devopsy.kinsta.cloud

Tag: Great Resignation

Shifting Engineering Priorities for 2022

Nearly every aspect of the software development process is accelerating, from the increasing speed of programming languages to the expectation of faster delivery. This has resulted in the misconception that speed and efficiency should be a DevOps team’s or engineer’s top priority. Though agile transformations have been a central strategy for most organizations in recent years, investing in team culture while undergoing an agile overhaul is paramount to overall success.

For many workers, the pandemic caused a shift in priorities, so much so that as we begin to emerge from the events of the last two years, almost a quarter of UK workers are planning job changes and businesses are tackling the so-called Great Resignation. A desire to improve work-life balance and enjoy better benefits like flexible working has made employees more likely to leave a job. As such, maintaining employee satisfaction and protecting team mental health should be a top priority for companies wanting to keep retention rates high.

This starts with leadership, and engineering and DevOps leaders must have full transparency into their teams, with an understanding of exactly what motivates them. With this in mind, here are three top priorities for engineering and DevOps leaders in 2022.

1. Prioritize Team Culture

The tech sector is notorious for a high employee turnover rate, with a LinkedIn report putting it at 13.2%, far above other industries. For engineers especially, the increased pressure to deliver at lightning speed has created an unsustainable “churn and burn” culture.

Simultaneously, engineers have no shortage of options when it comes to job prospects as demand is booming. In fact, this particular sector in England and Wales advertised more job vacancies in 2021 than all British businesses across 2020.

To avoid any leavers, it’s important for engineering leaders to establish a unique and engaging culture within their teams, and actively and continuously examine it to ensure that engineers feel supported and valued.

However, there are a few key principles shared across world-class engineering teams. Allowing engineers to work on projects that excite them and allow them to explore their creativity is crucial. This may involve giving them dedicated time to work on developing their skills and pursuing innovative projects. In addition, leaders should cultivate a culture for their engineering teams that is built around appreciation, collaboration and psychological safety. Weaving open and honest career discussion and satisfaction check-ins into one-on-one meetings will help employees feel listened to and motivated by their personal progression.

2. Use Data as Your Gut Check

Ensuring decisions are data-driven is also incredibly important. The best leaders are often those who use concrete evidence to strengthen their teams. Engineering leaders must use data and metrics to gauge the health of their teams in the current jobs landscape.

Even for engineering leaders, a team’s day-to-day programming can sometimes seem like a black box, so finding clear insights about the development process is imperative. With an engineering metrics solution, it is possible to obtain better visibility into your team’s workflow. This not only helps ensure efficiency and quality, but it can also help to gauge employee success and morale.

Continuous health monitoring using a robust set of metrics will provide leaders with early identification and help to resolve any friction. A data-driven platform to ensure that individuals’ contributions are ‘seen’ is fundamental. Monitoring a teams’ daily workflow helps to identify standout employees that may otherwise fly under the radar, as well as flagging those who may be struggling. It’s important to pay particular attention to metrics that drive employees toward their professional goals and help to remove bottlenecks across teams.

Prioritizing constructive feedback and one-on-one conversations with employees is crucial to employee success and retention. The focus must be on frequent check-ins with engineers to ensure that they are thriving personally and professionally.

3. Focus on People First, Rather Than Performance

Nothing will ever be as important within a team as the people. Only the engineering and DevOps leaders who prioritize people through a variety of tools and techniques will reap the rewards and stay ahead of the competition.

Recent research has shown that happy employees are up to 12% more productive.

An engineering team will deliver their best work when they feel encouraged by leaders, have the space and autonomy to work in a meaningful way and have accomplishments acknowledged and celebrated.

As leaders, it is critical to remember to check in with team members as people, before checking in with them as workers.

Engineering leaders will likely be battling for in-demand talent in 2022 and beyond as they continue to contend with the Great Resignation. In the face of this, there is a real opportunity for leaders to distinguish teams through their engineering culture. Whether you are cognizant of it or not, a team has a culture. It’s incumbent upon engineering leaders to make having a people-first culture the top priority in 2022.

March 1, 2022
Akamai: Buying Linode | Firefox: Not OK | Gone: Google Vaccine Mandate

Welcome to The Long View—where we peruse the news of the week and strip it to the essentials. Let’s work out what really matters.

This week: Linode gets bought by Akamai, Firefox market share is “measly,” and Google brings staff back to the office.

1. Akamai + Aker = ‘Synergy’

First up this week: Why is Akamai buying Linode? Whatever the reason, it’s a big payday for its solitary shareholder: Not far off a billion dollars.

Analysis: There goes the neighborhood?

The 100 lb gorilla of edge computing and CDNs is promising not to mess with Linode’s winning open source cloud formula: No change, steady as she goes, etcetera. But how many times have we heard that before?

