Demystifying ‘DevEx’, and why it matters

Demystifying “Developer Experience”… and why it matters Developer Week 2025

“Bad developer experience?” “You know it when you see it…” Developer Week 2025

Bad DevEx Common examples Poorly documented features (or bugs) Developer Week 2025

Bad DevEx Common examples Poorly documented features (or bugs) Missing OpenAPI spec (or even APIs) Developer Week 2025

Bad DevEx Common examples Poorly documented features (or bugs) Missing OpenAPI spec (or event APIs) Downloading documentation… as a PDF, or access-gated Developer Week 2025

Bad DevEx Common examples Poorly documented features (or bugs) Missing OpenAPI spec (or event APIs) Downloading documentation… as a PDF, or access-gated Missing examples… of anything Developer Week 2025

Bad DevEx Common examples Poorly documented features (or bugs) Missing OpenAPI spec (or event APIs) Downloading documentation… as a PDF, or access-gated Missing examples… of anything “CI as Magic 8-Ball” Developer Week 2025

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Developer Week 2025

What about a good Developer Experience? Developer Week 2025

git push heroku main Developer Week 2025

Jeremy Meiss Director, DevEx & DevRel OneStream Software DevOpsDays Kansas City Organizer Developer Week 2025

A working definition of DevEx “…the journey of developers and practitioners as they learn and deploy technology, which if successful, focuses on eliminating obstacles that hinder them from achieving success in their endeavors.” -Jessica West, Co-Founder, DevEx Institute Developer Week 2025

Developer Week 2025

Developer Productivity != Developer Experience Developer Week 2025

Developer Productivity != Developer Experience Developer Productivity Focus: measured in terms of output, with an emphasis on efficiency and performance. Context: metrics like “time to release”, “number of pull requests”, or “deployment frequency”. Differs from DevEx: doesn’t capture the full experience of developers. Developer Week 2025

Developer Productivity != Developer Experience Developer Productivity Focus: measured in terms of output, with an emphasis on efficiency and performance. Developer Experience (DevEx) Focus: holistic view encompassing all aspects of the developer journey (usability, efficiency, Context: metrics like “time to release”, “number of satisfaction, etc.) pull requests”, or “deployment frequency”. Unique: integrates elements of UX and Differs from DevEx: doesn’t capture the full productivity, but with a broader scope of experience of developers. psychological safety, community, and feedback loops. Developer Week 2025

DevEx isn’t new REF: F. Fagerholm and J. Münch, “Developer experience: Concept and definition,” 2012 International Conference on Software and System Process (ICSSP), Zurich, Switzerland, 2012. Developer Week 2025

DevEx isn’t new “New ways of working such as globally distributed development or the integration of self-motivated external developers into software ecosystems will require a better and more comprehensive understanding of developers’ feelings, perceptions, motivations and identification with their tasks in their respective project environments.” REF: F. Fagerholm and J. Münch, “Developer experience: Concept and definition. 2012.” Developer Week 2025

DevEx isn’t new “…developer experience could be defined as a means for capturing how developers think and feel about their activities within their working environments, with the assumption that an improvement of the developer experience has positive impacts on characteristics such as sustained team and project performance.” REF: F. Fagerholm and J. Münch, “Developer experience: Concept and definition. 2012.” Developer Week 2025

Developer Week 2025

Evolution of the IDE Early text editors REF: O’Reilly “Learning the vi and Vim Editors” Developer Week 2025

Evolution of the IDE Early text editors 1976: Vi 1985: Emacs 1991: Vim 1999: nano Developer Week 2025

Evolution of the IDE Native IDEs in the 1980s 1983: Turbo Pascal 1986: Apple’s Macintosh Programmer’s Workshop Developer Week 2025

Evolution of the IDE First plug-in IDE HP Softbench Developer Week 2025

Evolution of the IDE First plug-in IDE HP Softbench Developer Week 2025

Evolution of the IDE First plug-in IDE HP Softbench REF: HP Journal, June 1990 edition Developer Week 2025

Evolution of the IDE Early Reviews “…the use of an IDE was not well received by developers since it would fence in their creativity.” REF: Computerwoche (“Computer Week”, German counterpart of American magazine Computer World), 1995. Developer Week 2025

Evolution of the IDE Cross-platform in the 1990s 1995: Borland Delphi Developer Week 2025

Evolution of the IDE The Web and the 1990s 1995: SGI WebMagic 1995: Microsoft FrontPage Developer Week 2025

Evolution of the IDE Features & Usability Late 1990s to 2000s 1997: Macromedia Dreamweaver 1997: Microsoft Visual Studio 1999: Microsoft FrontPage 2000 2000: NetBeans 2001: IntelliJ IDEA 2001: Eclipse IDE 2002: Microsoft Visual Studio .NET Developer Week 2025

