user@company-laptop: kubectl scale deployment my-deployment --replicas=3 2 2 2 9 Infra Projects 9 Chat GPT Database Notifications 9 Dark Mode !
36. Dream Life as a DevOps ... Open Applications Code Editor To-Do List Communicate
37. Recommendations Single Knowledge Management Single Support Channel Single Work Item Management Unified High Level Structure Auto Clean Up Out-dated SLA Integration with Alerting Use Only One Platform Integration with Ticketing System
38. Autonomy Alignment Clarity Flexibility Compliance Governance Efficiency Developers Managers Doing the Right Thing Doing it the Right Way Predictability Cohesion Accountability Observability Safety
40. At the request of the survivors, the names have been changed. Out of respect for the dead, the rest has been told exactly as it occurred. THIS IS A TRUE STORY. https://wallpapercave.com/w/wp1900418
42. Postmortem What did we learn ? ▪ Resilience by Design Principle ▪ Back up your Database Everyday ▪ Test Backup Everyday Processes ▪ DR Plan Existence ▪ DR Plan should be tested every year Compliance
43. TWO YEARS LATER
44. Another Incident: RANSOMWARE ATTACK 1 - ALERT: Database is DOWN -> Incident Created 2 - INVESTIGATION Started -> Follow DR Plan INCIDENT REPORT LOG 3 – Triage: Ransomware Attack - Data Corruption -> Restore Backup 4 – Backup File corrupted -> Contact Storage Team … What went wrong and what we learn this time ?
45. Second Postmortem What went wrong ? 1) Wrong Principle 2) Misalignment between Process and Principle 3) Inadequate Compliance Acceptance Criteria 4) Wrong Implementation of Process
46. Responsibility = Accountability = Ownership and a sense of ownership is the most powerful thing a team or organization can have. - Pat Summit
47. Autonomy Alignment Clarity Flexibility Compliance Governance Efficiency Developers Managers Doing the Right Thing Doing it the Right Way Predictability Cohesion Accountability Observability Safety
48. Tesler’s Law : Conservation of Complexity Every system has a certain amount of complexity which cannot be reduced. The Pitfall of Oversimplification ▪ Hidden Failures ▪ Loss of Control ▪ False Sense of Simplicity ▪ Fake Compliancy Observability ▪ Proactive Problem Solving ▪ Empowering Developers with Insights ▪ Transparency in Complex Systems ▪ Reducing Cognitive Load ▪ Better Collaboration Across Teams
49. Detailed or Not-Detailed?
50. Recommendation Don’t hide or eliminate the Complexity, manage it!
51. Conclusion Developer Experience is about a never-ending Process Refinement to achieve the Balance between Managers and Developer’s Expectations. • Key Message : Identify Bad Developer Experience • Monitor Processes : Focus on Principles and not the Processes • Keep the Journey : Simple, Predictable, Cohesive and Seamless • Keep each party Accountable for the Decisions • And finally, Observability is the Key, do not hide the Complexity or oversimplify the Process
52. Autonomy Alignment Clarity Flexibility Compliance Governance Efficiency Developers Managers Doing the Right Thing Doing it the Right Way Predictability Cohesion Accountability Observability Safety Thank you Questions? linkedin.com/in/sorooshkhodami linkedin.com/in/makan1869/ Please share your feedback via Devoxx Mobile App