Here’s local scribbler Paige Gross: Linode’s $900M acquisition by Akamai is a ‘game changer’

A household name in the Philly tech scene … CEO Christopher Aker founded the company in 2003, and it’s been bootstrapped ever since, growing to about 250 employees. … Aker has owned 100% of Linode since he founded it.
…
Aker said the deal brings the company closer to solving evolving challenges “as cloud services become all-encompassing, including compute, storage, security and delivery from core to edge. … We’ve been talking about ‘alternative cloud’ — alternative to the big guy — and now we’ve sort of validated ourself in this market.”
…
The Old City company maintains “well over a million accounts” but has anywhere around 150,000 active users of its platform at any particular time. Linode’s HQ, the bank building at Third and Arch Streets, remains. … For clients and Linode employees, there won’t be too much noticeable change [Linode] says.

Why does Akamai want Linode? Jonathan Greig asked the CEO:

Akamai CEO Tom Leighton [explained] that Linode has great customer support and is already in 11 locations, which Akamai is going to “dramatically” expand. … Leighton also noted the September 2021 acquisition of Israel-based Guardicore, a cybersecurity company that offers a micro-segmentation solution to reduce the potential attack surface of corporate networks, secure applications, and meet compliance standards.
…
According to Leighton, the company is expecting the cloud compute category — which includes edge applications, its net storage business, and Linode — to reach “well over half a billion dollars in 2023. … We were pioneers in edge computing and now we’re taking a big step forward in cloud computing with Linode.”

But here’s a worried-sounding zoid.com:

Well good for them but I hope [Akamai] don’t screw it up. Linode is a great hosting company.

2. Firefox isn’t OK

Last week, a journalist innocently asked, “Is Firefox OK?” And people lost their minds.

Analysis: No, not OK—it’s a big problem for DevOps and the web.

We need Firefox and Gecko. A Chromium monoculture is bad for the web and bad for DevOps. (Before you ask: No, the existence of WebKit doesn’t change things, thanks to Apple’s ridiculous policies). Much as I tried to say something nice about Firefox last month, its market share is, frankly, pathetic.

Matt Burgess: Is Firefox OK?

In the two decades since Firefox launched from the shadows of Netscape … the browser has slid to less than 4 percent of the market—on mobile it’s a measly half a percent. … Its fate also has larger implications for the web as a whole.
…
Each year Google pays Mozilla hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties. … In its 2020 financial results … Mozilla listed its total revenue as $496 million. … The Google-Mozilla deal was last renewed in 2020 and is expected to expire in 2023. … Mozilla and Firefox acknowledge that for its long-term future it needs to diversify the ways it makes money.
…
Firefox still matters: … The browser market is dominated by Google’s Chromium codebase and its underlying browser engine, Blink. … Microsoft’s Edge Browser, Brave, Vivaldi, and Opera all use adapted versions of Chromium. Apple [has] its WebKit browser engine [but] other than that, Firefox’s Gecko browser engine is the only alternative.

Firefox, how do we love thee? Let not_count_zero count the ways:

I still use Firefox because:
a) I remember Internet Explorer and the standards wars. …
b) I don’t trust Google. …
c) Most sites work well.
…
I do have questions though. … They’re currently getting around a half a billion‽ What are they doing with it? … This seems really off—really, really off.

But heed a deeply worried Thom Holwerda:

The decline and potential demise of Firefox is a massive problem that everybody seems to be kind of tiptoeing around—too afraid to acknowledge that if Firefox were indeed to disappear, we’d be royally screwed. We’d end up right back where we started 20 years ago, with Chrome being the new IE6.
…
The situation is especially dire for … Linux users, developers, and distribution makers. … Gnome Browser or KDE’s Falkon can barely be taken seriously, and … are based on Apple’s WebKit, which isn’t a great position to be in.

3. Google’s Return to Work Plan Drops Vaccine Mandate

Google is planning “celebrations” to welcome back employees after being fully remote. And in practice—unlike at IBM—this doesn’t mean a vaccine mandate.

Analysis: Vocal minority wins—or do they?

It was just three months ago that Google said it “firmly stands behind our vaccination policy.” What changed? It’s unlikely to have been due to a tiny minority of staff publishing a manifesto.

Jennifer Elias: Google relaxes mandates

The company will no longer require vaccination as a condition of employment … as it prepares to bring workers back to the office … at least three days a week for a “hybrid” work model. … The company [had previously] told employees that they must comply with vaccine policies or they’d face loss of pay and eventually loss of employment.
…
According to Google spokesperson Lora Lee Erickson … the company dropped the requirement … after removing the Jan. 18 deadline it had set for employees to either get vaccinated or get exemption approval. She declined to provide further details on the policy or the reasons for the reversal.
…
Google Real Estate and Workplace Services VP David Radcliffe [said Google] is preparing to begin its 30-day transition period to the hybrid work week if conditions continue to improve. He said his team is planning “celebrations” to welcome back employees. … Unvaccinated employees who are approved to enter offices will still need to follow additional protocols, including testing and wearing a mask.

