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We surveyed 500 U.S.-based developers at companies with 1,000-plus employees about how managers should consider developer productivity, collaboration, and AI coding tools.
Developers today do more than just write and ship code—they’re expected to navigate a number of tools, environments, and technologies, including the new frontier of generative artificial intelligence (AI) coding tools. But the most important thing for developers isn’t story points or the speed of deployments. It’s the developer experience, which determines how efficiently and productively developers can exceed standards, enter a flow state, and drive impact.
I say this not only as GitHub’s chief product officer, but as a long-time developer who has worked across every part of the stack. Decades ago, when I earned my master’s in mechanical engineering, I became one of the first technologists to apply AI in the lab. Back then, it would take our models five days to process our larger datasets—which is striking considering the speed of today’s AI models. I yearned for tools that would make me more efficient and shorten my time to production. This is why I’m passionate about developer experience (DevEx) and have made it my focus as GitHub’s chief product officer.
Amid the rapid advancements in generative AI, we wanted to get a better understanding from developers about how new tools—and current workflows—are impacting the overall developer experience. As a starting point, we focused on some of the biggest components of the developer experience: developer productivity, team collaboration, AI, and how developers think they can best drive impact in enterprise environments.
To do so, we partnered with Wakefield Research to survey 500 U.S.-based developers at enterprise companies. In the following report, we’ll show how organizations can remove barriers to help enterprise engineering teams drive innovation and impact in this new age of software development. Ultimately, the way to innovate at scale is to empower developers by improving their productivity, increasing their satisfaction, and enabling them to do their best work—every day. After all, there can be no progress without developers who are empowered to drive impact.
Inbal Shani
Chief Product Officer // GitHub
Learn how generative AI is changing the developer experience
Discover how generative AI is changing software development in a pre-recorded session from GitHub.
Key survey findings:
At GitHub, we’re aware there’s often a significant gap between the day-to-day reality for most developers and “conversations about ‘what developers want.’”
With this survey, we wanted to better understand the typical experience for developers—and identify key ways companies can empower their developers and achieve greater success.
One big takeaway: It starts with investing in a great developer experience. And collaboration, as we learned from our research, is at the core of how developers want to work and what makes them most productive, satisfied, and impactful.
C = Collaboration, the multiplier across the entire developer experience.
For leaders, developer experience is about creating a collaborative environment where developers can be their most productive, impactful, and satisfied at work. For developers, collaboration is one of the most important parts of the equation.
Learn more about developer experience
The way developers are currently evaluated doesn’t align with how they think their performance should be measured.
Metrics currently used to measure performance, compared with metrics developers think should be used to measure their performance.
More than output quantity and efficiency, code quality and collaboration are the most important performance metrics, according to the developers we surveyed.   |
The top ranked responses that developers say their teams are working the most on including writing code and finding and fixing security vulnerabilities.
When developers are asked about what makes a positive impact on their workday, they rank learning new skills (43%), getting feedback from end users (39%), and automated tests (38%), and designing solutions to novel problems (36%) as top contenders.
The top tasks developers say positively impact their workdays.
But developers say they’re spending most of their time writing code and tests, then waiting for that code to be reviewed or builds and tests to be executed.
On a typical day, the enterprise developers we surveyed report their teams are busy with a variety of tasks, including writing code, fixing security vulnerabilities, and getting feedback from end users, among other things. Developers also report that they spend a similar amount of time across these tasks, indicating that they’re stretched thin throughout the day.
The tasks developers say they spend the most time working on each day.
Notably, developers say they spend the same amount of time waiting for builds and tests as they do writing new code.
Developers say getting feedback from end users (39%) is the second-most important thing that positively impacts their workdays—but it’s often challenging for development teams to get that feedback directly.
The top two daily tasks for development teams include writing code (32%) and finding and fixing security vulnerabilities (31%).
The bottom line
Developers want to upskill, design solutions, get feedback from end users, and be evaluated on their communication skills. However, wait times on builds and tests, as well as the current performance metrics they’re evaluated on, are getting in the way.
In our survey of enterprise engineers, developers say they work with an average of 21 other developers on a typical project—and 52% report working with other teams daily or weekly. Notably, they rank regular touchpoints as the most important factor for effective collaboration.
Developers in enterprise settings often work with an average of 21 other developers on a daily or weekly cadence.
But developers also have a holistic view of collaboration—it’s defined not only by talking and meeting with others, but also by uninterrupted work time, access to fully configured developer environments, and formal mentor-mentee relationships.
It’s important to note these factors can also negatively impact a developer’s work day—which suggests that ineffective meetings can serve to distract rather than help developers (something we’ve found in previous research).
What does effective collaboration look like for developers?
Effectively measuring developer collaboration can seem like an elusive goal, but developers in our survey point to what works—and what doesn’t. Developers view regular touchpoints with colleagues across asynchronous channels, documentation, and well-run team meetings as critical to successful collaboration.
Coupled with previous GitHub research in “The SPACE of developer productivity,” we can infer what effective collaboration means to developers. Regular touchpoints—including synchronous meetings and asynchronous communication throughout the day via chat applications, documentation, pull requests, and issues—can improve the flow of and discoverability of information. This leads to better coordination and awareness of team member activities and task priorities. Regular touchpoints can also help align and focus teams to work on the right problems, leading to better solutions and stronger business impact.
Our survey indicates the factors most important to effective collaboration are so critical that when they’re not done effectively, they have a noticeable, negative impact on a developer’s work.
The tasks developers say most often have a negative impact on their workday experience.
