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As software continues to drive value across all industries, engineering teams have taken center stage—not just as product builders, but as key partners in strategy, growth, and operational efficiency. The 2025 State of Engineering Management survey, based on insights from over 600 professionals across all engineering levels, paints a compelling picture of where engineering orgs stand today—and where they’re heading.
Here are the most important themes and takeaways for engineering leaders.
The overwhelming majority of respondents—over 90%—agreed that engineering plays a crucial role in:
This marks a shift away from the “order taker” perception of engineering and reinforces its evolving role as a business-critical function.
Burnout continues to plague the industry, with 65% of respondents reporting experiencing it in the last year. The issue is most severe among:
This suggests both understaffing and scaling issues are fueling burnout in different ways.
While 61% of teams have adopted AI tools in some form, there’s a noticeable disconnect:
The benefits cited by AI adopters include:
That said, barriers still exist: security concerns, lack of expertise, and budget constraints are the top blockers.
Metrics are becoming central to how engineering leaders manage and communicate, especially in large organizations. Key findings include:
Quality metrics ranked highest in perceived value, followed by productivity and alignment metrics. But vanity metrics (like story points or lines of code) are losing favor in favor of more meaningful indicators like cycle time, allocation, and team sentiment.
Nearly one-third of engineering professionals say they lack visibility into project status and progress against goals. This number jumps to 57% among executives in large companies—highlighting a persistent communication gap between leadership and frontline teams.
Yet, hiring remains tough. Over 60% of managers and execs report a shortage of qualified candidates in the market. Organizations must solve process and efficiency challenges before ramping up hiring—or risk exacerbating issues.
Across multiple questions, engineers and executives showed diverging views:
Bridging this gap is essential for building healthier, more aligned teams.
To tackle external market pressures and internal stressors, organizations are prioritizing:
Operational support and innovation were cited as top priorities for engineering investments moving forward.
As engineering organizations mature, the need to connect engineering efforts to business outcomes becomes even more important. Whether it’s through smarter use of metrics, improved tooling, or better leadership communication, the winners in 2025 and beyond will be those who align execution with strategy—without losing sight of the human experience of the engineers building the future.
