Measuring Engineering Productivity

You can actually measure engineering productivity without turning metrics into a weapon. The author argues that the goal is not to rank people but to give everyone clear visibility into output, linking outcomes like shipped features to the work that produced them. Goodhart's Law is the main pitfall, so the system avoids counting lines of code or commits. The solution is a set of low-overhead signals driven by managers: engineers post a brief async standup in Slack each day, managers compile weekly changelogs that tag each PR, 1:1 meetings follow a People-Product-Process template, and all-hands demos showcase weekly accomplishments. Real-time PR notifications and deploy verification prompts create ambient awareness without adding extra steps for engineers. Implementation starts small. Begin with daily standup messages and PR notifications, then layer in weekly changelogs and all-hands presentations as the team matures. Explicit examples of what a good standup looks like and shared Notion notes keep expectations clear. Automation replaces manual tracking, and the process is kept remote-friendly. When done right the data becomes a tool for early problem detection and fair performance conversations, not a scoreboard. Managers can see when someone is stuck, when work is unusually complex, or when patterns emerge across the team. The result is a culture of cadence, transparency, and trust that lets engineers focus on building, while leadership maintains visibility.