{"id":4774,"date":"2025-08-27T17:42:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T17:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aviator.co\/blog\/?p=4774"},"modified":"2025-10-09T13:12:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T13:12:18","slug":"how-top-tech-teams-use-ai-to-boost-dev-productivity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aviator.co\/blog\/how-top-tech-teams-use-ai-to-boost-dev-productivity\/","title":{"rendered":"How Top Tech Teams Use AI To Boost Dev Productivity"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-post-featured-image\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"2240\" height=\"1260\" src=\"https:\/\/www.aviator.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/AI-developer-experience.png\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"How Top Tech Teams Use AI To Boost Dev Productivity\" style=\"object-fit:cover;\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.aviator.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/AI-developer-experience.png 2240w, https:\/\/www.aviator.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/AI-developer-experience-300x169.png 300w, https:\/\/www.aviator.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/AI-developer-experience-1024x576.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.aviator.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/AI-developer-experience-768x432.png 768w, https:\/\/www.aviator.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/AI-developer-experience-1536x864.png 1536w, https:\/\/www.aviator.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/AI-developer-experience-2048x1152.png 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2240px) 100vw, 2240px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n<p>Do AI tools make developers&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/2302.06590\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">56% more productive<\/a>,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/economics.mit.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/inline-files\/draft_copilot_experiments.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">26% more productive<\/a>&nbsp;or \u2014 as a recent METR&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/metr.org\/blog\/2025-07-10-early-2025-ai-experienced-os-dev-study\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">study showed<\/a>&nbsp;\u2014 19% less productive?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The answer is, as always, it depends.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aviator.co\/blog\/throwing-ai-at-developers-wont-fix-their-problems\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">Throwing AI tools at developers<\/a>&nbsp;won\u2019t magically solve all of their problems. On the other hand, I regularly talk to developer productivity leaders from companies like Netflix, Slack, Shopify or LinkedIn at&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aviator.co\/podcast\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">The Hangar DX podcast<\/a>, and they all agree that AI is a developer productivity force multiplier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Sridhar Ramakrishnan<\/strong>, who leads the<strong> Developer Experience team at Slack<\/strong> and supports thousands of developers, says&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aviator.co\/podcast\/how-slack-uses-ai-to-improve-devex\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">AI will improve developer experience&nbsp;and velocity by 10 times<\/a>.&nbsp;<strong>Ryan Cooke<\/strong>, <strong>engineering director at Pinterest<\/strong>, sees the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aviator.co\/podcast\/mobile-developer-experience-at-pinterest\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">biggest opportunity to use AI<\/a>&nbsp;in \u201cprojects that required a lot of people, were a lot of pain and nobody wanted to work on, such as&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aviator.co\/agents\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">code migrations<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here\u2019s some practical advice I\u2019ve learned from talking to experts on using AI tools to meaningfully improve&nbsp;developer experience&nbsp;and impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Don\u2019t Do AI for AI\u2019s Sake<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>AI tools bring the most impact when applied to large-scale engineering problems that, as Shopify\u2019s&nbsp;<strong>Daniel Doubrovkine&nbsp;<\/strong>put it, are hard for humans alone to solve. Shopify\u2019s developer productivity challenges were flaky tests and low test coverage, so they tackled those using AI agents. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They created and open sourced&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/shopify.engineering\/introducing-roast\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">Roast<\/a>, a tool designed to structure AI workflows effectively. (The name Roast comes from its initial use case: roasting your tests to find areas for improvement.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Augmenting Engineers With AI at @shopify with Daniel Doubrovkine\" width=\"1490\" height=\"838\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9GVVY0a0CO8?start=436&#038;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Slack turned to developer surveys to find existing pain points worth solving with AI. This led to experimenting with AI using<a href=\"https:\/\/slack.engineering\/balancing-old-tricks-with-new-feats-ai-powered-conversion-from-enzyme-to-react-testing-library-at-slack\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">&nbsp;a large language model (LLM) to convert 15,000 unit and integration tests from Enzyme to React Testing Library (RTL)<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By combining abstract syntax tree (AST) transformations and AI-powered automation, it achieved an 80% success rate in code conversion, greatly minimizing manual work and showing how AI tools can be used in the software development life cycle (SDLC) beyond just coding assistants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Ask Your Developers!