Unpacking the 2023 DORA Report w/ Nathen Harvey of Google Cloud
Plus, some solid workflow hacks, determining how hard it is to be an engineer right now, the golden rule of organizational structure, and more.
Last Chance: We’re giving away two free tickets to Plato Elevate: The no-bs conference for engineering leaders!
To win free tickets to Plato Elevate, please provide your details here.
We’ll select and email the winners on Oct 20th—in the meantime, you can get discount tickets by following this link and using promo code: ELEVATE2023-DEV-INTERRUPTED.
What does the 2023 Accelerate State of DevOps Report mean for your team?
On this week’s episode of Dev Interrupted, co-host Conor Bronsdoninterviews Nathen Harvey, Head of Google Cloud’s DORA team.
With data gathered from over 36,000 global professionals, this year’s report investigated how top DevOps performers integrate technical, process, and cultural capabilities into their practices for success.
Listen to learn how your team can focus on three core outcomes: enhancing organizational value, boosting team innovation and collaboration, and promoting team member well-being and productivity.
“Your team knows what hurts. Your team also knows how they can make that pain go away. It's your role to go and listen to them and then create that space and capacity in their roadmap, in their tooling, in their way of working to allow them to eliminate that friction.”
Episode Highlights:
(3:30) What's new in this year's report?
(12:00) Key insights & takeaways
(16:30) Approaching code reviews
(21:30) Biggest surprises in the report
(29:30) Benchmarking your team
(31:45) How should teams start improving?
(36:30) DevOps trends & forecasting
The Download
The Download is engineering leadership content we’re reading, watching, and attending that we think you might find valuable.
*NEW* Check out The Download’s Engineering Events section at the bottom of this email for in-person and online events worth your time.
1. Adopt These 7 Workflow Hacks
It’s always inspiring to find new voices in the engineering space. Our latest subscription belongs to Jordan Cutler thanks to pieces like this.
Jordan goes into concrete details about how to boost your engineering team's efficiency with key workflow optimizations: 1) Leveraging tools like Git shortcuts, GitHub Copilot, and CleanShot that can streamline daily tasks, resulting in significant time savings; and 2) Effective window management, password managers, and methods to save learnings that can improve focus and productivity, ensuring your team spends time on what truly matters.
2. Is This Really The Hardest Time To Be A Good Software Engineer?
With the progress we see every day in things like developer experience, you could say we’re optimistic about the future of engineering teams.
On the other side of that view is Juraj Malenica. His piece this week vocalizing the stress, struggles, and unique hurdles of the modern developer set comment sections on fire and deserves to be read by anyone responsible for leading an engineering team.
Read: Unpopular Opinion | It’s harder than ever to be a good software engineer
This Week’s Sponsor Is “The Engineering Leader's Guide to Building a Metrics Program”
Increased efficiency, a great developer experience, better business outcomes — these results have two things in common: (1) they’re priorities for engineering leaders (2) they’re products of a robust engineering metrics program.
Inside this comprehensive guide, you’ll find:
An overview of why metrics programs have been difficult to implement in the past
The philosophy and ingredients of an effective engineering metrics program
Practical, step-by-step guidance on building your program and improvement strategy from the ground up
3. Write Down These Golden Rules for Organizational Structure
Joshua Burgin words hold weight with the likes of Gergely Orosz because he has a distinct gift for synthesizing 25 years of engineering experience into real, actionable wisdom for developers up and down the organization hierarchy.
His latest piece emphasizes the importance of organizational health, effectiveness, and intentional design, and unveils "golden rules" which include guidelines on span of control, layers in hierarchy, and optimal ratios of product managers to engineers. Burgin's advice targets medium to large tech companies, and he stresses the need for alignment in roles, hierarchy, and objectives to foster high performance and adaptability.
4. Dan Lines: Host to Hotseat
Most of you know Dan Lines as the one asking questions on our podcast. Lately, he’s been sitting in the guest chair talking to colleagues across tech about everything from automating pull requests to starting a company with your co-founder 5,000 miles across the globe.
If you haven’t heard any of his appearances, his latest interview was on the BIZ/DEV podcast and it covers some of his greatest engineering hits.
Listen: The DNA of an Efficient Developer
5. Upgrade Your Startup’s Dashboards
If your company is using the same dashboards during your series B as you were during your series A, don’t plan on getting a series C.
A solid resource for avoiding this trap? Battery Ventures pulled together the dashboards and slides that they’ve seen successful series B companies use. You can score some points with other departments as these cover marketing, sales, and more.
Read: The Fundamental Dashboards and Board Slides for Series B Companies
The No-BS conference for engineering leaders | November 7-8 | San Francisco, CA
Highlights: Dev Interrupted readers get discounted tickets for Plato through this link and using promo code: ELEVATE2023-DEV-INTERRUPTED.
DORA & LinearB present: Insights into the 2023 Accelerate State of DevOps Report
November 8, 10:00 a.m. PST
Highlights: A free webinar where Google’s DORA team and LinearB join forces to go through the results of Google’s forthcoming 2023 Accelerate report.
December 4-5 | Berlin, Germany
Highlights: Conference themes include: 1) Skills for leading in a downturn; 2) Doing more with less; 3) Preparation techniques for change; and 4) Crafting agile, ambitious, and achievable workflows.
Thanks for re-stacking my post! Glad it made the list this week
So grateful for the mention, Conor. Thank you so much and appreciate what you do with your newsletter and podcast!