Skip to main content

What is Engineering Velocity?

Definition​

Engineering velocity: The rate at which an engineering team can deliver working software, typically measured in features shipped, story points completed, or deployments per period.

Also called: developer velocity, team velocity, delivery velocity

Quick Answer​

Engineering velocity measures how fast a team can turn ideas into working software. Higher velocity means faster delivery, shorter feedback loops, and more value delivered to users.

How to Measure Engineering Velocity​

Common Metrics​

MetricDefinitionWhat It Measures
Deployment FrequencyHow often you deployDelivery capability
Lead TimeIdea → productionEnd-to-end speed
Cycle TimeWork started → deployedExecution speed
Story Points/SprintWork completed per sprintTeam capacity
PRs MergedPull requests merged per periodIndividual output

DORA Metrics (Industry Standard)​

The DevOps Research and Assessment (DORA) metrics are widely accepted:

MetricEliteHighMediumLow
Deployment FrequencyMultiple/dayDaily-weeklyWeekly-monthlyMonthly+
Lead Time for ChangesUnder 1 hour1 day - 1 week1-6 months6+ months
Change Failure Rate0-15%16-30%31-45%46%+
Mean Time to RecoveryUnder 1 hourUnder 1 day1 day - 1 week1 week+

Factors That Affect Engineering Velocity​

Enablers (Increase Velocity)​

  • Good tooling — Fast CI/CD, good dev environments
  • Clear requirements — Less back-and-forth
  • Automated testing — Confidence to ship fast
  • Low technical debt — Less friction per change
  • Fast onboarding — New hires contribute quickly
  • Documentation — Less time searching for answers

Blockers (Decrease Velocity)​

  • Technical debt — Every change is harder
  • Slow CI/CD — Waiting kills momentum
  • Code review bottlenecks — PRs sitting for days
  • Context switching — Too many interruptions
  • Unclear priorities — Work on wrong things
  • Slow onboarding — New hires take months to contribute

The Onboarding-Velocity Connection​

Slow developer ramp-up directly impacts team velocity:

ScenarioImpact on Team Velocity
New hire at 25% for 6 months-4.5 months of productivity lost
New hire at 50% for 3 months-1.5 months of productivity lost
New hire at 75% for 1 month-0.25 months of productivity lost

Faster onboarding = higher sustained team velocity.

Velocity vs. Speed​

VelocitySpeed
Sustainable paceSprinting
Direction mattersJust going fast
Measured over timeMeasured in moments
Quality includedQuality may suffer

High velocity isn't about working faster—it's about removing friction so normal work happens faster.

How to Increase Engineering Velocity​

Quick Wins​

  1. Fix slow CI — Every minute counts when it runs hundreds of times
  2. Automate deployments — Manual steps add friction
  3. Clear review backlogs — Stale PRs kill momentum
  4. Reduce meetings — Protect maker time

Medium-Term Investments​

  1. Reduce technical debt — Pay it down strategically
  2. Improve documentation — Less time searching
  3. Better dev environments — Fast local builds
  4. AI-powered tools — Ramp for onboarding, Copilot for coding

Long-Term Changes​

  1. Invest in platform teams — Build internal tools
  2. Improve hiring — Better engineers, better velocity
  3. Architecture improvements — Enable faster changes
  4. Culture of speed — Make shipping the default

How Ramp Increases Engineering Velocity​

Ramp directly impacts velocity by:

  1. Faster onboarding — New hires contribute sooner
  2. Fewer interruptions — AI answers questions, not senior engineers
  3. Faster context-building — Understand code faster
  4. Better documentation — Auto-generated onboarding guides
# Reduce onboarding time by 50%
npm install -g @anthropic/ramp
ramp init
ramp guide  # Generate onboarding docs
ramp voice  # Answer questions without interrupting seniors

Velocity Anti-Patterns​

1. Measuring Lines of Code​

More code ≠ better. Often less code is better.

2. Comparing Individuals​

Velocity is a team metric. Individual comparison creates bad incentives.

3. Increasing Velocity by Skipping Quality​

Short-term speed, long-term debt. Quality is part of velocity.

4. Treating Story Points as Currency​

They're estimates, not measures of value.

Want to increase your team's engineering velocity? Try Ramp free →