[raygelogic]

I really don't think you can measure developers by their productivity. the impact of productivity is predicated on design meeting requirements, the accuracy of requirements is predicated on stakeholders knowing what they need.

the only quality that matters is how effective the software is in its business function. how effective does it make stakeholders? how well does it capture engagement by users? the right question to ask changes in business context, but if you can't answer it, you might as well throw darts and flip coins. if you can measure the impact of their code before and after deployment you might have a chance, but it's probably hopeless.

as far as I can tell it boils down to a subjective and qualitative assessment of developer performance. you can also take the contrapositive: where would we be without this person? how long would we have taken to get there without them? what would we not have learned without this person?

I'm nervous about the implicit bias that comes with this kind of perspective, but I think it's the best we have for now.