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Tag: upskilling

Survey Sees Developers Embracing AI Faster than Project Leaders

A survey of 1,129 developers and 50 project managers suggests that individual developers are significantly further ahead when it comes to embracing AI than managers of application development projects.

Conducted by BairesDev, a provider of software development services, the application developers surveyed said they are now saving on average 7.3 hours of work per week, or roughly an entire working day, with AI being used to create 25% of the code they develop.

Primary AI benefits include faster coding (65%), accelerated learning (48%), increased productivity (45%), faster prototyping (34%) and better code quality (27%), the survey finds.

Additionally, a full 88% also said they now view AI as a gateway to creating new career opportunities, with 76% believing AI makes their work more fulfilling. Key opportunities identified include automating grunt work to free up time for architecture and problem-solving (62%), specializing in AI/machine learning (45%), and prompt engineering (44%).

Most of those developers are currently using on-the-job training (66%), YouTube (58%) and paid online courses (48%) as the top ways they acquire new AI skills. Only 15% said they use formal certification programs as a way to upskill versus self-learning. However, 44% said they would like to receive AI- and machine learning-related training.

BairesDev CTO Justice Erolin said that as the pace of technological change accelerates, a hands-on, proactive mindset becomes increasingly essential. However, real progress occurs when this self-directed learning is paired with structured upskilling and reskilling programs that provide depth, validation, and long-term growth, he added.

Unfortunately, project managers are not as far along when it comes to embracing AI. The top three challenges identified are gaps in business/context knowledge (43%), shortage of AI/ML specialists (41%) and lack of internal upskilling programs (38%). Only 15% of project managers report having structured AI upskilling programs.

Project managers also noted there is a lack of clarity about the actual return on investment (ROI) clarity (38%), concerns around data privacy and security (38%) and limited resources (36%).

It’s still early days so far as adoption of AI in software engineering is concerned but it’s now clearly a matter of the degree to which it will be applied rather than if. The core issue is determining what level of faith to place in the output generated by these tools, especially as it pertains to potential vulnerabilities and the amount of technical debt that might be incurred because of how verbose the code is.

Nevertheless, it’s also apparent that AI coding is only going to continue to improve and there are plenty of use cases where the code being generated sufficiently meets the immediate need at hand. Regardless of the use case, however, that code needs to be reviewed before being included into any production environment to reduce the number of potential issues that might be encountered later on.

In the meantime, leaders of DevOps teams would be well-advised to gain some hands-on AI experience of their own to better understand what type of additional training might be needed. After all, in the age of AI it’s simply not going to be possible to lead from the rear given the rapid pace of change occurring now on an almost daily basis.

October 17, 2025
Training IT Teams for Multi-Cloud DevOps Environments

Multi-cloud is mainstream. According to recent data, 89% of companies now use a multi-cloud approach for everything from day-to-day workloads to data storage, server backups and in-depth analytics.

While public clouds offer the advantage of on-demand resources and private clouds deliver enhanced control, combining public and private performance — or multiple instances of both — helps businesses maximize their cloud investment.

A multi-cloud approach can also benefit development and operations (DevOps) teams if they have the training and skills necessary to maximize multi-cloud potential.

Starting Strong: Three Tips for Building a Better DevOps Team

By completing development and operations tasks simultaneously, DevOps teams set the stage for faster deployments with fewer problems.

Below mentioned are three tips for starting strong.

Identify Tech Talent

DevOps functions differently than traditional IT teams. Instead of familiar ‘waterfall’ models that take a step-by-step approach to design, development, deployment and assessment, DevOps teams complete these tasks simultaneously.

As a result, it is critical to find staff with tech talents that facilitate this model or upskill existing staff to help enable DevOps. In practice, this means looking for staff who are capable of thinking outside the box by developing creative answers to common problems and those who are willing to experiment to see what works, rather than sticking with what they have always done.

Set Clear Expectations

Clear expectations are also critical. The purpose of DevOps is to streamline the deployment of new applications and services, but the collaborative and continuous nature of this approach makes it easy for teams to get off track, especially as the number of apps used by business teams grows exponentially.

