Your Boss Doesn't Understand Your Work (Here's Why)
Developer productivity metrics create unique anxiety. If your company rolled out tracking systems like DORA metrics or velocity dashboards, you're probably wondering what these numbers mean and how they'll evaluate your work.
At GitKon 2025, we assembled senior engineers from GitHub, Cloudflare, Kong, and GitKraken to discuss "Your Boss is Measuring You, Now What?" The panel included both individual contributors and engineering leaders, creating an honest conversation about measurement from both perspectives.
Panelists:
→ Brittany Ellich, Senior Software Engineer at GitHub
→ Dillon Mulroy, Principal Engineer at Cloudflare
→ Marino Wijay, Staff Solutions Architect at Kong
→ Jordan Wallet, Engineering Lead at GitKraken
→ Anastasia Zamyshlyaeva, VP of Engineering at GitKraken
Key Topics Covered:
- Why developer productivity metrics feel so personal and create "observability anxiety"
- Common metrics that fail (lines of code, PR counts, commit frequency) and why they're "tragically terrible"
- What developers are actually resisting when they push back on measurement (hint: it's not accountability)
- The human element missing from most dashboards and how senior leaders can advocate effectively
- DORA metrics vs SPACE framework for measuring developer productivity holistically
- The "check engine light" approach to using metrics as investigation triggers, not dictators
- How AI changes what we should measure (cognitive load reduction vs velocity gains)
- Practical frameworks for interpreting your metrics without panic and talking to your manager when numbers don't tell the whole story
GitKraken Desktop:
http://tr.ee/GKDYT
GitKraken CLI:
http://tr.ee/CLIYT
GitLens for VS Code:
http://tr.ee/GLYT
Git Integration for Jira:
http://tr.ee/GijYT
Git Blog:
http://gitkraken.com/blog