I first heard the term “developer experience” in late 2023. Everything I had been doing “by intuition” for years suddenly had a name.I have always had a DevEx mindset. For more than 15 years of my career, I have loved optimizing and automating — finding ways to make tasks easier and faster for the people around me. It didn’t matter if they were developers, analysts or colleagues in other roles. What gave me the most satisfaction was creating something that removed friction and helped others focus on what really mattered.When I joined Skype at Microsoft in 2022, I kept acting the same way. I started systematically recording every problem I noticed: painful onboarding, long build times, fragmented tools. And I didn’t just write them down, I also looked for ways to fix them. Sometimes I could fix things myself by creating scripts, improving environments or writing docs, and I regularly shared these ideas with the team.So, when I heard the words “developer experience,” it became much easier to explain the value of my initiatives to managers and colleagues. Just six months later, I was offered the chance to work on DevEx full-time.Talking to my colleagues and developers I know, I’ve realized they have also never heard about developer experience. My anecdotal experience shows most developers don’t even know what Dev Ex stands for. This is why I believe that bottom-up DevEx is so powerful — and so necessary.What Is Developer Experience?Simply put, developer experience (DevEx) is everything that makes a developer’s work either smooth or painful.How fast does the code compile and tests run?How quickly can a new hire onboard and make their first commit?How automated are routine tasks?And in general, what does everyday development feel like?Good DevEx means developers spend more time in flow, creating value, instead of waiting, switching context or fighting processes.The Hidden Cost of InefficiencyAtlassian’s State of Developer Experience Report 2025 highlights worrying numbers:Sixty-eight percent of developers save more than 10 hours a week thanks to AI tools.But 90% still lose at least six hours a week to friction — searching for information, inconsistent tools, context switching.Fifty percent lose 10+ hours. For a team of 500 engineers, this equals $7.9 million in lost productivity per year.Even the most advanced technologies do not remove the pain. They just change its shape.Why Developers Stay SilentThe biggest problem is that most developers get used to the pain. I know this from my own experience and from the stories of others: Whenever you ask for resources for a DevEx-related task, the conversation quickly dies and you are sent back to shipping features.Living with bad DevEx is almost the industry standard; most just assume it is normal.This is backed by data. Atlassian reports that 63% of developers believe leadership does not understand their real problems (compared to 44% in 2024).Bottom-Up DevExBottom-Up DevEx means improvements start from developers themselves.A developer identifies pain, makes the first step toward improvement, and shares the result. Initiatives don’t start in a leadership presentation; they often start with a script written in the evening or a problem list created inside a team.From there, it can grow upward: colleagues start using it, numbers appear, and eventually management picks it up.My own story is a clear example. What began as side notes and small fixes became something bigger once I discovered the term “developer experience.” It gave me the language to communicate and the weight to be heard.Where to Start: The Champion RoleThe first practical step for bottom-up DevEx is for a developer to initiate or take on the role of DevEx champion.A DevEx champion is someone who:Collects feedback from colleaguesTracks and prioritizes pain pointsStarts small improvementsCommunicates them to managementA DevEx champion bridges the gap between developers and management, listening to real pains, bringing them to decision-makers, and turning them into small but impactful improvements that make daily work smoother.DevEx Needs Both SidesIt is important to understand: DevEx can be pushed top-down by management, and it can be driven bottom-up by developers. But separately, both approaches are far less effective.The ideal model is a symbiosis: Developers bring ideas and feedback, managers provide resources and scale what works.I put special emphasis on initiatives coming from developers because people talk about them far less than about frameworks and metrics. And I am convinced that without both sides moving toward each other, DevEx will not develop fast enough to become an industry standard in the near future, if ever.If you are a developer, do not stay silent. If you are a leader, listen to your developers.Because most developers still do not know what DevEx is. And it is time to change that.Interested in or working in the field of Developer Experience? Hangar DX is a community of software engineers and engineering leaders focused on developer experience. Join our monthly off-the-record virtual meetups for honest thoughts and discussions, learning from peers about challenges that they’ve solved at their organizations.The post Why Developers Don’t Know What Dev Ex Is appeared first on The New Stack.