DoP Deep: Stripe's Okay acquisition and how to measure engineering productivity
A deeper look at the acquisition and why engineering productivity is a competitive advantage
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Hi product people 👋,
Rich from the Department of Product here! We recently reported on Stripe’s acquisition of a little known startup called Okay which specializes in measuring engineering productivity.
In this DoP Deep newsletter, we’ll delve a little deeper into the company and the sale to help you to understand:
What Stripe’s Okay acquisition means and why it’s relevant for product-led companies everywhere
How to measure engineering productivity - some practical frameworks explored
Deep work vs. shallow work and why it matters in product development in a remote world
Tools you can use to measure engineering productivity
Earlier this month, Stripe announced that it was to acquire a startup very few people had heard of. As the company preps for its long-rumoured IPO, Stripe is taking steps to maximise the productivity of its teams with an acquisition like this.
What is Okay and why does it matter?
Okay describes itself as a tool which ‘brings all your engineering data in one place’. It acts as a layer which sits on top of engineering tools such as GitHub to provide engineering management teams with the visibility they need to understand what problems engineers are facing and how productive the overall team is.
Ever since many product teams shifted to a remote or hybrid model, the demand for greater visibility around what teams are actually doing during the day has never been higher. The idea behind tools like Okay is that engineers and managers alike can keep track of their productivity and unblock problems before they arise.
The platform “detects patterns in code reviews, calendars, and project trackers that alert before the situation becomes harder to manage”.
Stripe CTO David Singleton said that the company spends “a lot of time thinking about how to make sure developers have productive days” and that the acquisition of Okay will help the company “build more effective tools for Stripe engineers”.
Engineering productivity as competitive advantage
Okay used to be a SaaS product that any company could use, with leading tech companies like Plaid, Brex and Instacart all using it to improve productivity. Post-acquisition though, Stripe is keeping this tool all for itself.
This isn’t rare, of course. Acquisitions are often made to increase the competitive advantages of the acquirer. But whilst this often takes the form of a larger company buying out an emerging competitor to strengthen its own position, Stripe’s acquisition is purely on the basis of boosting its engineering and product development process.
Often, companies will build their own infrastructure tools instead, so it’s fairly rare to see companies buy-in internal tools in this way. Stripe was also an investor in the company so that clearly played a part here, too.
But let’s assume you’re not working at Stripe and you don’t have access to this tool. How else could you manage engineering productivity in your workplace?
How to measure engineering productivity
I’ve worked with teams who are insanely productive, ship things quickly and are eager to get sh*t done as quickly as possible.
And I’ve also worked in teams where the engineers are slow, sluggish and can’t really be bothered.
Maybe you’ve also had some similar experiences of your own, working in companies where the product and engineering teams are at times super productive and at other times not so productive.
Incentives matter
Engineering productivity is irrelevant if the teams involved genuinely don’t care about the company or the product and its success.
A top-down approach, where engineers are fed work by managers, with little to no context about the wider company strategy or an explanation of why this work is meaningful or relevant, is the fastest way to guarantee a culture of engineers who don’t care.
Doing the opposite will often result in a culture of engineers who do. And are therefore more inclined to be as productive as possible.
Crude measurement tactics
Lines of code written
If the rumours are to be believed, Elon Musk famously fired engineers on the basis of how many lines of code they wrote.