In his talk at IDPCON 2025, Hariprasad Babu, Manager of Technology at H&R Block, opened his talk with a blunt assessment of a common problem. "Developers spend 40 to 60 percent of their time on non-coding, non-strategic work," Hari said. "Is that what any of us signed up for?”
To solve this, his team used Cortex to automate the manual, repetitive tasks that were draining velocity and morale. By building an Internal Developer Portal focused on smart automation, they turned a tangled toolchain into a modern developer experience, achieving significant results.
Hari laid out the journey his team took from diagnosing developer toil to building a single source of truth, a path that delivered a new level of focus, efficiency, and clear, measurable impact.
Key results:
Reduced MTTR from up to 24 hours to less than one hour, and cut Mean Time to Acknowledge (MTTA) to under 10 minutes.
Eliminated 3–5 days of manual seasonal prep work for senior leadership.
Removed the manual reporting effort of seven Program Managers, freeing them to focus on higher-impact projects.
We’ve included a link to Hari’s full presentation below, but here's a recap of some of the key takeaways from his talk at IDPCON 2025.
→ Watch now: IDPCON 2025: Level Up Your Developer Experience with Smart Automation and Initiatives
When “non-work” becomes the work
Hari said his team at H&R Block faced several challenges, including a disconnected toolchain that provided no visibility into service ownership or compliance and manual workflows were consuming a significant portion of developer time. The impact was twofold: slower delivery and developer burnout. Engineers were constantly context-switching between spreadsheets, scanners, and meetings just to get basic operational data.
This lack of visibility created a significant downstream effect on security and compliance.
“We found a humongous number of compliance issues — and fixing them all manually was impossible.” — Hariprasad Babu, Manager of Technology, H&R Block
Hari said it became abundantly clear that H&R Block needed to automate the grunt work so its developers could focus on the high-impact work of building products. That critical initiative required a foundational platform to serve as the engine for their transformation.
Turning chaos into clarity
To tame the complexity, H&R Block implemented Cortex as the foundation of its Internal Developer Platform. The strategy was not to automate everything at once, but to start with the highest-impact pain point: a lack of visibility.
By centralizing service data, Cortex provided a single source of truth that gave developers, managers, and leadership a shared, real-time view of the entire software ecosystem. This created unified visibility for developers and leadership, eliminating the need for "war room" meetings and providing a shared understanding of the data.
With this foundation in place, the team began to automate its governance and compliance workflows. Security, reliability, and other organizational standards were codified in Cortex and run continuously in the background. This shift from manual governance to automated compliance freed developers from constant validation and context switching.
Faster resolution, more time for innovation
The impact of this new approach was significant. In his talk, Hari explained how Cortex didn’t just streamline operations, it changed outcomes. With clear ownership data readily available, the team dramatically reduced their Mean Time to Resolve (MTTR), addressing non-critical incidents in hours instead of days.
This new efficiency was built on a pragmatic approach to automation and standardization. Hariprasad’s advice is to involve developers at every stage and to avoid adding complexity. “Whenever we standardize, don’t bring more complexity or restrict flexibility,” he says. “At each stage, incorporate developer feedback. That’s what we usually forget.”
“We’re not here to take your work. We’re here to get rid of the repetitive manual work so you can focus on the innovative feature development that drives real value.” — Hariprasad Babu, Manager of Technology, H&R Block
Ultimately, the goal of automation was not to replace people, but to empower them. By automating the low-level, repetitive tasks, H&R Block has created an environment where developers can focus on building products that deliver value to the business.
Ready to dive deeper? Watch the full session from Hariprasad Babu and other engineering leaders on demand. Access all IDPCON 2025 recordings here.