Developers work with an average of 21 people on any given project. They need the time and tools for success—including regular touchpoints, heads-down time, access to fully-configured dev environments, and formal mentor-mentee relationships. |
So, we sourced some answers from our followers on Twitter. We asked developers what tips they have for effective collaboration. Here’s what one developer had to say:
We also asked what makes for a productive and valuable meeting:
As developer experience continues to be defined, so, too, will successful developer collaboration. Too many pings and messages can affect flow, but there’s still a need to stay in touch. In our survey, developers say effective collaboration results in improved test coverage and faster, cleaner, more secure code writing—which are best practices for any development team. This shows that when developers work effectively with others, they believe they build better and more secure software.
Developers widely view effective collaboration as helping to improve what they ship and how often they ship it.
Developers we surveyed believe collaboration and communication—along with code quality—should be the top priority for evaluation.
The metrics that developers think their managers should use to evaluate their performance and productivity.
We asked developers to share their ideas for measuring how well they collaborate. Here’s what one developer had to say:
Developers believe that effective and regular touchpoints with their colleagues are critical for effective team collaboration.
At GitHub, our researchers, developers, product teams, and analysts are dedicated to studying and improving developer productivity and satisfaction. Here are their tips for engineering leaders who want to improve collaboration among developers:
The bottom line
Effective developer collaboration improves code quality and should be a performance measure. Regular touchpoints, heads-down time, access to fully configured dev environments, and formal mentor-mentee relationships result in improved test coverage and faster, cleaner, more secure code writing.
A staggering 92% of U.S.-based developers working in large companies report using an AI coding tool either at work or in their personal time—and 70% say they see significant benefits to using these tools.
Almost all developers are already using AI coding tools at and outside of work.
Almost all (92%) developers use AI coding tools at work—and a majority (67%) have used these tools in both a work setting and during their personal time. Curiously, only 6% of developers in our survey say they solely use these tools outside of work. |
With most developers experimenting with AI tools in the workplace, our survey results suggest it’s not just idle interest leading developers to use AI. Rather, it’s a recognition that AI coding tools will help them meet performance standards.
Developers widely think that AI coding tools will layer into their existing workflows and bring greater efficiencies—but they do not think AI will change how software is made.
Around one-third of developers report that their managers currently assess their performance based on the volume of code they produce—and an equal number anticipate that this will persist when they start using AI-based coding tools.
Beyond improving individual performance, more than 4 in 5 developers surveyed (81%) say AI coding tools will help increase collaboration within their teams and organizations.
Developers think their teams will need to become more collaborative as they start using AI coding tools.
Sometimes, developers can do the same thing with one line or multiple lines of code. Even still, one-third of developers in our survey say their managers measure their performance based on how much code they produce. |
Notably, developers believe AI coding tools will give them more time to focus on solution design. This has direct organizational benefits and means developers believe they’ll spend more time designing new features and products with AI instead of writing boilerplate code.
Developers believe that AI coding tools will help them focus on higher-value problem solving.
Not only can AI coding tools help improve overall productivity, but they can also provide upskilling opportunities to help create a smarter workforce according to the developers we surveyed.
Developers are already using generative AI coding tools to automate parts of their workflow, which frees up time for more collaborative projects like security reviews, planning, and pair programming. |
Developers in our survey suggest they can better meet standards around code quality, completion time, and the number of incidents when using AI coding tools—all of which are measures developers believe are key areas for evaluating their performance.
AI coding tools can also help reduce the likelihood of coding errors and improve the accuracy of code—which ultimately leads to more reliable software, increased application performance, and better performance numbers for developers. As AI technology continues to advance, it is likely that these coding tools will have an even greater impact on developer performance and upskilling.
Developers think AI coding tools will help them upskill while they work
57% of the developers surveyed say using AI coding tools helps them develop their coding language skills, which they consider the top benefit of using these applications (with the second benefit being greater productivity). This suggests that developers view the use of AI coding tools as a way to upskill while they work, instead of adding another task to their workday for learning and development.
Developers believe that AI coding tools will increase their productivity—but our survey suggests that developers don’t think these tools are fundamentally altering the software development lifecycle. Instead, developers suggest they’re bringing greater efficiencies to it.
The bottom line
Almost all developers (92%) are using AI coding at work—and they say these tools not only improve day-to-day tasks but enable upskilling opportunities, too. Developers see material benefits to using AI tools including improved performance and coding skills, as well as increased team collaboration.
Developer satisfaction, productivity, and organizational impact are all positioned to get a boost from AI coding tools—and that will have a material impact on the overall developer experience.
92% of developers already saying they use AI coding tools at work and in their personal time, which makes it clear AI is here to stay. 70% of the developers we surveyed say they already see significant benefits when using AI coding tools, and 81% of the developers we surveyed expect AI coding tools to make their teams more collaborative—which is a net benefit for companies looking to improve both developer velocity and the developer experience.
Notably, 57% of developers believe that AI could help them upskill—and hold the potential to build learning and development into their daily workflow. With all of this in mind, technical leaders should start exploring AI as a solution to improve satisfaction, productivity, and the overall developer experience.
In addition to exploring AI tools, here are three takeaways engineering and business leaders should consider to improve the developer experience:
This report draws on a survey conducted online by Wakefield Research on behalf of GitHub from March 14, 2023 through March 29, 2023 among 500 non-student, U.S.-based developers who are not managers and work at companies with 1,000-plus employees. For a complete survey methodology, please contact press@github.com.
