diff --git a/courseware/content_parser.py b/courseware/content_parser.py
index 2c6a515c63..eb1678536d 100644
--- a/courseware/content_parser.py
+++ b/courseware/content_parser.py
@@ -158,10 +158,7 @@ def user_groups(user):
     cache_expiration = 60 * 60 # one hour
     
     # Kill caching on dev machines -- we switch groups a lot
-    if "dev" not in settings.DEFAULT_GROUPS:
-        group_names = cache.get(fasthash(key))
-    else: 
-        group_names = None
+    group_names = cache.get(fasthash(key))
  
     if group_names is None:
         group_names = [u.name for u in UserTestGroup.objects.filter(users=user)]
diff --git a/settings.py b/settings.py
index cce3dfad4e..561fc550af 100644
--- a/settings.py
+++ b/settings.py
@@ -163,6 +163,13 @@ MAKO_TEMPLATES = {}
 
 LOGGING_ENV = "dev" # override this in different environments
 
+# Default dev cache (i.e. no caching)
+CACHES = {
+    'default': {
+        'BACKEND': 'django.core.cache.backends.dummy.DummyCache',
+    }
+}
+
 # Make sure we execute correctly regardless of where we're called from
 execfile(os.path.join(BASE_DIR, "settings.py"))
 
diff --git a/util/cache.py b/util/cache.py
index b0c370a035..1a01b3d7fd 100644
--- a/util/cache.py
+++ b/util/cache.py
@@ -6,6 +6,7 @@ Note that 'default' is being preserved for user session caching, which we're
 not migrating so as not to inconvenience users by logging them all out.
 """
 from django.core import cache
+import settings
 
 # If we can't find a 'general' CACHE defined in settings.py, we simply fall back
 # to returning the default cache. This will happen with dev machines.