It’s too simplistic to say the anti-mandate brigade are also anti-vaxxers. For example, raxxorrax:

I am vaccinated and HR knows this. … But if they officially demanded a certificate, I think I would have called it quits. Many people don’t have that option [but] there are consequences for such unreasonable demands.
…
I understand a mandate for vaccinations in certain occupations relating to health. It is something you have to personally accept if you want to work in the field.

Although a few others are way over at the end of the bell curve. Greg Jinkerson:

Don’t get excited, [Google is] still evil and stupid. … Now they’re backing down for some reason, [but] this is barely anything notable as far as a rollback of restrictions. [It] is not any kind of encouraging news.

The Moral of the Story: Failure is the foundation of success—and the means by which it is achieved.

You have been reading The Long View by Richi Jennings. You can contact him at @RiCHi or tlv@richi.uk.

Image: Aleksey Kuprikov (via Unsplash; leveled and cropped)

February 24, 2022
IBM ‘is Ageist and Sexist’ | IBM Mainframe-aaS | IBM Vaccine Mandate

Think! Welcome to Big Blue Week here at The Long View—where we peruse the news of the week and strip it to the essentials. Let’s work out what really matters.

This week: IBM’s employment practices scrutinized, IBM z/OSaaS breaks cover, and IBM encourages staff back to the office.

1. ‘Dinobabies’ and ‘Dated Maternal’ Workforce Woes

First up this week: IBM’s defense in an employment age discrimination lawsuit looks to be shredded. Internal emails “appear to show high-level discussion about paring the ranks of older employees.”

Analysis: Not a good look

According to one of the plaintiff’s lawyers, unnamed “top IBM executives were explicitly plotting with one another to oust older workers … to make room for millennial employees.” On the face of it, they seemed to be doing the polar opposite of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.

Noam Scheiber: Making ‘Dinobabies’ Extinct: IBM’s Push for a Younger Work Force

Top IBM executives were directly involved in discussions about the need to reduce the portion of older employees … sometimes disparaging them with terms of art like “dinobabies.” … Documents made public by a Federal District Court … show executives discussing plans to phase out older employees.
…
The newly unsealed documents, which quote from internal company emails … show top IBM executives specifically emphasizing the need to thin the ranks of older workers and hire more younger ones. [One] email refers to IBM’s “dated maternal workforce,” an apparent allusion to older women, and says: “This is what must change. They really don’t understand social or engagement.”
…
Adam Pratt, an IBM spokesman, [claimed,] “IBM never engaged in systemic age discrimination.” [He] said that some of the language in the emails “is not consistent with the respect IBM has for its employees” and “does not reflect company practices or policies.”

Yikes, ageism and sexism? Experienced staff are valuable, says MrBanana:

I did some time at IBM [and] remember being invited to a meeting with a new group, headed by a new “thinker,” who had something to present to myself and a colleague. We walked past the foosball table to the meeting room. Naturally the room had no chairs, and was covered in multi-coloured Post-it Notes. Once they had gone through their mood boards and the non-linear presentation of this new idea, I turned to the other old geezer in the room. “Didn’t we look at something like this 8 years ago?”

“Yeah, we worked out that compute power just to run the UI for one session wouldn’t be available for a couple of decades.” The children were somewhat disappointed, and (fortunately) we were never asked back to their romper room.

But experience can be both a blessing and a curse, learned aahortwwy:

I experienced both sides of this in five years at a company in hypergrowth. … I learned so much at that job: … In year 1, I was determined to accomplish X and ignored the skeptical comments of some colleagues who’d been at the company longer than me. I failed and wasted some time. In years 4 and 5, new colleagues were determined to accomplish X and ignored my skeptical comments.

2. IBM Wazi as-a-Service Confusion

“Mainframe” is not a dirty word. It’s secure, vertically scalable, and it put the VM in VMware. Now, what IBM Wazi did for on-prem LPARs, Wazi aaS promises to extend to hosting z/OS instances.

Analysis: Mainframe-as-a-service reinvented

Mainframes and cloud-native DevOps need not be incompatible. To modernize legacy apps using hybrid cloud instances for dev/test—and even prod—can be a big productivity boost. But isn’t it weird that IBM spun out its mainframe-as-a-service zCloud offering only a few months ago?

