Developer experience · Panel-data empirical study

What improves developer productivity at google? code quality

ESEC/FSE Proceedings · 2022

Lan Cheng, Emerson Murphy-Hill, Mark Canning, Ciera Jaspan, Collin Green, Andrea Knight, Nan Zhang, Elizabeth Kammer

Summary

Investigates factors that causally improve developer productivity, with code quality as a focal factor.

For your marketing

Possible founder application

Treat code quality and maintainability as productivity enablers; evaluate quality investments with longitudinal productivity data.

Reported result

What the study found

Investigates factors that causally improve developer productivity, with code quality as a focal factor.

Research question

What the authors investigated

How does the study’s stated design explain its reported outcome in this setting?

Design

Panel-data empirical study

Sample and setting

Google software developers and code-quality measures; abstract-only

Scope and transfer

Limitations to keep in view

Single-company setting and observational organizational data constrain generalization.

Research sources

abstract_only

Study strength

3.5/5 Abstract-level evidence is useful for framing questions; verify full methods before transfer.

How this was assessed

The 1–5 evidence-check score is a practical reading aid, not a formal peer review or a probability that a conclusion is true. It combines design strength (2 points), sample reporting (1), comparison/control clarity (1), and how much of the paper could be checked (1). Access affects how confidently this directory can assess a study, not the study's underlying quality. Blinding is reported separately because it is not relevant to every design.

Design transparency · 2/2

Based on the reported study design in the retrieved source.

Sample and setting · 1/1

The sample context is stated; a numerical count is preserved only when reported.

Outcome clarity · 1/1

The finding is summarized from publisher or article metadata.

Access for checking · 0.5/1

Only abstract or bibliographic access was confirmed.

Double-blind? The retrieved publisher record does not establish whether participants or outcome assessors were blinded.