“Why isn’t there a system that helps us understand what’s actually going on in software engineering so we can make better decisions, and help the business accelerate?”
This was a key question formulated in 2017 by Andrew Lau, David Gourley and Philip Braden. The answer became Jellyfish and its engineering management platform (EMP), with the trio becoming co-founders.
Jellyfish enables engineering leaders to align software engineering work with strategic business objectives. The platform automates data collection beyond what a PLM and Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) software would provide. Instead, the metrics provided by EMP can help engineering leaders to measure performance using evidence-based insights.
“Today, engineering is the engine of modern businesses. Visibility is crucial for engineering leaders as they make strategic decisions, align with their business counterparts and prioritize accordingly," says Lau, Jellyfish CEO. "Data-driven engineering leaders are outpacing their peers on just about every metric we look at: innovation, quality, speed-to-market. We seek to enable these data-driven leaders with our engineering management platform."
It's easy to see that these capabilities are of interest to many, and the business has done well. In a relatively short time, according to Jellyfish, it has not only become a well-known engineering management product (that lives along side PLM and ALM), but it has also gained approximately 300 corporate customers and nearly 35,000 engineers on the platform. In addition, they recently released the new Life Cycle Explorer, a solution that identifies bottlenecks in the life cycle of engineering work to help teams adapt workflow processes and more effectively deliver value to customers. We will dig into the details of this solution later in the article.
Today, the company notes that is has just over 200 employees, and has tripled the number of employees in 2022 alone. In short, Jellyfish is growing through the roof. Head of product marketing, Evan Klein, who spoke with engineering.com, does not reveal concrete numbers, but notes that, "last year alone, revenues nearly tripled."
Of course, the technological setup and the expansive numbers haven’t passed the VC market without a trace. On the contrary, investment firms have realized the attractiveness of what Jellyfish has put on the table, and in three financing rounds, the startup has received about $116 million.
Who Are the Customers of EMP?
Again, let’s be clear; this is not about PLM and the sub-area ALM. Instead, the Jellyfish platform serves in the area of software engineering at companies that focus on developing software solutions, usually with software such as Jira, GitHub, Google Sheets, Slack, GitLab, Confluence and others, into which Jellyfish solutions can integrate.
"Our Engineering Management Platform is a new category, designed to help builders of software, and many of our customers are building SaaS solutions just like we are,” says Klein.
The customer list includes companies such as Mastercard, Priceline, ZoomInfo and PagerDuty, which all use Jellyfish to optimize the allocation of engineering resources to focus their teams on what matters most to the business.
A Salesforce for Software Engineering Management
So, what’s the secret behind Jellyfish’s software? Klein explains the idea at the core of the automated data collection and evidence-based insights in Jellyfish.
“We are setting out to be sort of the Salesforce for software engineering teams,” he says. “Just like Salesforce initially changed the way that sales teams do sales, Jellyfish aims at helping engineering teams to be more predictable and more effective, using data to make more targeted decisions. In a world where we have all this data at our fingertips, engineering teams still largely are not able to use that data to make effective business decisions. We are on a mission to change that.”
“The core of what we do is to help teams understand how their engineers are allocated in terms of projects, initiatives, objectives and tools. We want to help teams to focus on the right things, allocating their time to the things that will make a difference to their business. Once teams can do that, Jellyfish provides data and tools to help them improve their engineering operations and maintain healthy, engaged teams.”
Technologically, the Jellyfish platform uses a patented resource allocation model that automatically analyzes engineering signals and contextual business data. This in turn helps leaders track engineering work and make informed decisions. This solution additionally provides simple and accurate cost reporting that may be utilized for financial audit purposes.
Exactly what is a software engineering organization working on, as a group or individually? What does its workflow look like? How do they operate? These are all questions that exemplify what the Jellyfish platform can help to answer.
“By analyzing engineering signals and contextual business data, our solution can provide complete visibility into engineering organizations, answering questions around these things you mentioned such as what work they are involved in and how they operate,” Klein says.
More specifically, what is it that Jellyfish can do that other competitors in its space can’t?
“There are two things that I would call out,” Klein says.
“The first thing is that we really understand how software engineers are allocating their time. We have proprietary technology that can break down on an hourly basis exactly what an engineer is working on and allocate that at the business level. And so, we can break down software engineers’ time and understand both the impact they are having and the attributed costs of working on different initiatives.”
“The second thing is related to our new release, Life Cycle Explorer, which is a really big differentiator for us. Most of our competitors’ tools don’t have capabilities that can pinpoint bottlenecks in software development, workflows and understanding where they are being blocked out, and how they can act to produce on a more timely basis.”
Highlighting the “Goldilocks Zone” with Life Cycle Explorer
Life Cycle Explorer is particularly interesting and relates to a trend that can be seen not only in software development, but also in areas such as manufacturing. However, in software engineering this concept hasn’t been common. The idea of lifecycle management is no longer something that only concerns manufacturing companies and their products (à la PLM); it is highly relevant for software development, as well. How can teams underpin more efficient processes in software engineering?
This is a highly relevant issue in software development, which is generally one of the most difficult areas to in which to achieve a comprehensive understanding, both in regards to the technical functionality as well as when it comes to reporting costs for the development work. In other words, PLM and ALM has shown that it isn’t enough in this area.
“The modern software development life cycle is demanding, non-linear and increasingly complex—writing code is only one piece of the puzzle,” Jellyfish wrote in a recent press release announcing the launch of Life Cycle Explorer.
Moreover, they noted that, “each step of the life cycle is necessary, and keeping these steps balanced is critical. An accelerated life cycle will potentially decrease quality or lead to failures in hygiene or compliance, while a slow life cycle will frustrate stakeholders and fail to deliver value to customers.”
In this context, Krishna Kannan, head of product at Jellyfish, pointed to the fact that the Life Cycle Explorer solution enables managers to define a concrete approach to their development strategy.
“Modern software development teams and their leaders have no easy way to visualize, break down and understand their development life cycles,” he says. “With Life Cycle Explorer, teams can now identify and remediate bottlenecks, unlock process obstacles and improve trends through the full life cycle of software development. Jellyfish is helping engineering leaders go beyond metrics to gain a complete understanding of each opportunity they have to improve team performance.”
A New Level of Control
A customer statement regarding Life Cycle Explorer is also quoted in the press release: "Cycle time has been a critical metric for improvement across our engineering organization," said Gary Damm, VP of engineering at One Concern. "With Life Cycle Explorer, we have a new level of control over our development life cycle, empowering our teams to break down and optimize each stage of the delivery process."
In summary, Jellyfish’s secret is that they are peeling back the layers and providing complete visibility into engineering organizations, the work they do and how they operate. Through the launch of their initial product and its companion tools, Jellyfish optimizes the allocation of engineering resources allowing their customers to focus their teams on what matters most to the business.