Most engineering leaders still measure their teams by proxies: hours online, desk presence, gut feel. The DORA research program, built on surveys of more than 32,000 professionals, offers a compact set of measures that actually track delivery. Adopt them and a quieter truth surfaces: where your engineers sit stops mattering.
Key Takeaways
- DORA's classic model has four metrics (deployment frequency, lead time for changes, change failure rate, failed-deployment recovery time), and DORA has recently expanded it to five by adding deployment rework rate (DORA).
- The throughput metrics and stability metrics together describe real delivery performance.
- Google's engineering org popularized these as the Four Keys.
- Measure delivery and location becomes irrelevant, which removes the case against distributed teams.
The DORA Metrics
The classic four split into throughput and stability, per DORA's own guidance. DORA has since added a fifth, deployment rework rate, so the current model is five:
| Metric | Measures | Type |
|---|---|---|
| Deployment frequency | How often you ship to production | Throughput |
| Lead time for changes | Commit to production | Throughput |
| Change failure rate | % of changes causing a fault | Stability |
| Failed-deployment recovery time | Time to recover from a bad deploy | Stability |
| Deployment rework rate | Unplanned rework after a deploy (new in the 5-metric model) | Rework |
Google's DevOps org popularized the original set as the Four Keys and uses them to benchmark teams from low to elite performers.
Why This Changes the Remote Debate
Once you measure a team by deployment frequency and lead time, "are they at their desks?" becomes an irrelevant question. A distributed team that ships daily with a low change-failure rate is outperforming a co-located team that ships monthly, full stop. The metrics are blind to geography, and that's the point.
This is also where nearshore quietly wins: the real-time review and unblocking that timezone overlap enables directly shortens lead time, because a PR doesn't wait overnight for a reviewer in another hemisphere.
How to Start
Pick deployment frequency and lead time first, since they're the easiest to instrument and the most motivating to improve. Then layer in the two stability metrics so you're not buying speed with breakage. When you hire, vet for engineers who move these numbers, which is part of what our vetting screens for, beyond raw coding ability.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the DORA metrics?
The classic four are deployment frequency, lead time for changes, change failure rate, and failed-deployment recovery time. DORA recently added a fifth, deployment rework rate.
Why do DORA metrics matter for remote teams?
Because they measure delivery, not presence. A distributed team that scores well is outperforming a co-located team that doesn't, regardless of where anyone sits.
Which metric should I track first?
Deployment frequency and lead time. They're easy to instrument, and improving them tends to surface the bottlenecks worth fixing.
The Bottom Line
DORA's four metrics replace presence with delivery as the measure of an engineering team. Once you make that switch, the location debate dissolves, and hiring the best senior talent wherever it lives becomes the obvious move.
Roberto Espinoza is CEO of Ruzora, which helps US startups hire pre-vetted senior LATAM engineers in 72 hours. See available engineers.