Mike Vizard: IBM Shifts Mainframe App Testing to the Cloud

While many workloads over the years have been migrated off mainframes or simply retired, the applications that run on z/OS today are still among the most mission-critical that organizations run. … IBM this week revealed it has added the ability to set up testing environments on the IBM Cloud for z/OS mainframe applications.
…
IBM plans to make IBM Wazi as-a-Service (Wazi aaS) for z/OS generally available in the second half of this year, [which] will enable DevOps teams to self-provision an instance of a z/OS virtual server on a secure private space running on IBM Cloud. … At the same time, it will become easier to modernize mainframe applications by making them more accessible to other applications via a set of secure APIs … using a cloud-native set of DevOps tools that run in a Kubernetes environment.
…
Modernizing mainframe applications is a less complicated endeavor than migrating them. The challenge is that building, deploying, maintaining and securing all the APIs required to do so represents a significant amount of effort.

OK, boomer, why are we talking about 1960s mainframes on devopsy.kinsta.cloud? Here’s ArchieBunker:

Mainframes are different beasts altogether, almost alien when you compare them to PC hardware. You have binaries written for the S/360 system in the 1960s? Good news you can still run them natively without a recompile.

You think virtualization and containers are a hot topic? IBM was running multiple OS instances inside a VM in the 1970s. … The engineering is incredible.

But z/OSaaS? It’s déjà vu time for Beleagured Greybeard:

“Cloud Managed Services for z” AKA “zCloud” has been around for over 10 years. … IBM offloaded it with the Kyndryl spin, so its odd that they now want to re-invent it.
…
If it’s a strategic platform, why didn’t they hold onto it instead of spinning it off to Kyndryl? Sounds like yet more daft leadership decisions.

3. IBM’s Return to Work Plan has Vaccine Mandate

IBM wants to “keep employees safe” as they return to office work after being fully remote. In practice, this means a vaccine mandate.

Analysis: IBM Digital Health Pass is divisive to vocal minority

Although there are exemptions on medical or religious grounds, IBM has promised to place dissenters on unpaid leave. As you might expect, the policy has a few employees up in arms.

Cassie Werber: How Salesforce, IBM, and HSBC are approaching return to work

When the pandemic hit, and IBM moved 95% of its workforce to fully remote, it was pleasantly surprised to discover no drop in productivity. … Still, they planned to return to offices.
…
The company saw this as a way to keep employees safe. … One example … is its development of the IBM Digital Health Pass as an alternative to vaccine cards or paper vaccine certificates, which they use to make sure all the staff that come into their offices are vaccinated.
…
Arvind Krishna, IBM’s CEO, meanwhile came up with what he called the IBM Work From Home Pledge. [It] included commitments to flexibility, kindness, sensitivity to family, setting boundaries, and acknowledged video fatigue. It concluded with a commitment to “be connected.”

Tricky to “be connected” if you’re not allowed back in the building. Anne D’Innocenzio, Heather Hollingsworth, Tali Arbel, Mae Anderson, Ken Sweet, Matt O’Brien and Dee-Ann Durbin:

IBM software engineer Justin Albano said his company recently notified employees that it would be revoking badge access to workers who aren’t vaccinated or haven’t proved that they are. “We’re not able to enter an IBM office at this time,” said Albano.
…
He said some workers have successfully sought religious exemptions but “my thought process was I shouldn’t have to explain to my company my faith” to get out of a policy that’s “immoral in its foundation.”

What’s the alternative? With a perspective, it’s Chris Haney:

Or, get the vaccine. Protect yourself and the people around you. You people really are detached from reality.

The Moral of the Story: Those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know.

You have been reading The Long View by Richi Jennings. You can contact him at @RiCHi or tlv@richi.uk.

Image: Marcin Wichary—cc:by; leveled and cropped (ask your parents)

February 17, 2022
Great Resignation Spurs Interest in Tech Certifications
It has been almost a year since the phenomenon known as the Great Resignation started appearing in national news. The reports showed millions of U.S. workers leaving their jobs each month to look for something better. This trend, according to the latest news, is not going away.

While labor experts have provided a steady stream of speculation about why people are leaving their jobs, from frustration with pay to fear of COVID-19 to a desire to find positions that are more meaningful, they have yet to arrive at a consensus as to what those who are now out of work are doing with their time.

In the world of IT and tech, it appears that those who joined the Great Resignation are spending their spare time growing their skills and improving their resumes by pursuing tech certifications.

