Knowledge Areas in Developer Coaching

How It Works
Why Knowledge Areas Matter
Example View
Use Cases for Engineering Leaders
Related Resources

The Knowledge Areas section within LinearB's Developer Coaching provides a clear snapshot of where individual developers have focused their efforts over the past six months. This feature highlights a developer’s top areas of contribution, helping you understand how knowledge and expertise are distributed across your engineering team.

How It Works

Knowledge Areas are populated using data from Team Activity. LinearB identifies the top three repositories each developer has worked on during the selected timeframe. A repository appears in the Knowledge Areas view only if it represents at least 10% of the developer's activity, indicating a meaningful investment of time.(Note: This threshold is configurable.)

This view helps teams:

✅ Identify specialization and expertise areas

✅ Understand where knowledge is concentrated

✅ Recognize opportunities for cross-training and collaboration

Why Knowledge Areas Matter

While specialization is valuable, so is knowledge sharing and cross-functional exposure. The Knowledge Areas view helps you:

Expose developers to new domains or technologies
Avoid tunnel vision or burnout from working on a single area too long
⚖Balance workloads and promote team resilience
Identify mentoring opportunities between developers with overlapping or complementary expertise

By tracking developer contributions across repositories, you can create healthier, more adaptable teams that are equipped to scale and support one another effectively.

Example View

A developer’s dashboard might show:

Repository Focus (Last 6 Months):
- linweb – 57%
- linrest – 21%
Top Coding Languages:
- C++ – 72%
- Python – 12%
- Swift – 5%

This snapshot offers immediate insight into both domain knowledge and language proficiency, making it easier to guide career development conversations and strategic team planning.