DevOps Revealed: Insights and trends driving productivity and job satisfaction (Guest Blog from Spot by NetApp)
Author: Rajh Das, Head of International, Spot by NetApp
DevOps feel undervalued as competition for talent increases
Spot by NetApp recently surveyed over 200 DevOps engineers to get their insights on how they view their role, what aspects provide the most business value, what they enjoy most (and least) about their day-to-day responsibilities, and what tools they feel will help them be more efficient and successful.
What the data tells us:
Despite fierce competition for DevOps engineers, many report feeling undervalued by their organizations and hampered by manual work, lack of clarity from leadership, and ill-equipped to manage their growing responsibilities in an increasingly complex, cloud-centric world.
Why it matters:
DevOps is the backbone to scaling in the cloud and competition for talent is fierce. However, while many organizations cite DevOps as a strategic priority, DevOps engineers are often working on projects that they perceive as adding limited strategic value. Much of this work is focused on the manual provisioning of infrastructure and on monitoring and controlling costs.
While these are important aspects of cloud operations, these are also the tasks they find least enjoyable. Productive DevOps engineers are focusing more of their time on innovation and building new solutions with their partners across the development team.
Increasingly, DevOps teams are being asked to do more with less, and while many organizations are willing to compete for talent, they are failing to equip their teams with the tools and resources necessary to scale their applications and workloads in the cloud.
Key takeaways:
Despite 90% of businesses citing DevOps as a top strategic priority
- 64% of DevOps engineers feel they are not valued by their organizations
- 85% feel that management of infrastructure and containers is holding them back
- 88% report that controlling costs is the least enjoyable part of their job
The bottom line:
DevOps talent is scarce, but it is critical to an organization’s ability to scale in the cloud. Attracting DevOps engineers is just the first step. They need to be valued by leadership by enabling them to focus on projects that add value, while eliminating manual and administrative tasks as much as possible. They also need clarity on their roles and responsibilities while being equipped with the right technology.
It's clear from our research that DevOps teams want to feel more valued and understood by their organizations with clear expectations for their roles and responsibilities. They want to spend more time designing new solutions with their developer partners, and less time on cost management and manual provisioning of infrastructure. They are also eager to embrace technology solutions that will free up their time to focus on projects that add more value to their organizations.
When done right, DevOps can speed up software cycles by developing and deploying continuously, increasing automation, and giving development teams more accountability for operations.
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Sue Daley
Sue leads techUK's Technology and Innovation work.
This includes work programmes on cloud, data protection, data analytics, AI, digital ethics, Digital Identity and Internet of Things as well as emerging and transformative technologies and innovation policy. She has been recognised as one of the most influential people in UK tech by Computer Weekly's UKtech50 Longlist and in 2021 was inducted into the Computer Weekly Most Influential Women in UK Tech Hall of Fame. A key influencer in driving forward the data agenda in the UK Sue is co-chair of the UK government's National Data Strategy Forum. As well as being recognised in the UK's Big Data 100 and the Global Top 100 Data Visionaries for 2020 Sue has also been shortlisted for the Milton Keynes Women Leaders Awards and was a judge for the Loebner Prize in AI. In addition to being a regular industry speaker on issues including AI ethics, data protection and cyber security, Sue was recently a judge for the UK Tech 50 and is a regular judge of the annual UK Cloud Awards.
Prior to joining techUK in January 2015 Sue was responsible for Symantec's Government Relations in the UK and Ireland. She has spoken at events including the UK-China Internet Forum in Beijing, UN IGF and European RSA on issues ranging from data usage and privacy, cloud computing and online child safety. Before joining Symantec, Sue was senior policy advisor at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI). Sue has an BA degree on History and American Studies from Leeds University and a Masters Degree on International Relations and Diplomacy from the University of Birmingham. Sue is a keen sportswoman and in 2016 achieved a lifelong ambition to swim the English Channel.
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Authors
Rajh Das
Rajh Das is Spot by NetApp’s Head of International and has over 25 years of industry experience with large firms such as Google Cloud, Microsoft, and IBM through to hypergrowth cybersecurity SaaS companies. He has served SMB, Enterprise and Public Sector customers whilst building and leading operations and engineering teams.