Tech Courses Surge in Popularity in 2021

According to Class Central, a search engine and review site for free online courses, the top online courses for 2021 were tech courses, many of which are offered by Google and provide the type of certifications that look great on a resume. Here are some examples of the top courses:
- Foundations of User Experience (UX) Design, which is the first in a series of seven courses on the topic.
- Data Analysis With R Programming, which provides training on how to “clean, organize, analyze, visualize and report data in new and more powerful ways.”
- AWS Cloud Technical Essentials, which presents the fundamentals of AWS.
- AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials, which explores “fundamental AWS Cloud concepts to help you gain confidence to contribute to your organization’s cloud initiatives.”
Certifications That Pay Dividends

In general, certifications provide a boost to job seekers. They communicate a commitment to professional development as well as provide a reliable catalog of the skills that one will bring to a position. For those looking to stand out, certifications can definitely increase the chances that you’ll get an interview.

However, it is critical to think of the opportunity cost of an individual’s time. While we love free certifications, many of the free certifications are unlikely to help someone start their career. In many cases, after the person spends months achieving these free certifications, they will need to spend additional time getting new certifications to ensure that they have the specific certifications that employers desire. When you consider the salaries some of these tech positions command, spending months on the wrong free certifications can cost someone tens of thousands of dollars in lost earnings.

While the following certifications may be more difficult to achieve and might not be available for free, they definitely make a difference in terms of preparing IT workers for the most desirable jobs:
- Networking – Cisco Certified Internet Expert (CCIE) and Cisco Certified Networking Professional
- Cloud Computing – Azure Expert, AWS Certified Solution Architect Professional and Google Professional Cloud Architect
- Security – Certified Information System Security Professional, Certified Information Security Manager, Certified in Risk and Information Security Control, or CRISC (Note: these certifications required documented experience)
- Cloud DevOps – AWS DevOps Engineer Professional
Adding Soft Skills to Certifications

The certification process can provide the technical skills for which many IT employers are looking. And promoting certifications on your resume can significantly increase the chances that you’ll be called in for an interview. However, in my experience, landing the job is one thing; thriving in it requires a different set of skills that fall outside the realm of IT certifications.

Soft skills are not the skills that allow you to do your job, like coding or engineering. They are the skills that define how you do your job. They include people skills like networking, communication and conflict resolution, as well as creative thinking and time management. When applied to the world of IT, I like to think of them as “certifications plus.”

While IT workers often overlook the value of soft skills, I can assure you that IT employers definitely do not. With the fierce competition that exists for IT work, IT providers need every advantage they can get to acquire and retain clients. If their workers do not have people skills to pair with their tech skills, companies lose that advantage.

For those looking to boost their appeal to employers by acquiring certifications, take some time to get certified in soft skills. The courses exist and they will pay you great dividends both before and after you land the job.

Bringing an End to the Great Resignation

For IT companies, the growing popularity of certification courses may offer some insight on how to bring an end to the Great Resignation, at least within the IT sector.

Recent research showed that IT “resigners” are wrestling with many of the same employment issues as those in other industries, including frustrations with salary and the desire to have more work flexibility. However, tech workers also cited some issues that indicate that certification training, provided before employees resign, might be enough to keep them at their desks.

For example, the top reason cited by workers at tech, IT and software development companies for wanting to leave their job, other than salary and benefits, was limited career progression. In addition, nine out of 10 said they “would like to get more learning and development opportunities from their company.”

For tech workers looking for a job, “skills development” was the second-highest criteria they considered behind salary and benefits when selecting a company. More than 60% also reported that “more learning and training opportunities would make them more motivated at work” and 75% felt that their companies focused more on attracting new employees than they did on investing in existing employees.

Could it be that retaining IT employees and filling the positions left open by the Great Resignation is as simple as making certification training available to employees?
February 14, 2022
EEEWW—Green iMessage Bubbles | ‘Great Resignation’ Redux | Faster Firefox 96

Welcome to The Long View—where we peruse the news of the week and strip it to the essentials. Let’s work out what really matters.

This week: iMessage lock-in lessons, attrition-rate fixes, and more on Mozilla.

1. ‘Never Date a Green Texter’

First up this week: The weekend story getting the technorati chattering was about how Apple iMessage denizens pour scorn on Android users—identifying them by their “icky” green chat bubbles. An iPhone user’s message gets a “proper” blue background, y’see.

Amusing though the story was, the writer seemed to be hell-bent on proving some sort of Apple C-suite-led “conspiracy to lock in.” The reality is far more mundane—but it teaches important lessons for DevOps.

Analysis: Unintended consequences FTW

Could your DevOps team make a trivial engineering decision that pays unexpected dividends? While lock-in might be distasteful, seemingly irrelevant design or technical choices can have huge ramifications with users.