To reduce the risk of projects started and not finished, companies must set clear goals, including key milestones and deliverable dates.

Create a Collaborative Culture

DevOps dies in isolation. Siloed services and challenges in communication frustrate teams’ ability to iterate and improve on deliverables. To ensure DevOps lives up to its potential, companies must prioritize open collaboration that prioritizes communication over being ‘correct’.

In many cases, this requires a more hands-off approach from managers and executives. While it is important to regularly check in with DevOps teams, the nature of this collaborative approach means they are better off experimenting and iterating.

Key Skills for Effective Multi-Cloud Management

Multi-cloud environments can enable DevOps efforts. For example, companies might keep critical data on-site or in private clouds to maximize security but use public cloud resources for large-scale application testing.

The caveat? Managing multi-cloud solutions is naturally more complex than handling their single-cloud counterparts. To ensure DevOps teams are prepared to maximize multi-cloud, training is essential.

The Challenge? Complexity

The Solution: Cloud Platform Specializations

While cloud platforms share core functionality, how users interact with and apply these functions differs significantly across providers. Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS) all provide powerful, interoperable cloud platforms but these platforms are not identical, creating the potential for increased complexity.

For example, while AWS is known for its broad service offerings, Google Cloud has emerged as a leader in data processing and artificial intelligence (AI). Microsoft Azure, meanwhile, provides enhanced platform-as-a-service (PaaS) offerings and seamless integration with Windows and other Microsoft products.

To effectively leverage multiple clouds, platform specializations are critical. This makes Google Cloud, Azure and AWS training essential for DevOps teams.

The Challenge? Effective Integration

The Solution: Containerization Proficiency

For DevOps teams to see success, applications and services must work across multiple platforms with minimal need for adjustment. Containers make this possible; by keeping application code isolated from the larger cloud environment, apps and services become portable, allowing teams to quickly build, test and deploy new solutions across multiple clouds.

This creates the need for comprehensive container proficiency. Common containerization tools include Kubernetes (K8s), Docker, OpenShift and the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud. Experience and training with multiple container tools helps empower solution portability.

The Challenge? Limited Observability

The Solution: Monitoring Mastery

While multi-clouds increase functionality, they naturally decrease observability. This can lead to both performance and security issues, for example, applications may be secure in one cloud but exposed in another. In the best-case scenario, the issue is caught early and teams spend time fixing the problem. Worst-case? Attackers exploit the oversight to compromise company data, with teams unaware until performance issues emerge.

To improve observability and reduce risk, teams need training in real-time monitoring tools. Look for solutions that provide real-time data analysis, in-depth dashboards and customizable alerts to help identify small issues before they become big problems.

Making the Most of Multi-Cloud

Much like DevOps, multi-cloud approaches combine the best of both worlds to deliver improved outcomes.

Just like DevOps, the right strategy is key to making the most of multi-cloud. This starts with purpose-built teams given clear expectations and backed by a collaborative culture. It is enhanced by skills and training that help DevOps teams reduce complexity, improve integration and enhance observability across multiple cloud platforms.

February 12, 2025
Addressing Skills Gaps in Your DevOps Team

Skills gaps refer to the disparity between the skills that employers need and the skills that employees possess. These gaps can occur at an individual level, in a certain organization or across an entire industry or sector. Either way, they hinder productivity, stifle innovation and lead to missed opportunities.

Understanding skills gaps is crucial for anyone looking to advance their career or improve their organization’s performance. By identifying skills gaps, organizations can take steps to close them by helping their teams become more proficient and versatile.

Skills gaps are not always negative. They can also present opportunities for learning and growth. If an organization knows its skills gaps, it can proactively give employees the necessary skills and knowledge. This can result in increased employability and job satisfaction and foster a culture of continuous learning and improvement.

The Importance of Having a Skilled DevOps Team

One area where skills gaps can have a significant impact is DevOps. The DevOps model requires a broad range of technical, operational and soft skills, making it particularly susceptible to gaps.

Having a skilled DevOps team is vital for several reasons. First, it enables faster, more efficient software delivery, which can give your organization a competitive edge. Second, it promotes a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement, leading to higher-quality products and services. Third, it increases job satisfaction among team members who can see the direct impact of their work on the organization’s success.

