Indian developers’ experience scores higher: DX survey

SALT LAKE CITY: India has emerged as a key geography in how global enterprises analyse software productivity, with engineering intelligence firm DX saying it has surveyed more than 100,000 engineers in the country as part of its developer experience research.The data shows developers based in India consistently report 10-15% higher self-reported developer experience scores than their counterparts in Western markets, a divergence that has led the company to run separate India-specific benchmarks. DX was recently acquired by Atlassian for $1 billion.The findings were shared by DX founder and chief executive Abi Noda in an interview with TOI. He said the pattern has appeared consistently across companies and industries.The scores are derived from structured, attitudinal survey questions that capture developers’ own perceptions of their work environment, rather than output-based measures such as lines of code written or tickets closed. These questions focus on practical aspects of day-to-day engineering work, including the ability to focus without interruptions, ease of understanding and modifying existing code, access to documentation and information, and friction caused by tools and internal processes.“Across these attitudinal survey questions, we consistently see higher scores from developers in India,” Noda said. He added DX does not interpret this as automatic evidence of higher productivity, noting that cultural differences in how responses are given could influence results. “Because of that, we adjust how benchmarks are run when a company has a large India-based engineering workforce,” he said. India’s prominence reflects the globalisation of engineering teams.