GitHub selects DX to measure and improve developer experience
GitHub, home to more than 150 million developers and the platform of GitHub Copilot, has long been at the center of how software gets built. With thousands of engineers maintaining both modern services and its decades-old monolith, GitHub views developer productivity as critical to its ability to innovate, attract talent, and deliver value to customers.
“Developer friction—or lack thereof—is a powerful signal and vehicle to drive change,” explains Jakub Oleksy, SVP of Engineering at GitHub. “As we think about becoming a better engineering team, it’s really important to understand where we’re falling short so we can make the proper investments to address them.”
Before adopting DX, GitHub relied on in-house efforts to measure developer experience. Every step required manual work, from structuring surveys to analyzing results.“Previously, everything was hand-rolled,” says Meirav Feiler, VP of Engineering. “We basically got nothing for free. Even putting the survey out, structuring the questions themselves, and then figuring out how to turn the responses into insights—it was all on us.”
Another challenge was acting on the data. Insights remained high-level, leaving GitHub unable to pinpoint which teams were struggling most. “We knew certain points of friction weren’t company-wide issues. Sometimes they can be very localized challenges,” Feiler adds. “But with our old system, we really struggled to get the insights into the hands of the people who could actually make changes.”
Without reliable data, prioritization often defaulted to anecdote. “Without having focused data, the loudest voice tends to win,” Oleksy explains. “But it might not actually be the highest return on investment.”
GitHub selected DX because of its ability to combine qualitative and quantitative data while keeping developer friction at the center. “DX solves the critical problem of visibility,” says Oleksy. “Previously, we only had high-level views, but the real value comes from specificity. DX puts that data directly in the hands of leaders and teams, so they can see what matters locally and act quickly and effectively.”
Just as important, DX’s product design made adoption effortless across the company. “The experience, the polish, the ease of use—it was clear this wasn’t just an executive tool,” says Oleksy. “We could hand it to everybody and they’d get value out of it right away.”
DX data is available to everyone at GitHub—from the CTO and leadership team, to platform and infrastructure groups, to individual engineering managers and their teams. “Folks like me and the CTO want the macro view,” Oleksy explains. "Our developer experience team uses DX to see systematic patterns and whether past investments are paying off. Platform and infrastructure teams see how they’re doing as providers of critical services. And finally, individual teams use the data to identify and solve problems locally.”
This transparency has even sparked cultural change. “One thing I kicked off is a friendly competition: which director can improve their DX scores the most by the next quarter? Historically, we’ve said the Platform team has to solve everything, but now we’re empowering teams to act locally,” says Feiler. “The data makes that possible.”
DX also helps GitHub measure and improve its AI SDLC tooling, including GitHub Copilot. Eirini Kalliamvakou, Staff Researcher, shares, “The insights from DX enrich our understanding of how AI is impacting developer productivity, and where we can invest to improve AI tooling and adoption.”
Looking ahead, GitHub plans to build on its baseline with DX by driving more targeted improvements. “I’m really excited about using DX to drive more focused iterations,” says Feiler. “For example, following up on monolith-related concerns with in-the-moment insights. The baseline we get is great, but the ability to dig into specific circumstances will be incredibly valuable.”
For GitHub, DX is now foundational to ensuring that as the company modernizes its stack and expands its product suite, it continues to create an environment where developers can innovate and deliver rapidly.
