Pfizer saves $5M a year by improving developer workflows with DX

Software is critical to Pfizer’s role as a global pharmaceutical leader, driving advancements in research, manufacturing, and patient care. During the pandemic, Pfizer’s technology practice had to grow fast, going from 100 to over 1,000 developers. There was intense pressure to deliver software at speed while upholding security and quality standards – all within a highly regulated industry.

Rapid change brought friction and inefficiency in software innovation. “We were facing significant problems, but we had no way to measure or understand their scope,” said Sharon Taylor, Developer Enablement Lead at Pfizer. “We had to act with purpose—failure wasn’t an option.”

Understanding the sources of inefficiency across thousands of repositories and workflows was daunting. Early efforts to capture feedback from engineering teams provided some wins, but critical issues like wasted time and knowledge silos remained hard to quantify. Without clear data, Pfizer struggled to prioritize improvements or drive meaningful change.

This led Pfizer to adopt DX, which gave the insights and guidance they needed. “We saw that DX could show us the things holding us back,” said Jamie Hook, Director and DevOps Lead at Pfizer. “It was the only tool that gave us the depth of data needed to pinpoint bottlenecks, prioritize improvements, and drive change across our teams.”

With DX, Pfizer identified bottlenecks in workflows, enabling improvements over the next year. Some of the organizational changes they made included introducing a principal engineer role to better align teams. DX also highlighted the impact of contractor turnover on productivity, prompting a shift toward full-time engineers in specific roles. In teams where DX showed significant inefficiencies, they prioritized improving documentation and streamlining handoffs.

Within 12 months, thanks to these changes, Pfizer reduced time to resolve incidents by 33% and increased deployment frequency by 22%. Overall, these improvements reduced over 38,000 hours of engineering time waste annually, translating to over $5M saved per year. “DX didn’t just show where we were behind—it showed us how to fix it and enabled us to prove the impact,” said Jamie Hook, Director and DevOps Lead at Pfizer.

DX is now central to Pfizer’s Future of Development program, a long-term initiative to transform how developers work and deliver software. “This is not a one-time initiative,” said Hook. “We’re investing for the long-term to improve developer experience and evolve our delivery model.” Over the next six months, Pfizer will roll out training, overhaul permissions, and implement tools to manage credentials, with DX providing the means to measure and guide these efforts.