What does a Chief Technology Officer do? When I talk to groups of engineering leaders, I’m sometimes surprised by the response I get to this question. No two answers will be the same, and the definition often boils down to a variation of taking orders from other areas of the business. Instead of having a seat at the table, CTOs and other engineering leaders are focused more on how to manage requests from their executive peers. The reality is that engineering leaders should be strategic partners with their executive peers. Instead of taking requests from sales, marketing and product leaders in ..read more

One of the most common things an engineering leader will hear from their team is, “I don’t understand how my work actually matters.” And that lack of clarity leads to dissatisfaction — individual contributors struggle to connect their work to the broader goals of the business, leading to a poor developer experience and increased employee churn. But that isn’t even the worst possible outcome. In the worst-case scenario, an engineer might come up with their own narrative around the work they’re doing. “The only reason I have to do this is because the sales team wants it.” “This project doesn’t ..read more

In a recent blog post, we explored some of the challenges engineering leaders face when it comes to measuring productivity and sharing those metrics with others.  Measuring engineering productivity is challenging to begin with, but the problem becomes more complicated when you consider the different levels of stakeholders that need to be kept up to date. Engineering leaders are often called upon to report on their progress to a company’s board of directors — an audience that is often less experienced in the nuances of software engineering.  Investors and board members will sometimes ..read more

Navigating the tax system as a software company can make your head spin. To help us get a better grasp on complex but important topics such as software capitalization, Section 174, and more, we sat down with tax specialist Bill Barnes, the Tax Partner leading the R&D tax credit consulting practice at the nation’s largest non-audit accounting and advisory firm, CFGI.  Read on to see what Bill has to say about audits, how engineering and finance can work together, software capitalization, and more. On Auditing SaaS Companies Jellyfish: What are you commonly looking for when auditing a S ..read more

It brings us great excitement to share the winners of the 2024 Illuminate Awards, Jellyfish’s software engineering leadership awards program.  Over the past few months, we’ve worked with teams across Jellyfish to learn about everything our customers have accomplished over the past year.  Now it’s time to shine a spotlight on this year’s Illuminate Awards winners: FanDuel, Keller Williams, Genius Sports, nCino, and Five9. Congratulations to these outstanding partners who’ve embraced Jellyfish to drive innovation and excellence across their organizations! FanDuel: Winner of The Best of ..read more

On April 27, 2023, consulting firm McKinsey released a framework meant to break through the developer productivity “black box.” Some components of this framework were based on well-reputed methodologies like DORA and SPACE, and others proposed new ideas, such as a “Developer Velocity Index benchmark.” The developer world was incensed: Dan North, the originator of Behaviour-Driven Development, said the “cornerstone of the paper is unfortunately simply misguided.” Dave Farley, co-author of Continuous Delivery: Reliable Software Releases through Build, Test, and Deployment Automation, said, “Apa ..read more

It may feel like developer experience (or DevEx) is having a moment in the spotlight, recently spurring debates and think pieces galore. However, engineering professionals who have been around the block know that the concept of DevEx isn’t exactly new — investing in CI/CD pipelines and improving processes and tests are standard practices in engineering.  So what has changed? Given the current climate of “do more with less,” we’re seeing more interest outside the engineering department in prioritizing and measuring DevEx.  Developer experience refers to developers’ overall satisfactio ..read more

Falling into the “productivity trap”—or relying exclusively on metrics, throughput, and inefficiencies—when discussing engineering operations can set your engineering teams up for failure. Why? Because engineering operations are complex, and metrics only tell half the story. To fully understand how an engineering department is doing, you need context. For example, what may look like a prolonged delivery cycle at one company might be acceptable at another.  As a technical program manager, it’s your job to serve as a translator for executive stakeholders, turning metrics and anecdotal feedb ..read more

Marc Andreessen declared that software was eating the world back in 2011, but today, many engineering and business leaders worry about how software is eating the budget.  Years ago, software and technology departments were considered cost centers, and businesses budgeted around that. Now, after the rise of software and engineering-led companies, many organizations have recognized that software can be a profit center.  With the end of zero interest rate policies (ZIRP), businesses are under even more pressure to fine-tune their budgets, and engineering leaders are under pressure to co ..read more

Performance management tools such as Salesforce, Marketo, and Hubspot have long supported sales, legal, marketing, and finance teams. These tools provide visibility into day-to-day operations and help teams keep tabs on essential areas like budget, milestones, or ROI.  Despite software development’s growing importance and prevalence in today’s business landscape, many engineering departments are operating in a black box, with little visibility into what people are working on, where projects stand, and more. At Jellyfish, we know that this lack of visibility compounds many of the daily cha ..read more