As an Engineering Manager, I always look for ways to help my team ship code faster. Recently, I came across an insightful article by Daksh Gupta, where he asked 100 developers from top companies like Meta, Amazon, Google, and Stripe a simple question: “What’s stopping you from shipping faster?” 🤔
The responses were eye-opening and I wanted to share some key takeaways:
- 📚 Codebase complexity is a major bottleneck. Undocumented features, outdated dependencies, and navigating intricate microservices architectures slow developers down significantly. Investing in good documentation practices can pay huge dividends.
- 🎯 Inefficient processes like lengthy QA loops, waiting for spec/stakeholder approvals, and excessive meetings eat up valuable development time. Streamlining these processes while maintaining quality is crucial.
- 🛠️ Tooling matters. Slow deployment pipelines and build times lead to frustrating idle time for developers. Optimizing CI/CD and build processes can greatly improve dev velocity.
- 🤝 People factors like PR review delays, scope creep, and unclear requirements contribute to slower shipping. Effective communication and collaboration between teams is key.
- 💡 Developer motivation impacts productivity. Working on inspiring projects and being recognized for going above and beyond can make a big difference in dev speed.
The article also highlights how company size affects shipping speed. Larger companies tend to be more risk-averse, leading to extensive reviews and planning. Startups have an agility advantage here, but as they grow, they risk becoming the slow-moving incumbents they once disrupted. 🐢
As engineering leaders, it’s on us to identify and tackle these bottlenecks head-on. By fostering a culture of continuous improvement, investing in the right tools and processes, and empowering our teams, we can enable developers to ship faster without compromising on quality. 💪
I highly recommend giving the full article a read. It’s a great reminder that small improvements can compound to make a big impact on development velocity. Let me know your thoughts in the comments! 💬
source: I asked 100 devs why they aren’t shipping faster. Here’s what I learned