Work factor and money-based KPIs in technical teams: Putting a price tag on a line of code?

Credit: The title of this post is directly inspired by Oxford philosopher Michael Sandel’s lecture, Putting a Price Tag on Life. While the content here doesn’t draw from the lecture itself, there is an intriguing parallel: just as the value of life defies simple numeric metrics, the worth of a line of code resists straightforward quantification. Can we truly assign a financial value to something as dynamic as code?

The drive to quantify everything is powerful. We crave metrics to help make sense of complexity, from tracking productivity to evaluating team performance. But as we strive to measure every keystroke and commit, one question arises: Can the essence of a technical team be over-simplified into something as simple as numeric metrics? Can we, in essence, put a price tag on a line of code?

At first glance, it seems plausible. Code is, after all, the tangible output of development work. Yet, this view is dangerously reductive. Code is not created in isolation. It is the product of thought, collaboration, and creativity, woven together to solve problems. If we focus too heavily on metrics like lines of code, we risk missing the bigger picture.

The Fallacy of Counting Lines

It’s easy to assume that more lines of code mean more progress. We’ve all seen KPIs that suggest productivity can be tied to the number of lines written in a given day or sprint. But here’s the philosophical dilemma: not all code is created equal. What is the value of 100 lines of verbose, convoluted code versus 10 lines of elegant, efficient code that achieve the same result?

In reality, fewer lines often signal deeper skill. Good developers strive for simplicity and clarity, reducing complexity rather than adding to it. And the less code there is, the less there is to maintain, debug, or refactor later. In that sense, the cost of excessive lines can be high—both in terms of future technical debt and the human energy required to manage it. So can we equate more lines of code with greater value? Certainly not. It’s not about the quantity; it’s about the quality of the thinking behind it.

DON’T

Don’t Rely Solely on Money-Based KPIs! Avoid reducing the value of a technical team or developer to simple numeric metrics like lines of code.

The True Value of a Developer

But if code itself is a flawed metric, where does that leave the people writing it? How do we gauge the importance of a developer within a team? Again, reducing this to something measurable, like the number of lines a person writes, does them a disservice. A team member’s true value cannot be fully captured in code alone.

Consider the senior engineer who writes less but whose decisions shape the direction of a project. Their experience and foresight help the team avoid costly mistakes, guiding architecture, and resolving bottlenecks. Their contributions, while less visible in the form of code, are often the most critical to the success of a project. It’s a reminder that the importance of a team member is not tied to the volume of their output but to the impact of their thinking.

The Danger of Money-Based KPIs

There’s a broader issue at play here: the pressure to link technical work to money-based KPIs. Research shows that focusing too narrowly on quantifiable metrics like lines of code or the number of commits can lead to detrimental outcomes. Developers, incentivized to meet these targets, may prioritize speed over quality, churning out code that meets short-term goals but creates long-term problems. This approach fosters a culture of quantity over quality and can lead to burnout and disengagement.

What research suggests is that money-based KPIs miss the mark in technical environments. Software development is inherently creative and collaborative, and its value doesn’t always fit into neat numerical categories. Teams thrive when measured by their ability to innovate, adapt, and solve complex problems—qualities that resist simplistic quantification.

The Bigger Picture: People Over Metrics

At the heart of this philosophical quandary is a truth that defies metrics: the value of a technical team lies in its human elements. Developers are more than just coders; they are problem-solvers, innovators, and collaborators. Their worth is not determined by how much code they write but by how effectively they navigate challenges, how well they work together, and how thoughtfully they approach their craft.

DO

Recognize Non-Code Contributions. Acknowledge the value that developers bring beyond code, such as architecture decisions, problem-solving, and guiding project direction.

The Paradox of Quantifying Code: Why Codenteam Measures What It Stands Against

This is a question we encounter frequently: why does Codenteam, which fundamentally opposes the idea of reducing the worth of a line of code to a numerical figure, still employ ownership and work factor metrics such as “Lines of Code per Dollar” on multiple levels—whether at the company, team, outsourcing, or individual developer level? The answer lies in the context and the balance.

The context here depends on who and why they are looking at code ownership, and because codenteam is used by tech managers, due-diligence companies, HR managers and so many different users, context can dramatically differ, for example, code governance is a core part of any technical due diligence. Any investor would need to know who owns how much of the code, and analyze the risk of such ownership. Also, any investor would want to know the outsourcing scene and how much reliance the startup has on outsourcing companies. Another context is for team leads and tech managers, which would need to know which team to assign which task based on their ownership on different parts of code, and at the same time in case of a layoff, which outsourcing company is the most expensive to try to re-negotiate the terms or the size of their outsourced developers.

And the balance here needs to be maintained between abstract value and practical measurement. While we recognize that code’s true worth involves creativity, problem-solving, and long-term impact, businesses still need tangible metrics to make informed decisions, allocate resources, and assess efficiency. Codenteam’s approach uses these numbers not as definitive judgments of a developer’s or a team’s value but as tools to evaluate ownership and code governance, assess project feasibility, and benchmark performance across different outsourcing companies.

For example, a single developer ownership is really important to give context on there expertise and where their knowledge will be needed. A team ownership is important to assign tasks. Neither can give value on whether the team or the developer or good enough based on this value at all. An governance is an important

In other words, while a line of code can’t encapsulate the full spectrum of a developer’s contributions, numeric KPIs remain an imperfect yet necessary mechanism for guiding decision-making in a business context.

In the end, reducing the work of a technical team to a dollar amount per line of code misses the essence of what makes these teams special. The real value is in the people—their creativity, their judgment, and their ability to see beyond the code to the bigger picture. It’s not about putting a price tag on a line of code; it’s about recognizing the immeasurable worth of the minds behind it.

Did you know

Codenteam provides KPIs like code ownership, work factor, code dilution and many more. Together those values can offer broader perspective on qualitative attributes of your developers, teams, outsourcing organizations and the entire company.