Unfortunately, skills gaps in DevOps teams are common and can hinder these benefits. They can delay software delivery, create friction between team members and lead to subpar products. Therefore, identifying and addressing these gaps should be a top priority for any organization using the DevOps model.

Common Skills Gaps in DevOps Teams

Technical

When it comes to DevOps, technical skills gaps are often the most noticeable. These can include a lack of proficiency in coding, system administration, cloud computing and other technical areas.

Gaps in this area can have a significant impact on a DevOps team’s performance. They can slow down software delivery, lead to more bugs and errors and make it harder to implement new technologies or practices. Moreover, they can create a divide between team members, with some feeling overwhelmed or underqualified while others feel overburdened.

Operational

Operational skills gaps in a DevOps team can be just as detrimental, if not more so, than technical skills gaps. These can include a lack of understanding of the software development life cycle, project management or the ability to monitor and troubleshoot systems effectively.

Gaps in this area can lead to inefficient processes, missed deadlines and poor-quality products. They can also create tension within the team as members may struggle to understand their roles or how their work contributes to the overall goals of the project.

Soft Skills

Finally, let’s talk about soft skills gaps. These are often overlooked in the tech industry, but they are crucial for a successful DevOps team. Soft skills include communication, teamwork, problem-solving and emotional intelligence, among others.

Gaps in this area can lead to miscommunication, misunderstandings and conflict within the team. They can also hinder collaboration and continuous improvement, which are at the heart of the DevOps philosophy. Therefore, addressing these should be an integral part of any DevOps skills gap strategy.

Identifying Skills Gaps in a DevOps Team

Define What’s Required

The first step is to outline what’s necessary for the DevOps team. These could range from specific technical skills such as coding or system administration to soft skills like problem-solving and communication. A clear understanding of the skills required for each role within the team is crucial. This should not be a static list but rather a dynamic one that evolves with the changing needs of the industry and the organization.

Evaluate Current Skill Levels

Once the required skills have been defined, the next step is to evaluate the current skill levels of the team members. This can be done through performance reviews, one-on-one meetings or skills assessments. It’s important to be objective in this evaluation and focus on the skills rather than the individual. This process will help identify where the team stands in terms of what is necessary and which areas need improvement.

Identify the Gaps

The comparison of the required versus current skills will help identify the gaps. These are the areas where the team’s skills do not meet the requirements. Identifying these gaps is not an indictment of the team’s abilities but rather an opportunity for growth and development. It is crucial to communicate this to the team to maintain morale and motivation.

Prioritize the Gaps

Not all skills gaps are created equal. Some may have a more significant impact on the team’s performance and the organization’s goals. Therefore, it’s important to prioritize the gaps. Consider factors such as the impact of the gap on the team’s productivity, the complexity of the skill and the resources required to address the gap.

Create a Skills Matrix

A skills matrix is a visual tool that maps out the team’s skills against the requirements. It provides a clear picture of where the skills gaps lie and can help in planning how to address them. A well-designed matrix can also identify hidden talents within the team and highlight areas for cross-training.

Four Strategies to Address the Skills Gaps in Your DevOps Team

1. Internal Training and Development Programs

One of the most effective ways to address skills gaps is through internal training and development programs. These can be tailored to the specific needs of the team and can provide in-depth knowledge and hands-on experience. They also provide an opportunity for team members to learn from each other and strengthen their collaboration skills.

2. Hiring and Onboarding Skilled Professionals

While training existing team members is important, sometimes the skill gaps may be too large or the need for the skill too urgent. In such cases, hiring new team members with the required skills can be a viable option. A well-structured onboarding program can help these new members integrate into the team and share their skills.

3. Leveraging External Training Resources and Certifications

External training resources and certifications can also be an effective way to address skills gaps. These can provide industry-recognized validation and can often be tailored to the specific needs of the team. In addition, they offer an opportunity for team members to expand their network and learn from industry experts.

