Engineering Enablement by DX

Developer productivity is often framed as a tooling initiative or a morale issue. At scale, it’s a more complex socio-technical systems challenge that spans engineering foundations, leadership alignment, organizational structure, and culture.

In this episode, Laura Tacho sits down with Uma Namasivayam, Senior Director, Engineering Productivity at Dropbox, to discuss how the company approaches developer experience across an organization of nearly 1,000 engineers. Uma explains why productivity must be treated as a business problem, how executive alignment enables sustained progress, and what it means to run developer experience like a product.

The conversation also explores the intersection of AI and developer experience. Uma shares how Dropbox prepared its engineering systems to support AI adoption, why daily AI use depends more on habits than access, and how the company evaluates build-versus-buy decisions as AI tools struggle to scale in large environments.

The episode concludes with a candid discussion of the open questions facing engineering leaders today: how to understand where AI-driven capacity actually goes, and how to connect improvements in developer experience to meaningful business outcomes in 2026.

Where to find Uma Namasivayam:
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/unamasivayam

Where to find Laura Tacho: 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauratacho/
• X: https://x.com/rhein_wein
• Website: https://lauratacho.com/
• Laura’s course (Measuring Engineering Performance and AI Impact) https://lauratacho.com/developer-productivity-metrics-course

In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Intro
(00:45) Dropbox’s engineering org
(01:59) Why developer productivity is a business problem
(04:08) The role of executive sponsorship in developer productivity
(06:02) How DX’s Core Four framework created a shared language
(08:13) Treating developer experience as a product
(11:30) How Dropbox prioritizes developer experience work
(14:20) The challenge of tying developer experience to business outcomes
(16:38) How AI and developer experience intersect at Dropbox
(18:35) The prerequisites for AI adoption to accelerate work
(20:26) How Dropbox encourages daily AI use
(23:12) AI use beyond code completion
(25:00) Managing AI tool demand at scale
(27:56) Early results from Dropbox’s AI efforts
(30:05) Progress on developer experience at Dropbox
(32:55) Advice for organizations investing in developer experience
(34:25) Capacity tradeoffs for developer experience
(35:59) The unanswered questions around AI and capacity in 2026

Referenced:
• DX Core 4 Productivity Framework
• Dropbox.com

Creators and Guests

Host
Abi Noda
Abi is the founder and CEO of DX (getdx.com), which helps engineering leaders measure and improve developer experience. Abi formerly founded Pull Panda, which was acquired by GitHub.

What is Engineering Enablement by DX?

The show focused on developer productivity and the teams and leaders dedicated to improving it. Each episode features in-depth interviews with Platform and DevEx teams, along with the latest research and approaches for measuring developer productivity. Presented by DX (getdx.com), the developer intelligence platform designed by researchers.