Extend switches to DX for complete engineering insights

Extend’s Platform and DevEx functions are responsible for helping the company’s engineers deliver faster and more efficiently. Before DX, their team tried several methods of measuring developer productivity, including homegrown surveys and a vendor solution providing metrics from Git and Jira.

Unfortunately, their surveys proved to be labor-intensive and failed to achieve sufficient participation rates, while the metrics from Git and Jira presented several  challenges. One challenge was that it was difficult to interpret the metrics and leaders often struggled to know whether or not to take action. Extend’s VP of Platform, Rami Leshem, shared: “With the previous tool we were using, it was up to you to figure out whether numbers are good or bad. You were at 17% last month and now you’re at 18% this month. What does that mean - is that good? Is that bad?”

In addition to being difficult to interpret, Extend found that metrics from Git and Jira captured only a thin slice of activities and factors affecting developer productivity. In contrast, after switching to DX, the broad set of self-reported and system-based measures provided a fuller view. “DX has become the most truthful gauge of where we are as an organization,” Leshem says.

With DX, Extend has been able to adopt a holistic approach to measuring productivity that provides clearer insights. “With DX, we start with the problem, then we see the system-based metrics we have in DX around that problem. In short, we supplement our self-reported insights with quantitative metrics from our systems.” In addition, Extend has achieved cost savings of $250,000 per year by replacing other vendor tools and homegrown efforts.

Today, Extend uses DX to understand the state of engineering and spearhead organization-wide initiatives. Matthew Schrepel, Extend’s Head of Developer Experience, adds, “DX has shown to be successful enough to go all the way up to the board as a dashboard that accurately represents the health of engineering. That’s a big deal for us as a team.”