Defining a North Star for your developer experience

Why developer experience matters

There are more than 27 million professional software developers today,¹ and that figure is expected to grow by 25% within the next decade (more than three times the growth rate of other professions²). Developers are not just builders of the $880 billion software economy³ but also key buyers and influencers of technology. In fact, 57% of developers surveyed by Stack Overflow said they have influence over technology purchases in their organization.⁴ Furthermore, generative AI (Gen AI) advancements across every industry have placed developers at the forefront of leading the growth trajectory within their organizations.

Enabling developers effectively has a significant payoff—organizations with leading DevOps/DevEx capabilities are twice as likely as low performers to exceed organizational performance goals (e.g., profitability, productivity, market share).⁵

Improving developer experience is a logical investment whether companies have a dedicated DevEx team or not. However, to focus the investments in a way that truly empowers developers without ballooning costs, leaders must first set a DevEx North Star.

What is in a North Star?

Crafting a compelling DevEx North Star requires articulating the organization’s aspiration statement, role, focus areas, and cross-functional engagement. As we shared in our first article, “Accelerating developer experience (DevEx),” articulating the North Star for the DevEx organization is the first step in building leading developer experiences. In our experience, a highly effective DevEx North Star is an actionable, compelling document that consists of four elements:

Four developer experience role archetypes

A DevEx organization is typically a mix of four archetypes, based on our research and observations. Most organizations choose to adopt a hybrid approach that blends elements from each archetype. Moreover, a DevEx team’s role is not static; it should evolve based on the needs of the organization. For example, a DevEx team may choose to focus on a blend of operator and technologist archetypes in the near term while building capabilities to fulfill the catalyst and strategist archetypes in the long term.

Endnotes

¹ Lionel Sujay Vailshery, “Number of software developers worldwide in 2018 to 2024,” Statista, August 29, 2023.
² Bureau of Labor Statistics, US Department of Labor, “Software developers, quality assurance analysts, and testers,” Occupational Outlook Handbook, last modified September 6, 2023.
³ Gartner, “Gartner forecasts worldwide IT spending to grow 2.4% in 2023,” press release, January 18, 2023.
⁴ Stack Overflow, “Discover how developers are gaining influence on technology purchases,” July 21, 2023.
⁵ Deloitte internal analysis.
⁶ Mercer Smith, “107 customer service statistics and facts you shouldn’t ignore,” Help Scout, June 22, 2023.
⁷ GitHub, 2020 state of the Octoverse report, 2020.
⁸ Productiv, The state of SaaS sprawl in 2021, October 4, 2021.
⁹ Jason Wong and Kyle Davis, Harness the disruptive powers of low-code: A Gartner trend insight report, Gartner, July 18, 2022.
¹⁰ Brook Perry, “Inside Etsy’s multi-year DevEx initiative,” DX, June 23, 2023.
¹¹ Ibid.
¹² Wong and Davis, Harness the disruptive powers of low-code.
¹³ Ibid.