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Software Engineering Cost & Trade-Off Survey Template

Assess cost awareness, ownership, and technical debt trade-offs across your engineering team. Quick 8-10 min survey template for software teams and managers.

What's Included

AI-Powered Questions

Intelligent follow-up questions based on responses

Automated Analysis

Real-time sentiment and insight detection

Smart Distribution

Target the right audience automatically

Detailed Reports

Comprehensive insights and recommendations

Sample Survey Items

Q1
Multiple Choice
Which role best describes you?
  • Individual contributor / Engineer
  • Tech lead / Staff+
  • Engineering manager / Director
  • Other
Q2
Multiple Choice
What type of team are you currently part of?
  • Backend
  • Frontend
  • Mobile
  • Platform/Infrastructure
  • SRE/DevOps
  • Data/ML
  • QA/Testing
  • Full‑stack
  • Cross‑functional product team
  • Other
Q3
Multiple Choice
Do you have access to cost or usage data relevant to your work (e.g., cloud spend, build minutes)?
  • Yes, directly
  • Yes, via someone else
  • No
  • Not sure
Q4
Opinion Scale
How often do you personally review cost or usage data?
Range: 1 – 10
Min: NeverMid: MonthlyMax: Daily
Q5
Rating
How confident are you in interpreting cost signals to guide engineering decisions?
Scale: 10 (star)
Min: Not confidentMax: Very confident
Q6
Multiple Choice
Which sources of cost or usage signals do you use today? Select all that apply.
  • Cloud provider billing (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP)
  • FinOps dashboards or reports
  • Budgets/alerts and anomaly notifications
  • Build/CI minutes or compute usage
  • Product usage analytics tied to cost
  • Third‑party SaaS invoices
  • Internal chargeback/showback
  • None of the above
  • Other
Q7
Multiple Choice
What makes cost data hard to access or act on in your context? Select all that apply.
  • Data not available for my scope
  • Hard to find or scattered
  • Not trusted or inconsistent
  • Too granular to be actionable
  • Too high‑level to inform decisions
  • Limited time or competing priorities
  • Tooling gaps or permissions
  • Organization does not prioritize it
  • Not relevant to my current work
  • No clear owner to ask
  • None of the above
  • Other
Q8
Opinion Scale
In the past quarter, how clear was ownership for cost‑impacting decisions on your team?
Range: 1 – 10
Min: Not clearMid: Somewhat clearMax: Very clear
Q9
Multiple Choice
Who is primarily accountable for engineering decisions with material cost impact?
  • Individual engineers
  • Tech leads
  • Engineering managers
  • Product managers
  • Shared responsibility
  • No clear owner
  • Other
Q10
Long Text
Briefly describe a recent trade‑off (within the last 3 months) where cost influenced scope, speed, or quality. What drove the decision?
Max 600 chars
Q11
Matrix
When making trade‑offs, how much weight do you personally give to each dimension?
RowsVery lowLowModerateHighVery high
Lead time / Delivery speed•••••
Reliability / Uptime•••••
Cloud and infrastructure cost•••••
Team workload / Sustainability•••••
User impact / Satisfaction•••••
Security and compliance•••••
Q12
Constant Sum
Allocate 100 points across the dimensions below to reflect your ideal balance when prioritizing work.
Total must equal 100
Min per option: 0Whole numbers only
Q13
Opinion Scale
In the past quarter, decisions involving cost were made quickly enough for our needs.
Range: 1 – 10
Min: Strongly disagreeMid: NeutralMax: Strongly agree
Q14
Multiple Choice
Which practices or tools support cost‑aware engineering today? Select all that apply.
  • Resource tagging/labeling standards
  • Budgets and cost anomaly alerts
  • Cost dashboards tied to services
  • Cost per unit metric in CI/CD
  • PR or design templates include cost impact
  • Postmortems include cost analysis
  • Architecture reviews include cost
  • None of the above
  • Other
Q15
Long Text
If you could add one capability to improve cost visibility or accountability, what would it be?
Max 600 chars
Q16
Opinion Scale
Attention check: To confirm you’re paying attention, please select Neutral (3) for this item.
Range: 1 – 10
Min: Strongly disagreeMid: NeutralMax: Strongly agree
Q17
Short Text
What’s one change that would make trade‑off decisions easier on your team?
Max 100 chars
Q18
Multiple Choice
How many years of professional software experience do you have?
  • 0–2
  • 3–5
  • 6–10
  • 11–15
  • 16+
  • Prefer not to say
Q19
Multiple Choice
Approximately how large is your organization?
  • 1–10
  • 11–50
  • 51–200
  • 201–1,000
  • 1,001–5,000
  • 5,001–10,000
  • 10,001+
  • Prefer not to say
Q20
Multiple Choice
What is your primary industry?
  • Software / SaaS
  • Finance / Fintech
  • E‑commerce / Retail
  • Media / Entertainment
  • Gaming
  • Healthcare / Life sciences
  • Education
  • Government / Nonprofit
  • Other
  • Prefer not to say
Q21
Multiple Choice
What is your primary computing environment?
  • AWS
  • Azure
  • Google Cloud
  • Multiple clouds
  • On‑premises / Private cloud
  • Not applicable
  • Other
Q22
Multiple Choice
Where are you primarily located?
  • Africa
  • Asia
  • Europe
  • Latin America & Caribbean
  • Middle East
  • North America
  • Oceania
  • Prefer not to say
Q23
Long Text
Is there anything else you’d like to share about engineering costs or trade‑offs?
Max 600 chars
Q24
AI Interview
AI Interview: 2 Follow-up Questions on your responses
AI InterviewLength: 2Personality: Expert InterviewerMode: Fast
Q25
Chat Message
Thank you for completing the survey—your input will help improve cost‑aware engineering practices.

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