EngThrive: Make It Fast and Easy to Do Great Work

TL;DR

EngThrive is a comprehensive measurement system for developer productivity that balances speed, ease, quality, and wellbeing, using outcome-oriented metrics and diagnostics to enable sustained improvements.

Contribution

It introduces a practical, multi-dimensional framework with specific metrics, data infrastructure, and case studies, advancing beyond activity measurement to outcome-driven improvement.

Findings

EngThrive enables system-level productivity improvements.

It aligns metrics with genuine improvement behaviors.

The framework is applicable to various organizational factors.

Abstract

Frameworks such as SPACE, DevEx, and DORA established that developer productivity is inherently multidimensional, but left practitioners with a practical question: what should we measure, and how should we use it to improve? This paper introduces Engineering Thrive (EngThrive), a measurement and improvement system developed and deployed across Microsoft's engineering organization. EngThrive organizes productivity around three dimensions - Speed, Ease, and Quality - with Thriving as a guardrail to ensure developer wellbeing improves alongside performance. Within each dimension, outcome-oriented North Star metrics are paired with diagnostic submetrics, combining system telemetry with developer surveys to provide both scale and context. We describe the design principles that guide metric selection, including an approach in which well-chosen metrics align "gaming" behavior with genuine improvement. We also outline the data platform, survey program, and dashboard ecosystem required to operationalize this approach in practice, and present case studies demonstrating how outcome-oriented measurement enables sustained, system-level improvements. Finally, we show that EngThrive functions as a general-purpose evaluation language, applicable not only to developer tools and AI, but to organizational policies, work environments, and other factors that shape how developers experience their work. We offer EngThrive as a concrete model for organizations seeking to move beyond measuring activity toward improving outcomes.