DEVOPSdigest

Industry experts offer thoughtful, insightful, and often controversial predictions on how DevOps and related technologies will evolve and impact business in 2022. Part 3 covers DevOps and developers.

Start with: 2022 DevOps Predictions - Part 1

Start with: 2022 DevOps Predictions - Part 2

DEVOPS SHIFTS LEFT

We are witnessing a "left shift" similar to what we've seen in spaces like IT and security operations. I predict this trend will continue with increased force in DevOps in 2022. DevOps is going through a reimagining. Already, the practice is drawing closer to developers; what was once a focused role on a team is now extending across teams — integrated into everyday practices and responsibilities of many individual developers. And many of these developers are writing more code than ever before — carrying more awareness of the software (and accountability) than ever before.
Shanea Leven
Co-Founder and CEO, CodeSee(link is external)

TEAMS TAKE CONTROL OF DEVOPS

2022 is the year teams take control of their DevOps toolchain. As DevOps adoption has accelerated, toolchain complexity has grown, with individuals deploying their favorite new tools to serve one or more parts of the DevOps lifecycle. According to our recent research, 61% of CxOs say their DevOps toolchain is becoming increasingly fragmented, impeding their ability to accelerate innovation. In 2022, IT leaders will look to take back control of their toolchain by investing in automation and orchestration across the DevOps lifecycle. Rather than spending all that manual effort building and maintaining integrations between the different tools, organizations will look to platforms or standards that enable this seamless integration with minimal effort. As the industry centers towards a common set of event-based standards, more DevOps tools will look to adopt these standards so they can be easily integrated into the DevOps toolchain.
Andreas Grabner
Director of Strategic Partnerships, Dynatrace(link is external)

FURTHER DEVOPS SPECIALIZATION

We will see a continuing trend in the further specialization of expertise in the DevOps field. There will be possible branch outs into CloudOps, AIOps, SRE/RecoveryOps and DevSecOps due to the rapidly growing number of tools and services addressing specific business goals and problems. And while these activities may not necessarily evolve into completely standalone specialties/roles, they will likely become areas of distinct domain expertise/concentration for DevOps engineers.
Oleg Boyko
CTO, Exadel(link is external)

DATA OPS ALIGNS WITH DEVOPS

As developers rise to the occasion and start building data applications, they are quickly discovering two things: 1) they are not experts in managing or utilizing data; 2) they need the help of those who are, namely data engineers and data scientists. Engineering and data teams have long worked independently. It's one reason why ML-driven applications requiring cooperation between data scientists and developers have taken so long to emerge. But necessity is the mother of invention. Businesses are begging for all manner of applications to operationalize their data. That will require new teamwork and new processes that make it easier for developers to take advantage of data. It will take work, but less than you may imagine. After all, the drive for more agile application development led to the successful marriage of developers and (IT) operations in the form of DevOps. In 2022, expect many companies to restructure to closely align their data and developer teams in order to accelerate the successful development of data applications.
Dhruba Borthakur
Co-Founder and CTO, Rockset(link is external)

FOCUS ON THE DEVELOPER EXPERIENCE

I think we'll see DevOps teams really prioritizing the experience of their internal customers — their development teams — in 2022. Cr Crucial to this is disseminating expertise, which can come in the form of automation and/or education. An increasingly common practice with the DevSecOps movement, for example, is to have some sort of scanning process as part of the build or deployment process to disseminate the internals as far as how the scan is performed, what happens if there is something found, etc. Gaining internal adoption is a journey, of course, but having a better developer experience built around clarity and stability is increasingly important going into 2022, since developer talent can be hard to come by right now!
Ravi Lachhman
Field CTO, Shipa.io(link is external)

UPSKILLING

The responsibility landscape for DevOps is ever-growing — leaving my practitioners unsure if their current skill set matches an organization's future need, and in turn, leaving many positions unfilled. Upskilling is an investment that leaders need to implement as the expectations and responsibilities expand within developer roles or they will be looking at a labor shortage for quite some time to come. In 2022, organizations will need to provide more supportive resources, like testing environments, for in-role learning that enables developers to train (and even fail) in a safe and protected environment.
Prashanth Nanjundappa
Senior Director and Head of Chef Products, Progress(link is external)

DEVOPS SKILLS SHORTAGE

One of the biggest challenges for CTOs in 2022 will be the staffing shortages. We hear often about a shortage of workers in industries like retail, but the tech industry doesn't really get into the conversation. It is especially hard to hire for smaller companies that have to compete against larger companies with deeper pockets. The demand for technology workers is going to continue to increase — pretty much every field is going to need developers and others with technical knowledge. It will be an obstacle for a lot of CTOs to figure out how to staff their team to deliver products. In the next few years, CTOs will also be focused on how to retrain their existing staff to meet technology needs. For instance, they might have DevOps engineers that don't know how to program. But the industry is moving towards needing everybody to be familiar with development. Once you determine your technology stack, you need to help people learn what they need to actually execute.
Hyoo Lim
CTO of Content Management Platform, Brightspot(link is external)

Recruiting and retention efforts Amplified

The demand for software engineers reached an all-time high in 2021 on the heels of the pandemic, and there are no signs of it letting up heading into 2022. In fact, demand for high-quality engineers will likely continue to increase in 2022 as cutting-edge tools like AI/ML, and automation becomes table-stakes features for growing businesses. While compensation and benefits will always be critical components of attracting and retaining talent, companies will need to find other ways to stand out. This means investing in training programs and apprenticeships to give engineers guidance and career growth opportunities and showcasing company culture and innovation.
Christine Spang
Co-Founder and CTO, Nylas(link is external)

Go to: 2022 DevOps Predictions - Part 4, covering microservices and agile development.