<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Max Kanat-Alexander<\/strong>, the author of the book \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.codesimplicity.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">Code Simplicity<\/a>,\u201d has a simple piece of advice: If you don\u2019t know where the frictions are,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aviator.co\/podcast\/developer-productivity-and-happiness-framework\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">ask your developers<\/a>. Ask them where they would like improvement and how AI tools are helping them or not. Developer feedback should be the primary signal to observe, combined with quantitative data. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Developer experience is not just about making&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aviator.co\/blog\/the-anti-developer-productivity-metrics\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">developers more productive<\/a>; it\u2019s about pleasing developers:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Happy people are more productive, and productive people are happier. It\u2019s hard to imagine someone being as productive as they could be if they\u2019re consistently unhappy at work.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Slack doesn\u2019t expect every developer to be on board with using AI tools. They take extra care in communicating when introducing such tools into workflows so developers don\u2019t get a negative first impression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Output \u2260 Productivity&nbsp;<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>AI can help developers produce more code, but that doesn\u2019t automatically mean they\u2019re being more productive. Even if the metrics you\u2019ve decided to track show an&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/thenewstack.io\/the-case-against-metrics-for-developer-productivity\/\">increase in productivity<\/a>, <strong>Kanat-Alexander<\/strong> reminds us that metrics are only meaningful if they\u2019re actionable and have a business impact:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Productivity is about being both efficient and effective. If you\u2019re generating code that doesn\u2019t deliver value, you\u2019re just moving fast in the wrong direction.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Developer time saved is a useful metric to consider, but not blindly. It has to be applied across the whole SDLC, not just code generation. What do developers do with the time they save by typing faster?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Waiting three days for pull requests to be reviewed and tested just to bounce back for fixes means that inefficiencies across other steps of the SDLC will eat up any productivity gained in faster code creation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Experiment, Learn and Experiment Again<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>There is no AI tool that you can switch on and instantly solve your engineering organization\u2019s problems. None of the companies interviewed claimed they had \u201csolved\u201d AI in software development. Instead, they approached it like any new engineering initiative: experiment, fail, iterate, repeat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In fact, <strong>Ramakrishnan<\/strong> says that all of their successful AI projects, like the code migration one, started as failures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>We didn\u2019t just plug the code into AI tools and everything worked right away. None of our AI experimentations was like that. So, the main failures were the ones when we tried doing something once and stopped.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"How Slack uses AI to improve DevEx with Sridhar Ramakrishnan\" width=\"1490\" height=\"838\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/eAZGiy6yLJ0?start=612&#038;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>AI Is Not a Silver Bullet<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Poor documentation, unclear ownership and fragmented tooling don\u2019t magically disappear with AI. If your workflows are messy, AI will only amplify the chaos, almost all of the experts stress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Titus Winters<\/strong>, <strong>senior principal scientist at Adobe<\/strong>, focused on&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aviator.co\/podcast\/titus-winters-psychological-safety-software-engineering\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">psychological safety in engineering teams<\/a>, reminds us that it all boils down to culture:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>The rise of generative AI is a great opportunity to reflect on how we work, whether it involves AI or not.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Kanat-Alexander<\/strong> is excited about the potential of AI to transform software engineering, but advises taking everything with a grain of salt:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Find a sweet spot between hype and skepticism. Be realistic about what AI can deliver now for software engineering and optimistic about its future potential. The technology is improving at an unbelievably rapid rate.