Role-Based Path — Developer Experience (DevEx)

This guide is for Developer Experience and Platform leaders who want to reduce developer friction, remove bottlenecks, and make it easier for teams to ship quality software. Use it alongside the PMO & Delivery Operations path: DevEx focuses on fixing friction in the flow, while PMO focuses on protecting predictability and portfolio outcomes.

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Who this guide is for

DevEx and Platform teams succeed when they can prove that tooling, standards, and platform investments actually reduce friction and improve delivery outcomes. This guide assumes you:

• Care about developer experience as a measurable, improvable system — not just anecdotes.
• Partner closely with Engineering Managers, Tech Leads, and PMO.
• Have access to LinearB Delivery & Quality metrics, and optionally: Work Breakdown, Developer Coaching, Surveys, gitStream, and AI Insights (if enabled in your workspace).

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What DevEx is accountable for

Typical DevEx & Platform responsibilities include:

• Reducing friction across the development lifecycle (coding, review, release).
• Standardizing practices and tooling (branching, PR policies, CI/CD, automation).
• Improving focus time and minimizing unnecessary interruptions and context switching.
• Partnering with PMO and Engineering leaders to ensure changes in process actually improve real metrics (Cycle Time, quality, predictability).

This guide helps you translate those responsibilities into a concrete DevEx program backed by data in LinearB.

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What you’ll do with this guide

Use this path to:

• Benchmark developer friction using core delivery metrics (Cycle Time and its sub-metrics: Coding, Pickup, Review, Deploy Time).
• Find where friction is highest in the lifecycle (handoffs, review, planning, deployment).
• Pair delivery metrics with work-type signals (New vs Refactor vs Rework) to understand where effort is going.
• Instrument DevEx with coaching and sentiment data (Developer Coaching and Surveys, if enabled).
• Scale fixes with low-noise automations using gitStream (if enabled).
• Stand up a measurable DevEx program with KPIs tied to teams and initiatives.

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Before you begin

Make sure the following are in place:

• Git integration is connected and active.
• Teams and contributors are configured so that delivery metrics reflect real teams.
• Metrics calculation mode (Average, Median, P75, P90) is chosen and documented with EMs.
• Optional but recommended for DevEx:
  • Work Breakdown is enabled (New / Refactor / Rework).
  • Developer Coaching is enabled for key teams, if available.
  • Surveys are available and configured, if your plan includes them.
  • gitStream and AI Insights are enabled, if available in your workspace.

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Step 1 — Baseline friction in your delivery flow

Goal: Understand where developers are waiting or struggling across the lifecycle.

1.1 — Start with Cycle Time and its sub-metrics

Where: Metrics → Delivery (Cycle Time, Coding, Pickup, Review, Deploy Time)

1. Select a representative team (or group of teams) instead of the whole company.
2. Set a recent time window (e.g., last 4–8 weeks) to reflect current behavior.
3. Review:
   • Overall Cycle Time trend.
   • Breakdown into Coding, Pickup, Review, Deploy Time.
4. Identify the slowest phase (where the largest share of Cycle Time is accumulating).

1.2 — Compare teams to avoid false positives

• Look at a few teams with similar work types (e.g., feature teams vs. platform teams).
• Note where one team experiences much higher Pickup or Review Time than peers.
• Flag those gaps as candidate friction areas for later investigation.

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Step 2 — Add work-type context (New, Refactor, Rework)

Goal: Understand how much effort is going into new features vs. fixing or reshaping existing code.

Where: Metrics → Delivery / Quality (Work Breakdown, New Code, Refactor, Rework)

1. Open the Work Breakdown view (if enabled) for your target team.
2. Review the ratio of:
   • New Code — net new functionality.
   • Refactor — improving existing code.
   • Rework — recently changed code being changed again.
3. Cross-check with Cycle Time:
   • High Rework + long Coding Time → friction in requirements or design.
   • High Refactor + long Review Time → friction around standards or legacy code.

Capture 2–3 clear observations per team, for example:

• “Team A: long Review Time, lots of Refactor work in legacy service X.”
• “Team B: high Rework on new features, Coding Time spikes near release cutoffs.”

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Step 3 — Combine metrics with coaching & surveys (if enabled)

Goal: Tie measured friction to how developers actually experience their work.

3.1 — Use Developer Coaching to spot workload and knowledge risks

Where: Developer Coaching (if enabled)

• Identify developers or teams with consistent overload (too many PRs, reviews, or incidents).
• Look for knowledge hot spots where a few people are always on critical paths.
• Compare these patterns with high Cycle Time or Rework areas from earlier steps.

3.2 — Use Surveys to validate themes

Where: Surveys (if enabled)

• Run a short survey focused on DevEx themes: planning clarity, review experience, tooling reliability, focus time.
• Slice results by team and compare against their delivery metrics.
• Use comments to add color to your metric-based hypotheses.

3.3 — Use AI Insights to spot patterns faster (if enabled)

Where: AI Insights (if enabled)

• Review AI-surfaced patterns around slow reviews, large PRs, or risky changes.
• Use these insights to prioritize which friction themes to tackle first.

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Step 4 — Scale fixes with standards and gitStream (if enabled)

Goal: Turn what works for one team into scalable, low-noise standards.

4.1 — Start with lightweight standards

• Agree on PR sizing guidelines (e.g., preferred range, absolute maximum).
• Standardize review expectations (e.g., target Pickup Time, review depth, required reviewers).
• Align on branching and draft PR conventions to avoid polluting metrics.

4.2 — Use gitStream to automate guardrails (if enabled)

Where: gitStream (Managed or Self-Managed)

• Apply low-noise automations to:
  • Flag oversized PRs for extra review.
  • Auto-label PRs based on risk or directory patterns.
  • Route reviews to the right code experts.
  • Use AI review and AI descriptions to speed up feedback loops.
• Roll out automations to a small set of teams first, then expand once they’re tuned.

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Step 5 — Turn improvements into a measurable DevEx program

Goal: Move from one-off fixes to a repeatable DevEx operating loop.

5.1 — Define DevEx KPIs

• Choose a short list of metrics to own, for example:
  • Cycle Time and the slowest sub-metric (e.g., Pickup or Review Time).
  • PR Size distribution.
  • Rework Ratio for key services.
  • Developer sentiment on reviews and tooling (if Surveys are enabled).
• Document a before/after baseline for each key initiative (e.g., new review policy, CI change).

5.2 — Review with PMO & Engineering leadership

• Share a simple DevEx scorecard tying:
  • Friction you observed (metrics + sentiment).
  • Changes you made (standards, tools, automations).
  • Measured impact on Cycle Time, quality, and predictability.
• Align with PMO & Delivery Operations on how DevEx work supports: forecast accuracy, commitment reliability, and portfolio priorities.

5.3 — Close the loop with teams

• Show teams their own before/after trends instead of only company-level charts.
• Highlight wins where friction dropped (e.g., Pickup Time faster, fewer oversized PRs).
• Use that momentum to prioritize the next wave of DevEx investments.

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Next steps

• Use the PMO & Delivery Operations path to align DevEx changes with portfolio planning and commitment tracking.
• Document 1–2 DevEx initiatives per quarter with clear owners, timelines, and KPIs.
• Explore additional automation patterns in the gitStream Automation Library .
• Share key learnings in your internal Engineering or DevEx forum to spread practices across teams.

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Recommended next articles

• Team Iterations + AI Summaries
• Developer Coaching
• Surveys in LinearB
• gitStream Hub