Helping developers climb career ladders in alignment with business objectives

THE CHALLENGE

As a rapidly growing tech startup, one of the biggest challenges that LawnStarter faces is for the engineering organization to bring on new talent as quickly as possible while improving code quality and team performance. While engineering headcount is increasing 50-60% annually, LawnStarter’s VP of Engineering, Alberto Silveira, needs deep visibility into engineering activities to identify opportunities for improvement.

THE SOLUTION

LawnStarter leverages Velocity to create a scorecard of engineering productivity metrics that developers use to advance in their careers. Every engineer has full access to Velocity’s reports, dashboards, and modules to proactively monitor their progress within their teams and as individuals. Goals and engineering productivity metrics correlating to the business “rocks” (OKRs) are proactively shared with LawnStarter’s executive leadership.

Transparency through both process and communication are key strategies for LawnStarter’s engineering organization. Silveira stresses the importance of communicating the value and purpose of engineering metrics. As with any powerful tool, there’s a responsibility to ensure that it’s being used as intended. “If you don’t adopt the tool with the right mindset, people may not be seen through the correct lenses,” Silveira said. The scorecard helps set clear expectations up front about how the team and individuals are improving. “By explaining each individual metric ahead of time, and how those metrics contribute to achieving major goals, people understand their roles more clearly and how they can improve by taking actions that will make all of us better at the end of the day – and it works.”