The Number That Changed Everything
Jonathan Mills stared at the dashboard, certain there must be an error.
17 lines of code per day.
Not per hour. Per day. Ninety-one days. Three full months. Somewhere in his 45-person engineering organization, someone had been contributing an average of 17 lines of code daily for an entire quarter. Their fully-loaded cost: $127,000 per year.
"How is that even possible? And how did nobody notice?"
The Black Box Problem
Meridian Software had grown to 280 employees and $34M in ARR. But 2024 brought new pressures. Investors were demanding efficiency metrics. Engineering was 41% of operating costs.
When Jonathan asked his VP of Engineering for individual productivity data, the pushback was immediate: "That creates a surveillance culture."
But the CFO's question cut through: "The board is going to ask us to cut 15% of costs. Would you rather make those decisions with data or gut feel?"
The Ghost Revealed
Kevin Park. Staff Engineer. Five years with the company. $127,000 annually.
- PRs Merged (90 days): 7
- Average PR Size: 23 lines
- Code Reviews Given: 4
- Commits: 91 (almost exactly 1 per day—often single-line changes)
Kevin wasn't in design meetings. He hadn't contributed to architecture documents. But he was always present—active in Slack, in every standup, asking just enough questions to seem engaged.
"He's not underperforming. He's performing at appearing to work."
The Hidden Stars
But the analysis revealed something equally important: the other end of the spectrum. Three developers were dramatically outperforming, and no one had officially recognized them:
- Maya Chen: Junior engineer averaging 420 lines/day with 94% review approval rate. Still at junior salary.
- David Okonkwo: Mid-level engineer quietly mentoring six other developers. Zero official recognition.
- Lisa Wong: QA engineer contributing substantial bug fixes invisible because she was classified as non-developer.
The Transformation
Kevin's exit was handled professionally. The high performers were recognized immediately—promotions, raises, and formalized roles.
Net impact: $198,000 savings, retained top talent, and a 25% productivity increase. For the first time, high performance was visibly recognized.