Earlier quoted context omitted.
I keep hearing this argument about "knowledge workers" yet writers produce books, designers produce design documents, developers ship code. sometimes you slow down because you're starting something new or you're blocked by other people, but in general productivity measured in code changes frequency / volume and the impact of the feature being worked on is rather straightforward (how many users use the feature, how mu…
> developers ship code Developers ship solutions to problems, which often involves some code. A developer who solves the problem in a fast, cheap, maintainable way with an off-the-shelf package is superior to a developer who solves the same problem in a slow, expensive way with many thousands of lines of unmaintainable code. > but in general productivity measured in code changes frequency / volume Oh my. I don't even…
impact (feature $value * users using it) / change rate (frequency * volume)
is a full enough overview of an engineer's output in a crude manner.
if you implement a feature that makes 10$s per user for 100M users in 2 lines of code you're the best developer out there..... if you write 10000 lines of code to ship something that makes 0.005ct for 100 users ... you should not be employed.
As an engineering manager I advice every developer to find a way to learn to measure their output because that is a good way for them to know their value (ask for a raise, move to a different company ...)