Software is the engine of modern business. Every company’s ability to compete is tied to how quickly and effectively it can deliver digital solutions. This makes the experience of the people building that software more than just an engineering concern. Today, developer experience (DevEx) is emerging as a board-level metric. Here are 10 reasons why.

»1. Market pressures demand speed

Speed to market determines who leads and who lags. When developers face slow builds, outdated tools, or approval bottlenecks, they get frustrated and release cycles slow down. But a smooth developer experience accelerates delivery and that has a direct effect on business results. Companies in the top quartile of McKinsey’s Developer Velocity Index (DVI) — a metric that measures a company's ability to use software development to fuel business performance, based on assessing technology, working practices, and organizational enablement — have 4-5x faster revenue growth than other organizations. Research from DORA shows a direct connection between software delivery performance and strong organizational performance, which includes producing revenue and customer value.

»2. Higher operating margins

Better developer experience reduces waste and channels more engineering hours into customer-facing innovation. Companies with strong DevEx avoid costly rework, technical debt, and downtime. McKinsey reports that top DVI performers not only grow revenue faster but also realize 30% higher operating margins. Companies with more mature product and platform operating models (which are contributing factors to better DevEx) produce 60% higher total returns to shareholders and 16% higher operating margins.

»3. Reduced risk

Poor developer experience affects code quality — and low-quality code generates more defects and takes longer to fix. Defects that aren’t recognized and corrected can cause reputational damage, customer dissatisfaction, and compliance issues. Improving DevEx through better tooling, testing, and workflows reduces these risks.

»4. Talent attraction and retention

Top engineering talent is scarce and expensive. Companies known for outdated software or outdated IT management practices don’t attract the best talent, and developers who constantly struggle with poor tools or inefficient processes quickly get frustrated, burn out, or leave. Replacing a single experienced engineer is expensive when you consider the recruitment and ramp-up costs. But the greater cost might be the opportunity cost of a particular engineer’s innovativeness.

»5. Operational efficiency

Research shows that despite productivity tools, developers still lose the equivalent of a full workday each week to organizational inefficiencies. If every developer loses just one hour per day to tool friction, a 500-person engineering team wastes more than 130,000 hours per year. Improving DevEx can claw back much of that lost time.

»6. Customer satisfaction

Customers feel the effects of poor DevEx in the form of buggy releases, outages, and slow updates. When developers have the right tools and environment, however, they ship more reliable software that customers trust. This makes DevEx a key driver of customer satisfaction and retention.

»7. Innovation at scale

Companies with high developer velocity have an edge when it comes to innovation. But when developers spend most of their time on maintenance or overcoming friction, little is left for creative problem-solving and innovation suffers. Studies reveal that developers who have more time for deep work (a key influencer of DevEx) are 50% more productive compared to their counterparts with less uninterrupted time. Strong DevEx environments free up cycles for experimentation, rapid prototyping, and innovation.

»8. More predictability

Poor DevEx creates variability in delivery, making it harder to predict timelines and budgets. On the other hand, better workflows and tooling reduce uncertainty, improve planning accuracy, and strengthen governance. For executives, DevEx contributes to organizational predictability, which helps them make better strategic decisions.

»9. Workplace culture

Employee engagement impacts business growth. Poor DevEx contributes to an unpleasant workplace for developers, making them feel overworked, underappreciated, and frustrated. Improving DevEx boosts morale, and a better, happier culture generally leads to a more innovative workplace.

»10. Return on investment

Executives spend money on engineering talent and IT infrastructure. But if they can’t unlock and retain talent, or fully leverage the infrastructure, ROI decreases. Improving DevEx makes sure highly-skilled people are engaged and supported with technology tools and processes to do their best work — which has a direct effect on business outcomes. Without the right tools and processes, engineering talent and IT horsepower mean nothing.

»What leaders can do to improve DevEx

There are many ways to help developers. Some of the most effective actions you can take include:

• Using developer satisfaction surveys, deployment frequency, and build times as leading indicators of organizational health.
• Adopting CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and internal developer platforms to reduce friction and free engineers to focus on innovation.
• Simplifying workflows, streamlining approvals, and cutting unnecessary bureaucracy that slows developers down. Automate the red tape.
• Encouraging developer experimentation, continuous feedback, and a some level of autonomy and ownership for their work.
• Helping product, business, and technology leaders recognize DevEx as a strategic priority, with funding and board-level visibility.

For proven best practices to build your DevEx program, read 13 DevEx best practices: Your cheat sheet for improving developer velocity and retention.