If you wish to speak about developer productiveness within the AI period, it’s a must to speak about supply efficiency. The DORA metrics stay a cussed actuality test as a result of they measure throughput and stability reasonably than quantity: lead time for adjustments, deployment frequency, change failure charge, and time to revive. The SPACE framework can also be helpful as a result of it reminds us that productiveness is multidimensional, and “feels quicker” will not be the identical as “is quicker.” AI typically boosts satisfaction early as a result of it removes drudgery. That issues. However satisfaction can coexist with worse efficiency if groups spend their time validating, debugging, and remodeling AI-generated code that’s verbose, subtly fallacious, or inconsistent with inner requirements. If you would like one manager-friendly measure that forces honesty, observe the time to compliant deployment: the elapsed time from work being “prepared” to precise software program working in manufacturing with the required safety controls, observability, and coverage checks.
That is the half the business nonetheless tries to bounce round: AI makes the liberty downside worse. Gergely Orosz argues that as AI writes extra of the code, engineers transfer up the abstraction ladder. The job shifts from writing to reviewing, integrating, and making architectural decisions. That appears like a promotion. Hurray, proper? Possibly. In observe, it may be a burden as a result of it assumes a degree of programs understanding that’s inconsistently distributed throughout a group.
Compounding the issue, when creation turns into low-cost, coordination turns into costly. For those who let each group use AI to generate bespoke options, you find yourself with a patchwork quilt of stacks, frameworks, and operational assumptions. It will probably all look nice in pull requests and unit assessments, however what occurs when somebody has to combine, safe, and function it? At that time, the group slows down, not as a result of builders can’t sort, however as a result of the system can’t cohere.
