AWS — Engineering Performance
88 engineers now deliver what 96 would have in Q1 2025.
Performance snapshot
Today's rolling 90-day reading for AWS, compared with the start of the series. Pick a window to move that comparison point.
Avg. perf / dev / mo
+9.5%
1.15 → 1.26 ETV
Active engineers
+12.8%
78.0 → 88.0
Features
−13.1pp
37.4% → 24.3%
vs. 500 OSS index
0.33x
1.3x → 0.33x · −67% below
Engineering capacity
Effective engineers behind AWS, against its pre-AI baseline. Each subject has its own: AWS's is 1.15 ETV / dev / mo, its first reading in Q1 2025. Per-engineer ETV divided by that gives a capacity multiple, and that multiple applied to the engineers active in the trailing 90 days turns it into engineer-equivalents. The line is the real headcount, so the gap between line and area is what the leverage is worth. Because each baseline is its own, every subject opens at 1.0x on its first day: multiples measure improvement and are not comparable between subjects.
AWS vs. 500 OSS Performance Index
Per-engineer ETV for AWS against the pooled 500 OSS Performance Index. Both lines are 90-day rolling averages scaled to a 30-day month, so they share one axis and can be read against each other at any point. Pick a window to zoom the chart to it. Latest reading: AWS is 67% below the index (1.26 vs 3.85 ETV/dev/mo). At the start of the tracked period the gap was 26% above.
Behind the numbers
Written summary of the work completed each month.
In August 2026, the team delivered 413 commits with a standout increase in feature output, driven by substantial infrastructure and migration initiatives including AWS Elemental MediaLive L2 constructs and expanded C2J-to-Smithy generator support. Features score surged +79% compared to the 5-month average (48 vs 27), representing a genuine step up that exceeded both the baseline average and the most recent two months. Concurrently, rework remained low, with Fixes score dropping 32% below the 5-month average (15 vs 22).
Highlights
- Introduced the aws-medialive-alpha L2 construct library in 730b2eec (Jamie), delivering typed configurations for channels, inputs, and clusters along with MediaConnect integration.
- Expanded SmithyDotNet generator capabilities during C2J-to-Smithy migration, adding support for streaming blobs in fe6dd43f (Peter), HTTP response/query/prefix traits in a3f88928 (Peter), scalar collections in 613fab03 (Daniel), and non-streaming blob members in 8a1c142a (adaines).
- Delivered multi-tenant credential isolation, remote transport mechanisms (HTTP/SSE), and integration test harnesses for aws-healthomics-mcp-server in f6f1a566 (Mark).
- Added multi-cloud telemetry and environment detection support for Google Compute Engine (GCE) in b062c098 (Jeffrey) and Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) in a2fbeb61 (Jeffrey).
- Extended cryptographic capabilities across AWS-LC and s2n-tls, including public key extraction APIs in 23089a4e (Carol) and critical memory safety fixes in EVP decryption in ed3d805d (Justin).
Observations
- Features score surged +79% compared to the 5-month average (48 vs 27), representing a candidate-material increase driven by major construct development and migration frameworks.
- Fixes score dropped 32% compared to the 5-month average (15 vs 22), indicating a healthy reduction in rework across core libraries.
- Maintenance score declined 34% compared to the 5-month average (9 vs 14), while Docs score increased 73% (9 vs 5) with additions such as the AWS-LC threat model in 18c226ef (Wesley) and training SOPs in eb0f09e2 (jam-jee).
- Core asset staging in AWS CDK required multiple iterations across 8fd1ef68 (L) and 8d8ae2c6 (L) to resolve external symlink validation errors and bundling rules under BLOCK_EXTERNAL modes.
- The spec2cdk code generator required consecutive adjustments in c32f62e4 (Alisen), 9195f791 (Alisen), and be300a6a (L) to resolve attribute name collisions, exclude unvended logs, and prevent canned metrics compilation errors.
Based on 413 commits71.9 ETVUpdated Sep 30, 2026, 4:01 PM
Repositories
Where each repository stands: average performance per engineer per month over the last 90 days, with the rolling 90-day curve behind it. The range picks the window (past 90d): it sets how much of the curve you see, the Δ across it, and the span the work mix is measured over. Ranked highest first.
