Content
This technique for appraising developers was subsequently dropped, but some senior engineers in banking say it’s not as bad as it looks. One executive director in the engineering team of a US bank says lines of code (LOC) are an important part of the calculus when appraising a developer’s competency and the value of keeping himher. "Almost always, top performers have a high LOC count relative to the team or a high number of projects contributed to. Low performers tend to have low LOC relative to the team," he says. Other methods of measuring the quality of engineers have been tried, but they haven’t always succeeded. JPMorgan, for example, introduced a system called BlueOptima to monitor the efficiency of its developers in late 2019, but it was discontinued after complaints. After plugging in a productivity analytics platform’ for its developers, Credit Suisse showcased the following chart in its long-forgotten 2017 investor day presentation. It suggests that a few top performing teams do most of the work.