Tech Feed - January 13, 2026

Articles and podcasts from the software engineering world.

Software Engineering Daily

Developer Experience at Capital One with Catherine McGarvey

Here is a comprehensive summary of the podcast episode "Developer Experience at Capital One with Catherine McGarvey":

Opening context:

• The guest is Catherine McGarvey, the SVP of Developer Experience at Capital One, a leading financial institution with 14,000 technologists.
• The main topic is how Catherine and Capital One are approaching developer enablement and productivity at enterprise scale.

Key discussion points and insights:

• Catherine's diverse background spanning startups, defense consulting, and large enterprises has shaped her nuanced view on balancing agility, security, and scale in developer experience.
• Developer enablement is about combining speed/throughput with understanding user needs - giving engineers the right tools while ensuring they're solving the right problems.
• Measuring success in developer enablement is multi-faceted, looking at metrics like time to first/tenth commit, deployment frequency, and user satisfaction, while being careful to avoid metrics that can be easily gamed.
• Capital One's approach to agility in a regulated environment is to "make it easy to do the right thing" through standard practices, platforms, and services, with exceptions and approvals when needed.
• The decision to standardize vs. allow autonomy is based on identifying overlap and high-leverage areas, while maintaining flexibility for rapid innovation.
• Capital One has rolled out LLM-powered coding assistants, focusing on use case-based training and tracking qualitative impact rather than pure productivity metrics.

Notable technologies, tools, or concepts mentioned:

• LLM-powered coding assistants
• Agentic workflows and APIs for migration flexibility
• Metrics like time to first/tenth commit, deployment frequency, and user satisfaction

Practical implications or recommendations discussed:

• Prioritize making the "right thing" easy to do, rather than policing compliance
• Measure what matters, not just what's easy to track
• Balance standardization with flexibility for rapid innovation
• Invest in training and awareness to help developers unlock the full potential of new tools
• Shift developer roles towards higher-level problem solving, while automating routine tasks

Overall, the episode provides a nuanced look at how a large enterprise like Capital One is approaching developer experience and productivity in the face of rapid technological change, aiming to empower engineers while maintaining critical controls and quality.

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