sagemaker-python-sdk
Avg performance
2.99 ETV
per engineer per month
Avg. dev performance / month (90-day MA)
—
Work mix
Features
0%
Maint
0%
Tests
0%
Docs
0%
Fixes
0%
aws-sdk-java-v2
Avg performance
2.75 ETV
per engineer per month
Avg. dev performance / month (90-day MA)
—
Work mix
Features
0%
Maint
0%
Tests
0%
Docs
0%
Fixes
0%
amazon-cloudwatch-agent
Avg performance
2.31 ETV
per engineer per month
Avg. dev performance / month (90-day MA)
—
Work mix
Features
0%
Maint
0%
Tests
0%
Docs
0%
Fixes
0%
mcp
Avg performance
1.58 ETV
per engineer per month
Avg. dev performance / month (90-day MA)
—
Work mix
Features
0%
Maint
0%
Tests
0%
Docs
0%
Fixes
0%
aws-cdk
Avg performance
0.89 ETV
per engineer per month
Avg. dev performance / month (90-day MA)
—
Work mix
Features
0%
Maint
0%
Tests
0%
Docs
0%
Fixes
0%
s2n-tls
Avg performance
0.57 ETV
per engineer per month
Avg. dev performance / month (90-day MA)
—
Work mix
Features
0%
Maint
0%
Tests
0%
Docs
0%
Fixes
0%
aws-parallelcluster
Avg performance
0.55 ETV
per engineer per month
Avg. dev performance / month (90-day MA)
—
Work mix
Features
0%
Maint
0%
Tests
0%
Docs
0%
Fixes
0%
eks-anywhere-build-tooling
Avg performance
0.36 ETV
per engineer per month
Avg. dev performance / month (90-day MA)
—
Work mix
Features
0%
Maint
0%
Tests
0%
Docs
0%
Fixes
0%
amazon-ecs-agent
Avg performance
0.16 ETV
per engineer per month
Avg. dev performance / month (90-day MA)
—
Work mix
Features
0%
Maint
0%
Tests
0%
Docs
0%
Fixes
0%
amazon-ssm-agent
Avg performance
0.13 ETV
per engineer per month
Avg. dev performance / month (90-day MA)
—
Work mix
Features
0%
Maint
0%
Tests
0%
Docs
0%
Fixes
0%
aws-toolkit-vscode
Avg performance
0.03 ETV
per engineer per month
Avg. dev performance / month (90-day MA)
—
Work mix
Features
0%
Maint
0%
Tests
0%
Docs
0%
Fixes
0%
aws-sdk-net
Avg performance
0.00 ETV
per engineer per month
Avg. dev performance / month (90-day MA)
—
Work mix
Features
0%
Maint
0%
Tests
0%
Docs
0%
Fixes
0%
aws-lc
Avg performance
0.00 ETV
per engineer per month
Avg. dev performance / month (90-day MA)
—
Work mix
Features
0%
Maint
0%
Tests
0%
Docs
0%
Fixes
0%
karpenter-provider-aws
Avg performance
0.00 ETV
per engineer per month
Avg. dev performance / month (90-day MA)
—
Work mix
Features
0%
Maint
0%
Tests
0%
Docs
0%
Fixes
0%
Performance Composition
Each month's output split by type of work: Features (new value), Maintenance (sustaining systems), Tests, Docs, and Fixes (rework). The yellow line is output per engineer, so when it rises each engineer is delivering more, whatever the team size did. Unit: Engineering Throughput Value (ETV).
Cost per Performance Unit
−9%
If performance per engineer grew 9%, each unit of engineering performance now costs approximately 9% less than at the baseline 90-day window (ending 2025-04-01). Treat this as a direction, not a price: the exact figure depends on fully-loaded engineer cost, but which way it moved is not in doubt.
Effective Capacity Added
+8 engineers
At today's productivity, the current 88-person team delivers the performance equivalent of 96 engineers at the baseline 90-day rolling window (ending 2025-04-01). That's roughly 8 engineers worth of capacity added through productivity gains, not hiring.
CapEx vs OpEx
Each month's work split two ways. CapEx (capitalizable investment) is the work that builds the asset: Features, plus the Tests that prove it works and the Docs that explain it. OpEx (operating expense) is keeping it running: Maintenance and Fixes. The yellow line is the CapEx share, so a rising line means more of the month went into building new rather than sustaining what exists. Unit: Engineering Throughput Value (ETV).
Hours per Repository
Trailing 90-day window (64 working days). Org-level capacity is allocated to each repo by its share of org performance, then split CapEx / OpEx by that repo's own Features + Tests + Docs vs Maintenance + Fixes mix.
- CapEx %
- 0.0%
- OpEx %
- 0.0%
- CapEx %
- 0.0%
- OpEx %
- 0.0%
- CapEx %
- 0.0%
- OpEx %
- 0.0%
- CapEx %
- 0.0%
- OpEx %
- 0.0%
- CapEx %
- 0.0%
- OpEx %
- 0.0%
- CapEx %
- 0.0%
- OpEx %
- 0.0%
- CapEx %
- 0.0%
- OpEx %
- 0.0%
- CapEx %
- 0.0%
- OpEx %
- 0.0%
- CapEx %
- 0.0%
- OpEx %
- 0.0%
- CapEx %
- 0.0%
- OpEx %
- 0.0%
- CapEx %
- 0.0%
- OpEx %
- 0.0%
- CapEx %
- 0.0%
- OpEx %
- 0.0%
- CapEx %
- 0.0%
- OpEx %
- 0.0%
- CapEx %
- 0.0%
- OpEx %
- 0.0%
- CapEx %
- 0.0%
- OpEx %
- 100.0%
Feature Contribution
Who shipped each month's new feature work, as a share of that month's total. Bands of similar width mean new value is coming from across the team; one band that stays wide means most of it rests on the same person. Named engineers shipped the most Features over the period. Everyone else is grouped as Others.
Peter Song
44 ETV · 12% share
Jamie Mullan
17 ETV · 5% share
Rico Hermans
14 ETV · 4% share
Daniel Pinheiro
14 ETV · 4% share
James Mayclin
14 ETV · 4% share
Mark Schreiber
13 ETV · 4% share
Quarterly Summary
Engineers and the Features / Maintenance / Tests / Docs / Fixes mix for each quarter. Cost / Perf Unit is what one unit of performance costs against Q2'25. Engineers vs headcount is measured against this org's own pre-AI baseline instead, its first reading in the index, so it agrees with the capacity tile and chart above.
- Engineers
- 91
- Cost / Perf Unit
- 0%
- Engineers vs headcount
- −33 engineers
- Work mix
- 22% Features
- Engineers
- 96
- Cost / Perf Unit
- −5%
- Engineers vs headcount
- −32 engineers
- Work mix
- 30% Features
- Engineers
- 109
- Cost / Perf Unit
- +8%
- Engineers vs headcount
- −45 engineers
- Work mix
- 31% Features
- Engineers
- 106
- Cost / Perf Unit
- −26%
- Engineers vs headcount
- −15 engineers
- Work mix
- 19% Features
- Engineers
- 98
- Cost / Perf Unit
- −24%
- Engineers vs headcount
- −16 engineers
- Work mix
- 21% Features