Evolution of the IDE Lightweight & Configurable 2010s to Now 2008: Sublime Text 2015: Atom 2015: Visual Studio Code Developer Week 2025

Evolution of the IDE Cloud-based Options Now 2009: PHPanywhere (eventually becoming CodeAnywhere) 2010: Cloud9 (AWS bought it in 2016) 2018: Glitch 2019: GitPod 2020: GitHub Codespaces 2024: Google Project IDX Developer Week 2025

Evolution of the IDE A result of DevEx From this: “…the use of an IDE was not well received by developers since it would fence in their creativity.” Developer Week 2025

Evolution of the IDE A result of DevEx Things we never knew we needed… To this: Code completion Code refactoring Syntax highlighting Debugging VCS integration (no more FTPing files around) Multi-language support Framework integration Pair programming Developer Week 2025

Developer Week 2025

Key Themes of Developer Experience Developer Week 2025

Key Themes of Developer Experience 1. Developer proficiency & growth Align tasks with expertise and skill level Focus on skill development, mentorship, structured work Provide challenging but meaningful tasks Developer Week 2025

Key Themes of Developer Experience 1. Developer proficiency & growth 2. Work environment & productivity flow Minimize interruptions, unnecessary context-switching, distractions A healthy physical and virtual work environment Give autonomy over work, tools, decision-making Developer Week 2025

Key Themes of Developer Experience 1. Developer proficiency & growth 2. Work environment & productivity flow 3. Collaboration & communication Effective team collaboration Provide clear, accessible, relevant information Encourage psychological safety and supportive team culture Developer Week 2025

Key Themes of Developer Experience 1. Developer proficiency & growth 2. Work environment & productivity flow 3. Collaboration & communication 4. Code & tooling quality High-quality, maintainable, well-documented codebases Intuitive, reliable, well-integrated tools and APIs Automation and developer-friendly tooling investment Developer Week 2025

Key Themes of Developer Experience 1. Developer proficiency & growth 2. Work environment & productivity flow 3. Collaboration & communication 4. Code & tooling quality 5. Process & standardization Balance structured process and developer flexibility Standardization that supports, not hinders, productivity Steadily evolving technical ecosystem with right resources Developer Week 2025

How does DevEx apply to frontend developers? Developer Week 2025

DevEx theme ==> Frontend devs Developer proficiency & growth Why it matters Strategies for enhancement Rapidly changing frameworks Continuous learning & experimentation Critical mastery of JavaScript, CSS, accessibility, Mentorship & pair programming performance optimization Clear career growth paths Developers need time and resources to stay upto-date and improve Developer Week 2025

DevEx theme ==> Frontend devs Work environment & productivity flow Why it matters Strategies for enhancement Frequent iterations the norm Fast, configurable dev environments Focus on creative problem solving Component libraries, design systems Bottlenecks, distractions, and interruptions Browser DevTools, performance monitoring hinder productivity Developer Week 2025

DevEx theme ==> Frontend devs Collaboration & communication Why it matters Strategies for enhancement Interact heavily with designers, backend Strong design-dev collaboration engineers, product teams Clear API specs & mocking strategies Lack of clear communication slows down Shared docs & communication development Responsive behavior, accessibility, animations need structured workflows Developer Week 2025

DevEx theme ==> Frontend devs Code & tooling quality Why it matters Strategies for enhancement Poor tooling slows down development, increases Standardized tooling & linting bugs in production Automated testing & CI/CD Inconsitent code bases lead to hard-to-maintain Performance & accessibility audits projects, tech debt Focus on accessibility, security, performance ensures high-quality standards Developer Week 2025

DevEx theme ==> Frontend devs Process & standardization Why it matters Strategies for enhancement Inconsistent processes slow down teams, create Define best practices for code reviews friction Implement versioning & release management Standardized workflows reduce decision fatigue, Project onboarding & documentation cognitive load Defined processes for code reviews, versioning, onboarding == efficient, predictable dev cycles Developer Week 2025

Practical Implementation Turning DevEx into Reality Developer Week 2025

Turning DevEx into Reality 1. Start Small, Win Big Identify a pain point Define success Example: Streamline onboarding Developer Week 2025

Turning DevEx into Reality 1. Start Small, Win Big 2. Focus on feedback Multiple channels Act on the feedback Developer Week 2025

Turning DevEx into Reality 1. Start Small, Win Big 2. Focus on feedback 3. Metrics that matter Measure the impact Communicate results Developer Week 2025

DevEx is… “ruthlessly eliminating barriers (and blockers) that keep your practitioners from being successful” Developer Week 2025

@jerdog.dev /in/jeremymeiss Thank you! @jerdog @jerdog@hachyderm.io jmeiss.me @IAmJerdog Developer Week 2025

END Developer Week 2025