A Longitudinal Analysis of Software Development Evolution in a Financial Organization

Abstract

DevOps adoption has become a key mechanism for automating software development, while AI-assisted coding introduces new uncertainties into established workflows. However, long-term evidence on the evolution of software development remains limited, especially in regulated financial organizations. To address this gap, we partner with a leading securities firm and analyze over 800,000 lifecycle records from all software projects between 2021 and 2025. We examine long-term trends, structural change points, and project-level evolution patterns. The results show a shift from development-driven growth to quality-assurance-centric and maintenance-heavy stabilization. We further identify three structural breakpoints mainly associated with DevOps maturation, requirements management, and quality-oriented governance. Project clustering shows that the ecosystem remains stable in earlier periods but becomes more fragmented recently, with a maintenance-intensive project state emerging. To further investigate the evolution of software development in financial organizations, we conduct semi-structured interviews. Practitioner interviews complement these findings by revealing early concerns under AI-assisted development. In general, this study provides longitudinal evidence on the evolution of software development in financial organizations. In addition, it provides lessons learned for AI-assisted software development from a distinctive perspective.