New study reveals what really drives revenue per engineer
Bill Doerrfeld | April 10, 2025
My latest post on LeadDev explores the factors that contribute to higher revenue per engineer.
New benchmarking from DX reveals how areas like R&D spend, org size, and growth rate move the needle.
The factors correlated with higher RpE include:
- Investing more in research and development — especially in vendor tools and services
- Having a startup mindset — companies founded after 2010 show higher RpE
- Maintaining steady year-over-year revenue growth — not scaling wildly, but not stagnating either
Engineering has long been a black box, so it’s refreshing to see data on what actually contributes to higher performance.
Check out my full analysis on LeadDev!
Featured image credit: @towfiqu999999
Sign up to the DirectorPlus newsletter for a new story in your inbox each month featuring on-the-ground insights from some of the industry's top engineering leaders. Or, if you would like to be featured in the series, please read this.
Other Blog Posts
I'll be writing a weekly series for The New Stack this fall covering Kubernetes, cloud native, and everything happening on the road to KubeCon in November.
I'm teaming up with Dan Barahona and AI Security University to put together the MCP Security Conference, a free half-day virtual event dedicated to MCP security .
My latest DirectorPlus edition interviews Shopify's head of engineering, Farhan Thawar, on their unique internal engineering culture.
Neoclouds promise cheaper GPUs and AI-optimized infrastructure, but can they really challenge hyperscalers? My feature on InfoWorld explores their advantages, risks, and likely role in AI compute.
My latest for LeadDev interviews IBM's Neel Sundaresan on how to prevent a decades-old issue in software engineering.
The latest advancement in identity and access management (IAM) is something called zero standing privilege. It's a response to new agentic AI risks.
Big surprise: it's way easier to generate new code with AI than to reuse old code. But what are the long-term effects?
Agentic coding tools have become the default. "When we've taken that away accidentally from people, they scream."
My latest for LeadDev considers how engineering leaders should respond in the wake of uncertainty in the AI model market.
I'm working with Zuplo on some new content around their MCP Gateway release. First up: a deep comparison of MCP gateways on the market!
