How Netflix manages developer productivity

About Nadeem Ahmad, Sr. Software Engineer at Netflix:

Since graduating from the University of Waterloo in 2014, I have been deeply engaged in improving developer experience through my roles at Box and Netflix. At Box, I advanced engineering tools and services, with a sharp focus on CI/CD, infrastructure automation, and microservices development. Then, at Netflix, I've been pivotal in developing efficient and safe build & test systems for the flagship Netflix TV app, which impacts hundreds of millions of users globally. Recently, my scope has increased to work on platform-related tools and services for all Netflix clients (web, mobile, and TV).

Nadeem on LinkedIn

Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Overview
03:05 Netflix's Approach to Developer Productivity
08:15 Challenges and Solutions for TV Client Apps
13:44 Rollbacks and Deployment Processes
20:05 The Role of AI Tools in Developer Productivity
23:20 Exploring Efficiency Tools and Automation
26:23 Scaling Code Bases and Repositories
29:49 The Migration to GitHub Enterprise
35:21 Exciting Developments and Future Outlook
38:14 Hiring and Qualities of a Developer Experience Engineer

Summary
In this podcast episode, Ankit Jain interviews Nadeem Ahmad from Netflix about developer productivity and the challenges of building and deploying TV apps. They discuss how Netflix thinks about developer productivity, the team structures and responsibilities, and the use of AI tools like Copilot. They also touch on topics such as scaling code bases and repositories, the migration to GitHub Enterprise, and the future of developer productivity. Nadeem shares insights into the hiring process for developer productivity engineers and the qualities they look for in candidates.

Keywords
Developer productivity, Netflix, TV apps, team structures, AI tools, Copilot, scaling code bases, GitHub Enterprise, developer hiring process.

Takeaways

• Netflix focuses on maximizing developer impact and has a centralized platform engineering organization for developer productivity.

• The challenges of developer productivity differ between backend engineering teams and client teams, which require specialized support for different clients and languages.

• Rollbacks in TV client apps are done by updating a property that tells the TVs which version of the app to load.

• Netflix uses both quantitative metrics and customer feedback to measure developer productivity.

• AI tools like Copilot are seen as enhancers rather than replacements for developers, and their impact on productivity is still being explored.

• Netflix is excited about the migration to GitHub Enterprise and the potential of efficiency tools like Turbo Pack and Turbo Repo.

• Developer experience engineers at Netflix need to be comfortable with ambiguity and be willing to dive into the details of complex problems.