Tim Higgins: Why Apple’s iMessage Is Winning

[The] pressure to be a part of the blue text group is the product of decisions by Apple executives starting years ago that have … helped to cement the iPhone’s dominance among young smartphone users. [It] encourages people to pay the premium … and remain loyal to its brand.
…
Teens and college students said they dread the ostracism that comes with a green text. The social pressure is palpable. … Jeremy Cangiano, who just finished up his MBA, … tried to cash in on it last year by selling his own merchandise that touted, “Never Date a Green Texter.”
…
The blue iMessage bubble was born out of a simple engineering need, according to Justin Santamaria, a former Apple engineer who worked on the original feature. … The idea that it would keep users locked in to using Apple devices wasn’t even part of the conversation at the time, he said.

And then the other shoe dropped—via Ron Amadeo:

Google took to Twitter this weekend to complain that iMessage is just too darn influential with today’s kids. … The company is hoping this public-shaming campaign will get Apple to change its mind. [But it] probably has the least credibility of any tech company [because it] has released 13 half-hearted messaging products since iMessage launched in 2011.
…
Google … seems to have learned nothing from its years of messaging failure. Today … the situation is an incredible mess, and no single Google product is as good as Hangouts was in 2015.

Ouch. With a sociological perspective, here’s Christina “filmgirlcw” Warren:

iMessage is incredibly popular with certain demographics. … It’s an in-group signifier—the way teens have always had in-group signifiers (when I was in high school, it was AIM, a Nokia, and wearing Abercrombie). … It’s always fascinating for me to go to other countries and see a ton of iPhone users not using iMessage but something else because that app has become the in-group signifier. … Every teen I know uses Discord more than they use almost anything else.
…
It isn’t about lock-in or regulation or technology. It’s about fashion.

2. How’s your Attrition Rate?

A study published this week says DevOps orgs and other internet companies rank third for attrition in the 38 industries surveyed. And if you lump that category together with “enterprise software,” it would be in clear first place.

Analysis: We’re #1! Oh, wait …

But some companies get this right—how can you be one of them? Culture, innovation, recognition and remote work. It’s definitely not only about pay.

Donald Sull, Charles Sull and Ben Zweig report their fascinating study: Toxic Culture Is Driving the Great Resignation

Between April and September 2021, more than 24 million American employees left their jobs. [But] while resignation rates are high on average, they are not uniform … from less than 2% to more than 30%. … More-innovative companies … are experiencing higher attrition rates than their more staid competitors.
…
Pay has only a moderate impact on employee turnover. … A toxic corporate culture is by far the strongest predictor of … attrition and is 10 times more important than compensation. … Job insecurity and reorganizations are important predictors of how employees rate a company’s overall culture. … But it is surprising that … the more positively employees talked about innovation at their company, the more likely they were to quit. … Employees are more likely to leave companies that fail to distinguish between high performers and laggards [or] that tolerate underperformance.
…
Our analysis identified … actions that managers can take … to reduce attrition. … Lateral career opportunities are 12 times more predictive of employee retention than promotions [and] 2.5 times more powerful [than] compensation. … Company-organized social events, including happy hours, team-building excursions [and] potluck dinners … are a key element of a healthy corporate culture. … Unsurprisingly, when employees discussed remote work options in more positive terms, they were less likely to quit.

And the flipside of resignation? Hiring replacements. Let’s turn to the equilibrium of Nash Reilly:

It’s only gotten harder in recent months [and] I think I know why. … You need to offer engineers some combination of these three things to pique their interest: Cool stuff to work on, smart people to work with [and] some degree of repeatability.
…
You can’t really prove to an engineer that you can give them things like good management, minimal churn, and decision making authority [so] let them talk to your employees. … Also, figure out a way to let your team “backchannel” to the candidate. [If] your product is not that cool … play up the things you can offer them: smart coworkers, and a stable working environment. … You can afford to be honest about what it is that you do offer to a candidate, [so] pitch them the truth: that you want to do good work, sustainably, for as long as you can—ideally with them on your team.

Perhaps the smart money is already skating to where the puck will be? Here’s echelon:

Engineering salaries are … one of the biggest expenses. … Companies love that they can now hire remotely and pay adjusted cost of living. They’ll hire as many workers in middle America as they can, and once enough of the workforce is concentrated outside of expensive cities, you’ll see them stop hiring in SF and NY entirely. [And] startup capital is already beginning to shift to … emerging markets. Employment will eventually head there too.
…
Make your money now while the iron is still hot.

3. Say Something Nice About Firefox

After accusing Mozilla of jumping the shark last week, perhaps I owe the Firefox folks a positive inclusion this time? The release notes for Firefox 96 certainly sound good.

Analysis: Improved sound; better perf; stronger anti-CSRF

Outside the Apple walled garden, Firefox is about the only non-Chromium browser. A browser monoculture can’t be a good thing for anyone—not DevOps nor users.

