D2L chooses DX over Jellyfish for a complete view of engineering health

D2L, creators of Brightspace, a leading education software, relies on its platform engineering team to enable faster, more reliable delivery. As D2L scaled to over 200 developers, leadership needed clearer visibility into engineering bottlenecks to sustain efficiency.

D2L needed a solution that provided developer sentiment and system-based data to understand inefficiencies. In their evaluation, they found Jellyfish provided GitHub and Jira tracking but lacked the data needed to diagnose real bottlenecks. “If you don’t have both self-reported and system-based metrics together, it’s very hard to get the full picture,” said Matt Pinelli, Senior Engineering Manager at D2L.

“We looked at several developer insights tools, including Jellyfish, but DX was the one that gave us the complete picture we needed.”

Matt Pinelli, Senior Engineering Manager, D2L

DX gave D2L a complete view of engineering health by combining developer feedback with system-based metrics. Unlike Jellyfish, DX puts qualitative data first, using quantitative data for context rather than the other way around. Since D2L’s evaluation, Jellyfish has introduced a qualitative developer experience module, but it remains early-stage and lacks the depth DX has built over four years.

Beyond deeper qualitative insights, DX delivered important capabilities Jellyfish didn’t. Onboarding insights surfaced ramp-up friction for the first time. Snapshot Triage helped managers prioritize daily challenges. DX Studies provided targeted feedback on platform tooling. “These were things you wouldn’t get with any of the tools only focused on the quantitative side, including Jellyfish,” said Pinelli.

“If you don’t have both self-reported and system-based metrics together, it’s very hard to get the full picture. In fact, if you only have the quantitative data, it’s easy to move off in the wrong direction.”

Matt Pinelli, Senior Engineering Manager, D2L

DX helped D2L uncover onboarding and workflow bottlenecks, allowing them to solve underlying issues rather than treating symptoms. “We looked at several developer insights tools, including Jellyfish, but DX was the one that gave us the complete picture we needed,” said Pinelli. With DX’s structured approach, the platform team knew the most pressing developer challenges, which led to efficiency gains across teams.

D2L continues to expand DX’s role in engineering intelligence, using it to monitor productivity, refine workflows, and give leaders a complete view of engineering health.

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