The ROI of Investing in Developer Experience

At DX Heroes we do our best to make developers happy. That has been one of our taglines from the start, because it sits at the core of Developer Experience. But here is the part many teams miss: by focusing on developer experience, you directly shape the ROI of your own product, and the ROI of your customers too.

Take Netlify, a company known for excellent developer experience and the fastest way to build, scale, and deploy modern web apps. An independent study put its ROI at 151%. [1] Or look at Postman, one of the most-used developer tools, with an ROI of 339%. [2] And GitHub at 433%. [3] Developer experience clearly pays off across a company's entire cost structure.

From better employee retention to higher productivity, more innovation, stronger products, and happier customers, let's look at why investing in DX is both right for your developers and a smart business move.

Given that tagline, it's no surprise that one of your biggest cost savers, and one of the strongest drivers of ROI, is how well you keep your people.

Stretched processes, clunky setups, too many ceremonies, weak developer tooling, or a missing internal developer platform leave developers frustrated and worn out. They may already be thinking about leaving without you knowing. All of this drives turnover, and it also drags down their productivity and the value they deliver.

Streamline your development workflows, build environments that are easy to adapt, and give developers the time and space for creative problem-solving (or call it having fun at work). The payoff is faster time to market, faster integrations, and higher ROI.

Aim to cut the time it takes to get people up to speed, and set up knowledge sharing across the levels of developers you employ. Invest in developer tooling and keep improving your internal developer platform. Keep your internal documentation detailed and current. And listen to feedback and ideas from your own people.

This starts the moment you onboard someone, not later, and not after you find out they're unhappy. Postman is a good example: they cut developer onboarding by 75%, making it quick and easy to navigate and getting developers contributing value sooner, which lifts the product's real ROI right away.

Good internal processes and a real investment in developer experience mean less time spent on product maintenance, training, onboarding, and other work that may have little to do with actual development. In practice, that means higher-quality development time and ROI you can see at the level of each employee.

It also drives innovation. With less time lost to chores, meetings, and unnecessary ceremonies, developers value every minute of real coding and problem-solving. That makes for a better mood at work and leaves room for those "nice-to-haves" stuck forever in the backlog.

Focusing on developer experience can also lift product launch velocity by tens to a hundred percent. You hit the market sooner, your product starts delivering customer value sooner, and you get valuable customer feedback sooner too. That matters during market research and testing, and it matters even more when you can act quickly on feedback or requested features.

Plenty of companies have improved customer satisfaction through DX work. Airbnb [4], for example, raised satisfaction by redesigning its internal tools and giving developers better resources and support. By improving the experience of their developers, they delivered a better experience to their users.

To improve customer satisfaction through DX, prioritize usability, let customer feedback drive your development priorities, and invest in quality assurance and testing. Measure and track satisfaction so you can see what your DX work is actually doing and make data-driven calls on what to improve next.

Better customer satisfaction brings real benefits: more loyalty, positive word of mouth (one of the main channels developers use to choose tools), and higher revenue. Invest in good DX and you create a loop where customer satisfaction and business success feed each other.

Wondering where to even start when sizing up the ROI of a DX investment? Follow this basic framework:

The ROI can come out negative, which tells you the costs outweigh the measured benefits. That's fine. It's part of the process. Re-evaluate your approach and adjust the initiative.

Investing in DX can deliver a real ROI, for your company and your customers alike. But it takes commitment. You have to put in the resources, the processes, and the cultural change that create a supportive environment for your developers and customers. And you have to be willing to make data-driven decisions, measure the impact, and improve as you go.

For all that effort, the potential ROI makes it worth it. As the software industry keeps evolving, companies that prioritize good DX will be better placed to handle whatever comes next.

Ready to start seeing the ROI of investing in your developer experience? Get in touch and we'll talk through how to build a DX initiative that fits your organization and drives results.

[1] New Independent Study Finds Netlify Delivers 151% ROI

[2] Postman API Platform Delivered 339% Return on Investment, Independent Study Finds

[3] Increase developer productivity, save time on developer onboarding, and drive ROI in 2023

[4] Establishing a DevEx team in a high-growth company

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