Michael Gariffo: Firefox 96 update focuses on noise improvements, main thread efficiency

On the desktop side of things, Mozilla’s latest release made “significant improvements” to the browser’s built-in [sound] noise suppression and auto-gain-control features. These improvements are aimed at web-based video chat users.
…
The second tentpole feature in version 96 focuses on reducing main-thread load, which should help the browser function better on older, slower, or congested systems. [And] a new enforcement setting for cookies … will, by default, apply the “Same-Site=lax” policy. Mozilla claims this will help better defend users against Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attacks.
…
Mozilla also acknowledged that it is working on correcting the performance of detached videos being played in full screen on macOS devices. … No timeframe was mentioned for when it might be available again.

Okay. Sounds good. But not to Tetch:

Never mind all that fancy stuff. … Any reduction in crashes?
…
FF crashes for me several times a month. … I always take the trouble to fill in the “What were you doing immediately before the crash?” section of the crash submission dialog, and never hear another thing.

But more efficiency on the main thread? Tell me more. ksec:

Such an important detail that deserves at least few more sentences of marketing message or explanation. But the whole release note just feels like they couldn’t be bothered anymore.

The Moral of the Story: A weasel wishing Happy New Year to a chicken harbors no good intention.

You have been reading The Long View by Richi Jennings. You can contact him at @RiCHi or tlv@richi.uk.

Image: Moritz Knöringer (via Unsplash)

January 13, 2022
Best of 2021 – The ‘Great Resignation’ in DevOps? Bah, Humbug

As we close out 2021, we at devopsy.kinsta.cloud wanted to highlight the most popular articles of the year. Following is the tenth in our series of the Best of 2021.

Like me, you have probably heard a lot about the “Great Resignation” lately. I’ll admit—at first I did not think it had anything to with tech jobs, especially not DevOps or cybersecurity jobs. After all, there aren’t many workers in those fields who aren’t well-paid (though, of course, when it comes to pay, it’s all relative).

When I first heard about the Great Resignation, I assumed it referred specifically to fast food workers or, perhaps, other restaurant, hospitality and retail industry jobs. You know—the kind in which people struggle to make $15 an hour. But then I began to hear it applied to better-paying tech jobs. Finally, I interviewed several executives who cited the Great Resignation as one reason that they were undermanned in key development, DevOps and cybersecurity positions.

I know what you are thinking: Tech execs will latch on to any excuse to explain why they are short-handed in these skilled positions. I agree with you, to a point. But I have had the chance to speak with several folks at some in-person conferences I’ve attended recently (It’s just not the same online!) and I began to see a trend. The almost mythical work-life balance/quality of life trend was back with a vengeance.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many workers—even in highly compensated, challenging jobs like software development, DevOps, QA and cybersecurity—had actually changed their perspective as a result of working from home all those months. True, many of them had already been working from home. But they still had a “mothership” that they went to; however occasionally. They still gathered with coworkers at conferences or off-site meetings; they still were part of the “culture”. With COVID-19, despite the best efforts of HR teams and managers to foster and nourish that “culture”, it just wasn’t the same. Much the same way we fooled ourselves into thinking Zoom and Teams were as good as in-person, we thought that we could keep our teams tightly bound and drinking the company culture Kool-Aid.

In place of that corporate culture, when workers weren’t working (and it did take some time for many of them to learn how to use the on/off switch), they began to actually do other things. They spent time with their immediate families. They tried new hobbies, they started (and completed!) DIY projects and more. Lo and behold, they found there was life beyond code.

This radical notion of doing things that were not work-related was not solely due to a failure to pay these people enough money. It was not about letting them work with the tools of their choice. It wasn’t even about who they worked with. At the end of the day, it was because they discovered they had a life, and that they enjoyed that life.

I welcome this trend. I think it will mean less burnout and more productive humans, at the end of the day. Heck, we may even see birth rates rise and divorce rates fall. We may all live happily ever after.

When it comes to the Great Resignation, in the immortal words of John Belushi, “Bu-uut nooo.” Notwithstanding all of the above being true, I don’t think this is what’s leading developers, DevOps or cybersecurity folks to leave their jobs in droves. They are setting boundaries, yes, but they aren’t quitting just because of pay. No—they are leaving for the same reasons they did before. No sooner do they settle into their new jobs than they are being contacted by the ever-present recruiters offering them more money, more benefits and now more work-life balance. Add to this the growth in demand for these positions worsening an already understaffed market and there you have it. A shortage of workers to fill open positions. This convergence of circumstances makes it easier for them to hop from one job to the next, as well.

At the end of the day, we still don’t have enough software developers, DevOps folks, QA or cybersecurity talent. This is driving the market. But Great Resignation? Bah, humbug!

December 24, 2021
Start Date

December 16, 2021
Will Automation Fill Gaps Left by the ‘Great Resignation’?

