Cat Hicks
Cat is VP of Research Insights at Pluralsight Flow.
As the VP of Research Insights and the Director of the Developer Success Lab at Pluralsight Flow, Cat Hicks studies the science of how developer teams learn and thrive. Cat is a social science leader in tech with expertise leading applied research teams to explore complex areas of human behavior, empirical intervention, and evidence science. Cat serves on the Advisory Council of the University of San Diego Center for Digital Civil Society, as a research affiliate in STEM education research at UC San Diego, and as an advocate for increasing education access. She holds a Ph.D. in Quantitative Experimental Psychology from UC San Diego, was an inaugural Fellow in the UC San Diego Design Lab, and has led research at organizations such as Google and Khan Academy.
Building for the new developer
So we’ve bought a Copilot license for our teams….AI in software solved, right?!
Why support and belonging are the final key to developer thriving
Beyond agency, motivation, and learning, a sense of support and belonging shouldn’t be overlooked as a key driver of developer thriving.
Building a learning culture to unlock developer thriving
Allowing developers to learn on the job can be difficult when the pressure is on, but research proves that a strong learning culture can help developers thrive.
Why motivation and self-efficacy drives thriving software teams
Don’t overlook the importance of self-efficacy and sustaining motivation through challenges as qualities of thriving software development teams.
The importance of developer agency in thriving software teams
Giving your engineers a strong sense of agency can help build trust, improve code quality and velocity, and hopefully keep your engineers from leaving.
Where we’re going wrong with developer productivity
Cat Hicks proposes a different, science-backed approach to productivity using research evidence from a study with 1200+ developers: developer thriving.
