DeveloperWeek 2023

Otto Hilska, Founder & CEO, Swarmia

Leading an engineering organization is a constant balancing act between keeping the existing software operational, building new features, improving existing features, and increasing the overall productivity of engineering teams.

Over- or under-invest in any of the categories for too long, and your developer experience, customer satisfaction, and revenue will suffer.

In this talk, we’ll show how the Balance Framework (originally introduced by a former Dropbox VP of Engineering, Matt Eccleston) can help engineering leaders, managers, and teams categorize their work — and more importantly, intentionally allocate a proportionate amount of effort to each of the categories.

We then discuss how to use the Balance Framework to:

- Figure out a realistic level for each category based on your context
- React to situations where too much of the engineering teams’ time goes to keeping the lights on
- Know when you’re building too many features too fast
- Make informed decisions related to hiring and team structure
- And ultimately, build a happier, more productive engineering organization