The invisible work(er)

David DINTISH / Unsplash

Introduction

Organizations thrive on results they can measure: product launches, new features, visible milestones. Yet, behind these visible outcomes lies a layer of “invisible work”, the unglamorous but essential activities that keep products and systems reliable, scalable, and resilient.

Invisible work includes planning, organizing, testing, documentation, maintenance, automation, monitoring and countless small fixes. It rarely makes it into slide decks, yet without it, the visible achievements collapse. According to the 2019 DORA State of DevOps report, elite software teams share one trait: they consistently invest in testing, documentation, and automation. These practices don’t just reduce risk; they increase delivery speed and organizational resilience.

So what’s the challenge? Invisible work is often undervalued, unevenly distributed, and misaligned with how employees are recognized and rewarded.

What Counts as Invisible Work?

Invisible tasks are foundational, but rarely celebrated. In software development, there usually include:

• Planning: Makes sure workloads are balanced, timelines are realistic and items are worked on in the correct order.

• Testing & CI/CD: Reduces time spent on rework, accelerates safe releases. (DORA 2022 report links test automation directly to delivery speed.)

• Documentation: Preserves institutional knowledge, supports onboarding, and reduces reliance on “tribal knowledge.” (Atlassian research shows teams without adequate documentation spend up to 25% more time searching for information.)

• Maintenance & Refactoring: Keeps systems flexible and prevents technical debt from compounding. (A Stripe survey found developers spend 33% of their time addressing technical debt, costing businesses billions annually.)

• Monitoring & Automation: Reduces downtime and operational firefighting. (Google’s Site Reliability Engineering principles emphasize that proactive monitoring and automation prevent cascading failures.)

Invisible work is prevalent in many other contexts as well. Think of the mechanics and engineers who work behind the scenes so that pilots can fly safely, or the players on your favorite sports team who ensure the defense is solid and the fundamentals are in order so a teammate can score.

The Cost of Overlooking Invisible Work

When invisible work is ignored, two unhealthy patterns emerge:

• Silent Fixing

  • Systems may look stable, but behind the scenes, there’s burnout, unacknowledged effort, and a dangerous reliance on hidden “heroes.”

• Neglected Fixes

  • Incidents pile up, customer frustration grows, delivery slows, and trust erodes.

A McKinsey study on developer velocity showed that organizations that systematically address technical debt and invisible work see 20–30% faster revenue growth than peers.

The sustainable alternative is making invisible work visible and aligning it with business outcomes.

Making Invisible Work Visible

So how do we make the invisible work clear for everyone and encourage people to pitch in?

• Postmortems with Purpose

  • After incidents, treat missing tests, outdated docs, or absent automation as root causes, not afterthoughts. Google’s SRE teams emphasize blameless postmortems that highlight systemic gaps.

• Business-Oriented Framing
  Translate invisible tasks into measurable outcomes:

  • “Two hours of downtime = $50,000 lost revenue.”

  • “Lack of documentation = 3x longer onboarding for new engineers.”

• Process Integration

  • Embed testing and documentation into the Definition of Done.

  • Allocate sprint capacity for maintenance and technical debt.

  • Share responsibility—avoid bottlenecks around a single “maintenance hero.”

• Transparency & Metrics
  Track invisible work as part of performance dashboards:

  • % of code covered by automated tests.

  • Mean time to recovery (MTTR).

  • Documentation health index (e.g., updated vs. outdated pages).

By linking invisible work to outcomes, leadership can make informed investment decisions.

Aligning Capabilities, Responsibilities, and Credit

Sustainable systems require alignment across three dimensions:

• Capabilities: Equip employees with tools, training, and time to do invisible work effectively.

• Responsibilities: Define ownership of quality, maintainability, and monitoring as shared team duties—not extra tasks.

• Credit: Recognize invisible contributions in performance reviews, promotions, and company-wide reporting.

The Dora research shows that recognition and accountability directly correlate with higher employee satisfaction and lower attrition rates. When invisible work is valued, retention and performance improve.

Conclusion

The “invisible worker” is not a hidden hero; it is every employee who safeguards the foundations of resilience. Without recognition, invisible work becomes a silent tax on morale, productivity, and customer trust.

The way forward is structural, not personal:

• Treat invisible work as a strategic investment, not overhead.

• Measure and frame it in terms that leadership understands.

• Embed it into processes, responsibilities, and recognition systems.

Visible achievements may get the headlines, but invisible work ensures long-term success. The organizations that thrive are those that make the invisible visible and reward it accordingly.