35 questions to ask in your developer experience surveys

A Senior Engineering Manager at a SaaS company faced challenges in understanding the development lifecycle and its pain points, leading to the creation of a comprehensive developer experience survey framework in collaboration with experts in psychometrics. This framework, featuring 35 expert-created questions, aims to capture aspects influencing engineering effectiveness through a three-part approach: business outcomes, developer productivity, and developer experience, divided into subcategories. The survey uses simple statements rated on a five-point Likert scale and was tested on Swarmia engineers and customers to identify team frictions and encourage constructive feedback. Recommended for use every three months, the survey can be confidential or named, allowing teams to address issues proactively while leadership can tackle organization-wide challenges. The consistent use of questions over time helps track trends and improvements, with the results and subsequent actions openly shared to foster transparency and drive positive change.