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>AI is not a magic solution for developer productivity. It\u2019s a powerful tool that, when applied thoughtfully, can address real pain points and unlock meaningful gains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Top engineering teams succeed not by blindly adopting AI but by experimenting, listening to their developers and aligning tools with actual needs.<br><br><br><strong><em>Interested in improving developer experience?<\/em><\/strong><br>Join <a href=\"https:\/\/dx.community\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">The Hangar DX<\/a>, a curated community for developer experience<strong> (DX) enthusiasts!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<!-- Hardcoded CTA for Hangar DX -->\n<div style=\"position: relative; display: flex; align-items: center; background: #FFD966; padding: 20px 30px; border-radius: 10px; margin: 40px 0; justify-content: space-between; flex-wrap: wrap; overflow: hidden; max-width: 860px; box-shadow: 0px 4px 10px rgba(0,0,0,0.1);\">\n    <div style=\"flex: 1; z-index: 2; max-width: 500px;\">\n        <h2 style=\"margin: 0; color: #0C344B; font-size: 20px; font-weight: 600;\">Join The Hangar DX<\/h2>\n        <p style=\"color: #333; font-size: 13px; margin-bottom: 15px;\">A vetted community of developer-experience (DX) enthusiasts.<\/p>\n        <form id=\"hubspot-form\" action=\"https:\/\/forms.hubspot.com\/uploads\/form\/v2\/40144919\/d19cd783-21ad-4c7a-b188-1626fcf45ac1\" method=\"POST\" style=\"display: flex; gap: 6px; align-items: center; max-width: 400px;\">\n            <input type=\"hidden\" name=\"hs_context\" value='{\"hutk\": \"{{contact.hs_context}}\"}'>\n            <input type=\"email\" name=\"email\" placeholder=\"Email\" required style=\"padding: 8px; border: 1px solid #ccc; border-radius: 5px; width: 130px; font-size: 13px; background: white;\">\n            <input type=\"text\" name=\"company\" placeholder=\"Company\" required style=\"padding: 8px; border: 1px solid #ccc; border-radius: 5px; width: 130px; font-size: 13px; background: white;\">\n            <button type=\"submit\" id=\"submit-btn\" style=\"background: #5A87F0; color: white; border: none; padding: 8px 15px; border-radius: 5px; cursor: pointer; font-size: 13px; font-weight: 600; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center; min-width: 130px;\">Request access<\/button>\n        <\/form>\n        <p id=\"success-message\" style=\"display: none; color: #0C344B; font-size: 14px; font-weight: 400; margin-top: 10px;\">Thank you! We&#8217;ll be in touch.<\/p>\n    <\/div>\n    <div style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; right: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; background: linear-gradient(to bottom left, white 15%, #FFD966 45%); z-index: 1; pointer-events: none; clip-path: polygon(60% 0%, 100% 0%, 100% 100%, 70% 100%);\"><\/div>\n    <div style=\"max-width: 220px; z-index: 2; position: absolute; right: 10px; bottom: -25px;\">\n        <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/aviator-hangar-dx-plane-logo-illustration-clear-min.png\" alt=\"Aviator Hangar DX Plane Illustration Logo\" style=\"max-width: 100%; height: auto; transform: scale(1.05);\">\n    <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<script>\n  document.getElementById(\"hubspot-form\").addEventListener(\"submit\", function(event) {\n    event.preventDefault(); \/\/ Prevent default submission behavior\n    \n    var form = this;\n    var formData = new FormData(form);\n    \n    fetch(form.action, {\n      method: \"POST\",\n      body: formData,\n      headers: {\n        \"Accept\": \"application\/json\"\n      }\n    }).then(response => {\n      if (response.ok) {\n        document.getElementById(\"submit-btn\").style.display = \"none\";\n        document.getElementById(\"success-message\").style.display = \"block\";\n      }\n    }).catch(error => console.error(\"Error:\", error));\n  });\n<\/script>\n\n\n\n<p>The Hangar DX is a <strong>community of senior DevOps and senior software engineers focused on developer experience.<\/strong> This is a space where vetted, experienced professionals can exchange ideas, share hard-earned wisdom, troubleshoot issues, and ultimately help each other in their projects and careers.<br><br><em>This article was originally published on <a href=\"https:\/\/thenewstack.io\/how-top-tech-teams-use-ai-to-boost-dev-productivity\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">The New Stack.<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AI is a developer productivity force multiplier, but poor documentation, unclear ownership and fragmented tooling don\u2019t magically disappear with AI.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":4775,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[106],"tags":[293,291,279,236,305,278],"class_list":["post-4774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ai"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.aviator.co\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/AI-developer-experience.png","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviator.co\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviator.co\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviator.co\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviator.co\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviator.co\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4774"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviator.co\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4785,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviator.co\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4774\/revisions\/4785"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviator.co\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aviator.co\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviator.co\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aviator.co\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}