GOTO - The Brightest Minds in Tech The End of Engineering's Blank Check: Accountability in Software Leadership • Laura Tacho & Charles Humble
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Dec 5, 2025 
In this insightful discussion, Laura Tacho, CTO at DX and an expert in engineering leadership, shares her journey from engineering to executive roles. She highlights common leadership gaps in CTOs, especially in setting expectations without micromanaging. Laura introduces her innovative DX Core 4 framework for measuring developer productivity, emphasizing speed, effectiveness, quality, and impact. She discusses the importance of maintaining technical fluency as a leader, translating developer work into business value, and the thoughtful design of metrics to foster trust.
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Choose Metrics By Organizational Context
- Measuring team performance requires common language and consistency across teams or tailored definitions per specialized team.
- Choose the approach based on organizational heterogeneity and reporting needs.
Start With A Unified Framework
- Start with a simple, research-backed framework so teams can act instead of debating definitions for months.
- Use the Core Four to unify Dora, SPACE, and DevEx into a practical measurement set.
Use PRs Per Engineer Only As A System Metric
- Measure pull requests per engineer as a system-level speed metric, never for individuals.
- Use it in aggregate to assess how easy it is for engineers to get work done.
