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Every few months at work we add a feature X. On average it took 10,000 LOC (lines of code) to develop. Through design improvements I reduced it to an average 1,000 LOC, which meant fewer associated bugs and less duplication and effort.

I know metrics are good to have on a resume. How can I turn this into a metric? I know LOC doesn't translate to effort, but there is a correlation.

"Reduced development effort in LOC by 90%"?

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By itself, that wouldn't mean much to me. Do you have anything else that you can relate it to. As in a correlated drop in tech support calls or bug reports? – Kevin Jul 27 '12 at 14:04
Would you quantify bugs in terms of number of bugs? Some bugs are orders of magnitude worse than others, which is why I don't like that number. – anon Jul 27 '12 at 14:35
Anon, could you clarify if your mind is made up on putting something like this on your resume, or if you're interested in how this may or may not be viewed/read? – jcmeloni Jul 27 '12 at 18:11
I would like to quantify it somehow so it doesn't seem made-up, but am also interested in how it will be perceived. – anon Jul 27 '12 at 19:04

5 Answers

up vote 10 down vote accepted

I personally would not be interested in an LOC metric on a resume. However, if you could say that you

Reduced development time for complex features by n% while maintaining high quality output

I'd be interested. My point is not to use the LOC metric but to associate it with something else that is more meaningful. Of course, if you say this, it should be true - reducing LOC by that much should probably be associated with less development time.

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2  
That's definitely a more meaningful metric than Lines of Code. Plus cutting that many lines of code probably had an exponential effect on time saved; much less to test, which hopefully makes development time/effort even less – Rarity Jul 27 '12 at 14:27
I have some numbers but am not sure how accurate they are. How do you typically measure development costs? – anon Jul 27 '12 at 14:30
@anon: You could measure it in time: how many hours to build, test, deploy). You could measure in dollars: how much to pay for the resources (not just salaries but maybe also tools, hardware, hosting accounts, etc...). – FrustratedWithFormsDesigner Jul 27 '12 at 14:33
up vote 3 down vote

LOC is a lousy metric. After all, linebreaks normally count as LOC. Plenty of languages don't even require whitespace at all, yet reducing a 1200 line program to a single line might sound impressive, but it turns into an obfuscated mess for maintenence and upkeep. I think a bit of context might be useful, mentioning the language(es) involved, that your changes made the code more efficient, and maybe a short bit about reducing the number of LOC.

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up vote 3 down vote

I would include it as a quick statement "reduced code base size by 90%" and make it just one of a half dozen or more such references to achievements

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up vote 2 down vote

I have a section under my employers where I list any notable accomplishments. In theory you could list that statistic there.

However, unless you can enumerate the savings in terms of real cost then listing it on a resume is not very useful.

Some related metrics that might be useful:

  • Improved performance Benchmarks
  • Reduced actual costs of operation
  • Reduced actual costs of development
  • Reduced actual costs of on going maintenance.

However for these, as a prospective employer I am going to want to to be able to explain and talk about how you came by your metrics. You need to be able to speak with confidence about them and understand those numbers inside out. If you can not do that Unless you have some documentation to back up the numbers I would leave them off. A generic "significant improvement in X," suffices.

Lean Metrics is a good way of coming by these numbers. However it requires planning ahead to capture the before and after numbers. It is hard to establish good numbers for a resume after you have left a position. So it is important if you wish to include them in your resume that you capture them regularly. Fortunately they are also useful in business so you manager will probably thank you for producing the numbers for him.

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up vote 1 down vote

I think the best thing to do is to describe in convincing and appropriately detailed terms what benefit you provided to the project.

However, using "metrics" like percentages and cost reduction in dollars or time or LOC can be really hard to do right. These things are not necessarily measured accurately (or even valid-- in the case of LOC) and they are rarely the result of the singular efforts of one person.

I know that career advice these days says to cite "metrics" to quantify job experiences, but they're dubious figures unless you can back them up and make a strong case for why they're valid and true.

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