The document discusses the importance of Developer Experience (DevEx) and the impact of open source in enhancing software development efficiency at Spotify. It identifies challenges such as complexity, fragmentation, and the need for autonomy in development, while proposing solutions like ease of use, unification, and guidance. Additionally, it highlights the role of internal developer portals and the benefits of open source, including innovation and talent acquisition.

1. Caring About DevEx &
the Impact of Open Source
Francesco Corti
Product Manager
francescoc@spotify.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/fcorti/
FrkCorti

2. Francesco Corti
Product Manager
Platform
Developer
Experience
Tribe (PDX) “Speed up Spotify
by providing teams
with a simple,
consistent and
delightful
experience”
● Developer Experience
● Targeting developers
(and the techies)
● The role of Open Source

4. Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash
Open
Source

5. Developers are important!
faster
effective
innovators
to be ahead of the competition

6. Photo byThisisEngineering RAEng on Unsplash
Creator: opensource.com
Source: Internet censorship in Slovak republic
License: CC BY-SA 2.0
Developers
Development

7. front-end / back-end / full-stack
mobile
QA testers
data scientists
devops
security experts
…
TYPE
OF
DEVELOPERS
front-end (interfaces and UIs)
back-end (services and APIs)
devops (as the methodology)
…
internal and external
…
TYPE
OF
DEVELOPMENT
microservices
platformization
…
EMERGING
ARCHITECTURE
repositories (Git*, bitbucket, etc.)
pipelines (Travis, Terraform, etc.)
containerization
cloud (as deployment env)
documentation (Confluence, Wiki, ...)
ticketing and boards (Jira, Github)
….
TOOLING

8. Software development in
today’s world is more
powerful than ever
but very complex
Software development in
today’s world is more
powerful than ever
but very complex

9. Developers are
comfortable in working as
“extension of the code”

11. Fragmentation

12. Developer Experience
is the collection of tasks, behaviors, feelings and actions in general,
done by the developers (and techies) to accomplish their goals

13. F.A.Q.
Are we already doing DevEx?
Are we doing it right?
Is DevEx a need because of the complexity?
…in these days it is affecting the business

14. Examples
Onboarding: 60 days to deliver the first 10 PRs
Service ownership: who owns what?
Security: log4j incident
Developers don’t like to write documentation
Time to create a service from scratch
bigger
challenge
at scale

15. Innovation as a challenge
Developers want to experiment, try, learn (maybe failing)
Constraints, long processes, strict rules are blockers
AUTONOMYneeds to be preserved

16. Challenges
COMPLEXITY
FRAGMENTATION
AUTONOMY
(at scale)
Solutions
WHAT
possible solutions
look like?

17. COMPLEXITY - EASE OF USE
COMPLEXITY - EASE OF USE
Treating
developers as
humans instead of
extension of code

18. FRAGMENTATION - UNIFICATION
Single pane
of glass
FRAGMENTATION - UNIFICATION

19. AUTONOMY - GUIDANCE
Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash Photo by Jeremy Bezanger on Unsplash
AUTONOMY - GUIDANCE
SELF-SERVICE

20. Challenges
COMPLEXITY
FRAGMENTATION
AUTONOMY
(at scale)
Solutions
EASE OF USE
(with flexibility)
UNIFICATION
(of the experience)
GUIDANCE
(and self-service)

21. What companies are doing?
● Built of a dedicated DevEx team
● DevEx teams are often small (between 2 to 10-ish)
● Often originated by Software Architects / DevOps teams
● Starting from “operational problems” landing to DevEx
● Tooling is a challenge

22. Shared concern

23. Market segmentation
A defined market segment does not really exist yet
Analysts have DevEx in the radar (because the business cares)

24. Market segmentation
A defined market segment does not really exist yet
Analysts have DevEx in the radar (because the business cares)

25. The current offering
An Internal Developer Portal is a Web
Application targeting the Developer
Persona of an Organization, built and
working on top of third party services.
An Internal Developer Platform (IDP)
has the same target persona, but it is
more focused on specific services, often
self-service DevOps.
Developer Portal
Service Service Service
…
Dev Portal
Dev Platform
ABSTRACTION

26. The role of
How OSS is perceived by customers
Open Source is a boost for innovation (communities)
Open Source is flexible
Open Source is (well) supported through the communities
Open Source allows an easier transition (in and out)
Open Source is stable/secure because of the communities
Open Source can be a strict requirement in some industries
Open Source avoids the vendor lock-in
Open Source is (often) faster in releases and bug fixes
Open Source is cheaper
Open Source
How OSS is perceived by vendors
Open Source brings innovation to the business
Open Source is a marketing boost especially for IT
Open Source creates branding
Open Source makes easier to recruit talents in communities
a16z.com

27. Francesco Corti
Product Manager
“Speed up Spotify
by providing teams
with a simple,
consistent and
delightful
experience”
● Defining the DevEx
● Why DevEx is important
● Solutions and market
● The role of Open Source
francescoc@spotify.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/fcorti/
FrkCorti
Making
Developers
Happy!