The 2025 Software Engineering Performance Report
I am always interested in finding ways to be more productive, how to increase the performance of workflows and software, and how to improve in general.
Recently, LeadDev published their two Software Engineering Performance Reports for 2025, which of course I had to read.
I like how both reports are very compact and only focus on the most important results of their surveys. I can only recommend everyone to have a quick look.
Some findings are definitely very familiar, for example:
Together, these findings highlight a tension: engineers understand what drives better performance, but often lack the time, budget, or organizational mandate to pursue it through observability.
Some other results are bit strange though. For example, to the question How has the introduction of generative AI tools, agents, or models helped improve the performance of your software or systems?, 47% answered, that they have seen improvements. Only 4% answered that is slowed them down.
If we look at the next question How are you currently monitoring the performance of AI/LLM-driven systems?, we see something strange.
54% answered that they don’t monitor the performance of AI/LLM-driven systems at all.
So how could they know that AI had a positive impact? Gut feeling?
Well, we don’t know. Studies have found that we overestimate how much AI helps us, as I’ve shown in another post: AI slows us down: Perception vs Reality.
Conclusion
Great reports to inspire you. Definitely read them, and shoutout to LeadDev for providing us with such valuable insights for free!
Don’t blindly follow trends though, and self-reflect as much as possible.