The Developer Thriving Framework reveals how high-performing teams boost delivery without burning people out.
About the guide
What makes developers feel energized, focused, and ready to solve hard problems? That’s what over 1,200 engineers helped uncover. This research-backed guide maps out the four elements that predict sustainable performance: agency, motivation, learning culture, and belonging, and shows you how to strengthen each.
What’s Inside the Developer Thriving Framework
1. A new model for sustainable productivity
Forget output-obsessed metrics. This framework connects how developers feel to how they deliver so you can improve performance and satisfaction at the same time.
2. Real-world insights from 1,282 engineers
Grounded in interviews, focus groups, and survey data, the findings reflect what actually helps developers do their best work, across industries, team sizes, and roles.
3. The four key elements of thriving teams
You’ll learn how agency, motivation, learning culture, and belonging shape outcomes, with clear examples of how to support them.
4. Actionable recommendations for leaders
From onboarding to code review, retros to metrics get concrete steps to improve your team’s experience and delivery today.
What is the developer thriving framework?
The Developer Thriving Framework is a research-backed model that helps engineering leaders understand and improve the conditions that drive sustainable developer productivity. It focuses on four core elements:agency, motivation, learning culture, and belonging that influence how developers experience their work and how effectively teams deliver software.
Rather than chasing surface-level metrics, the framework gives leaders a practical way to support both performance and well-being across their org.
Why Flow
Flow gives you more than just engineering metrics, it helps you build the conditions where developers thrive and delivery accelerates.
From agency and motivation to team learning and visibility, the Developer Thriving Framework is about making better decisions with better context. That’s exactly where Flow fits in.
With deep integrations across GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, Azure DevOps, and Jira, Flow transforms delivery data into insight you can act on, without forcing teams to change how they work.
Flow turns signals into momentum:
- Uncover hidden blockers before they derail progress or morale
- Spot overwork and off-balance allocation across roles, repos, or initiatives
- Track learning time and investment across teams to support growth, not just grind
- Enable better 1:1s and retros with trusted, developer-first insights
- Align engineering work to strategy without micromanaging the “how”
What you get with Flow:
- Clear, customizable reporting across delivery, collaboration, and investment
- Trends that spotlight systemic friction, not just individual lag
- Onboarding and coaching designed to strengthen your rituals, not just your reporting
Flow helps you measure what matters and lead without losing the humans in the loop.
Great software starts with thriving teams. This guide shows you how to improve delivery by investing in what actually drives performance, agency, motivation, learning, and belonging. Backed by research, built for real-world teams.
Download the Developer Thriving Framework guide