[sytse]

Thanks for the feedback. I agree there is risk of larger technical improvements not happening enough if you only measure the number of changes.

Maybe a few things are happening:

1. Some large technical improvements can be shipped in multiple changes that add value.

2. Most companies do more large technical changes than is optimal.

3. Engineers are motivated to make the large technical changes since they are interesting and make their future work easier so they will prioritize them despite the measure.

4. GitLab is having fewer larger technical improvements than optimal.

5. Our dual career structure ensures that there are engineers who can do these larger technical improvements without being below average themselves because they are more productive than others.

6. We are not pushing very hard on this metric since we do it in a group setting instead of per individual.