Between burnout, job-hopping and the ongoing pandemic, labor shortages will surely get worse before they get better, and automation is increasingly sought after as a way to mitigate the ripple effects of understaffed IT departments.

For DevOps, automation has several benefits, from freeing up employees to work on more constructive tasks to minimizing software bugs and technical debt.

However, starting off slow and learning how automation will help address staff shortages without complicating processes is a critical factor.

“There’s still a lot of teams that are struggling with far too many manual or repetitive tasks,” said Rich Lane, chief strategy officer at Netenrich, a digital IT and security operations company. “Obviously, trying to do your day job of delivering features and functionality into the wild can be challenging with the speed that business needs demand.”

Lane, a former senior research analyst at Forrester Research, pointed out that slowing down in the present to do foundational work that can lead to higher levels of automation in the future can be hard to sell to digital services stakeholders.

“And yet, without doing so, it becomes increasingly difficult to meet commitments in the event a team becomes shorthanded or delivery requirements increase,” he said.

Generalist or Specialist?

Cody Michaels, application security consultant at nVisium, said when it comes to hiring people for a DevOps environment, you have one of two options: You can hire someone with a wide range of knowledge that spans the entire process or you can hire someone with expertise in one core area like programming or deployment.

“At an individual level, a generalist will be better than an expert, however, a team of experts will outperform a team of generalists,” he said. “Not only can automation fill in gaps between an expert’s area of influence, but it can also serve as a permanent fixture on the team. As a result, the turnover rate won’t affect any automation so long as it’s implemented properly.”

From Lane’s perspective, the main areas DevOps teams should be looking to automate are continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD), IaC and AIOps-enabled incident management platforms.

“By taking the manual nature of day-to-day work off of DevOps engineers’ plates, they are freed to focus on digital transformation,” he said. “The number-one stumbling block is not starting with process.”

Lane noted unless you understand all the steps in a procedure that you’re trying to automate, it is very difficult to maximize the power of automation tools.

“Much of the process that is still adhered to today is outdated for the digital age,” he said. “Spend the time up front to map out what you hope to achieve with an automation project, what all the touchpoints are and how one can measure the quality of automation when it’s implemented.”

Michaels added that while the internet is flooded by companies shouting they have the “best” tools, that proclamation of “best” is going to be determined by budget and known languages.

“The top tools that I would recommend are Jenkins, Docker, Git and Jira, since these four play very well together with regard to automation,” he said.

Git, for example, has hooks that can trigger upon performing certain actions, like freshly submitted code, while Jenkins has automation as its middle name and it’s used in building, testing and deploying, which in turn facilitates CI/CD.

Meanwhile, Docker provides virtualization of operating systems and running applications in a secure manner in conjunction with containers.

“Lastly, Jira is one most don’t think about, but the platform has a lot of macros and filtering functionality that can update the work process automatically from events like code passing a test before it’s deployed, for instance,” he said.

Michaels said a couple of core considerations organizations need to make when approaching the idea of automation and AI are time as well as safety nets in place.

“Automation will take time to set up before you can benefit from it, but in the case of smaller teams, it won’t be too time-consuming to configure it all in one fell swoop,” he said. “But if you’re working with a lot of technical debt, unfortunately, it’s going to be payback time. If this is the case, my best advice would be to start small and not overhaul everything at once.”

Minor Automation Improvements Have Major Benefits

He said he thinks incremental improvement will be the best route for most organizations, and that even minor improvements will compound far faster than waiting a year to see if a redesign will work for you.

“As I mentioned previously, it’s imperative to have safety nets in place,” Michaels said. “Make sure you have a contingency plan if something goes wrong in the process to recover back to a working state. However, strictly speaking, everyone should make it a practice to have a recovery plan in their software development life cycle (SDLC).”

As the DevOps world moves into 2022, organizations choosing to embrace automation could find themselves in a win-win situation—for both developers and operations.

“The more automation takes over the ‘housekeeping’ items of the process, the more time will be freed up to improve the process as a whole,” Michaels said. “As a result, taking time to go back and clean up technical debt can now be set aside between sprints and maintenance.”

He pointed out that senior roles can tackle optimizing the architecture, which will ensure fewer bugs and a healthier work-life balance for all: Just imagine a world where developers can focus on perfecting their craft—instead of waiting hours or days for server reboots or disrupting their flow to update a ticket status.

“It really comes down to the fact that organizations can no longer make automation an afterthought,” Lane added.

He pointed out that given the difficulties in recruiting and retaining staff today, DevOps leaders must make their teams as efficient as possible—and automation can help achieve that goal.

“The number-one way to achieve this is applying as much intelligent automation throughout the IT environment as possible so that the highly-skilled engineers can focus on transforming the business,” Lane said.

December 1, 2021