Measuring developer performance has long been one of the hardest problems in software management, and traditional metrics are proving increasingly unreliable, according to Exante head of software development Anton Omelianenko.
Lines of code, commit counts and story points have each been tested as proxies for productivity, but Omelianenko argues they measure volume rather than quality. Complex problems can take a developer a week to resolve with a single line of code, while simple tasks generate far more output for far less value.
Counting commits, meanwhile, incentivises developers to fragment work to inflate numbers, and story point targets push teams towards easy tasks while discouraging the kind of durable engineering that businesses actually need.
To address the gap, Exante built DevMind, an internal AI tool that pulls data from GitLab and Jira to generate performance reports.
The system scores commit complexity and quality out of ten, tracks how many tasks a developer closes and how often they bounce back from testing due to bugs, and evaluates participation in stand-up meetings.
Omelianenko said the commit-scoring feature is accurate in roughly 80% of cases, with task and meeting assessments proving more reliable still. Crucially, Exante does not treat DevMind’s output as a final verdict. Tech leads, who work with their teams daily, interpret the data alongside their own judgement before any conclusions are drawn.
Performance should also be tracked over time rather than judged in the moment, Omelianenko said, since personal circumstances can temporarily affect output without erasing a developer’s underlying value to the team.
One less obvious driver of underperformance is polyworking, where an employee quietly takes on a second job and splits their effort between both.
Exante head of software development Anton Omelianenko said, “I don’t believe a company should forbid employees from taking on additional work. If a specialist handles their core tasks well, I have no questions for them. They are free to run their own project or take on extra work. The problem begins when the second job becomes the priority and the person stops delivering on the first.”
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