4. Cultivating a Learning Culture within the Team

Finally, this is not a one-time task but an ongoing process. Cultivating a learning culture within the team can help in this regard. Encourage continuous learning and make resources available for team members to upgrade their skills. Recognize and reward efforts to learn and grow. This will not only help address the current gaps but also prepare the team for future challenges.

Conclusion

In conclusion, skills gaps in a DevOps team can be a challenge but also an opportunity. By identifying and addressing these gaps, we can ensure that our team is equipped to deliver high-quality results. As professionals, it’s our responsibility to lead this process and create a culture that values continuous learning and skill development.

July 10, 2023
DevOps Institute Releases Upskilling IT 2022 Report

DevOps Institute, a professional member association working to advance the humans of DevOps, announced the release of its Upskilling IT 2022 report. In its fourth year, the Upskilling IT report highlights the need to close the DevOps skills gap and identifies emerging job roles within the industry.

Through data collected in the Upskilling IT 2022 survey, DevOps Institute introduced a new four-report system which includes: the Global Report, Americas Regional Report, EMEA Regional Report and APAC Regional Report. With the help of 2,476 survey respondents across 120 countries, the report helps IT professionals accelerate transformations.

Managing Technical and Talent Debt

“Strong human skills like collaboration, communication and social adeptness remain essential to the DevOps journey,” said Jayne Groll, CEO of DevOps Institute. “In 2022, upskilling is as much an individual endeavor as it is an organizational responsibility.”

One key finding is that insufficient IT resource skills are a major challenge globally. In fact, 40% of survey respondents said that the resource and skills shortage is one of their top three challenges.

The report also found that addressing technical debt must be paired with addressing talent debt. The importance of technical skills is apparent throughout the findings, but without the necessary human skills, innovation and transformation are disrupted.

“The 2022 data shows that managing talent debt alongside technical debt maintains competitiveness and drives organizational growth,” said Eveline Oehrlich, DevOps Institute’s chief research officer.

Another major takeaway is that upskilling is a professional and organizational imperative. Continuous learning must be prioritized by individuals and organizations to tackle the issues faced throughout the industry.

“As leaders manage the shortage of skilled individuals, they must embrace a continuous learning environment to expedite organizational transformation and remain competitive in the market,” said Oehrlich.

The 2022 report is available to download for free.

May 18, 2022
THE UPSKILLING IT 2022 SURVEY IS NOW OPEN
IT SKILLS IN FOCUS

By Eveline Oehrlich, DevOps Institute

According to McKinsey, nine out of 10 global executives and leaders are saying that their organizations are facing a skill gap or expect to develop additional skill gaps in the next three to five years. During the past few years, IT organizations, in particular, have already been facing skill gaps. The desire to accelerate technical innovations and digital transformation only makes it harder to identify and narrow current and future skill gaps. IDC predicts 75% of organizations will have a comprehensive digital experience implementation roadmap by 2023, up from 27% today. While 2023 is still a few years away, it is essential that IT organizations prepare for what skills are necessary, how to manage their talent supply and look at the underlying skills of people that must support this digital journey.

DevOps Institute research team and sponsors, Palo Alto Network, Cycloid, and The Linux Foundation, are excited to announce the launch of the Upskilling IT 2022 Survey. The survey takes approximately 25 minutes to complete, and we’d love to hear from you. Your answers will allow us to better understand which IT skills are essential for the future, ensuring that organizations are able to accelerate their digital journey.

The Upskilling IT 2022 Survey, by DevOps Institute with its yearly sponsors, is the only and longest running research of its kind. The results provide an unbiased view into what skills are essential across a variety of IT and other skill domains.

Like the past three research reports, our goal following this year’s survey is to share a detailed analysis to help various leaders and roles, in order to help them determine what skills they should hire, retrain or upskill for, following the publication of the Upskilling IT 2022 Report in the first quarter of 2022.

Don’t let IT Skill gaps be a competitive liability for today or in the future

The survey is open for everyone, regardless of the size of your organization, or your organization’s industry. This year we have expanded the focus beyond DevOps and are homing in on cognitive and human skills.

Some of the key topics we look to deep dive into this year include:
1. Exploring where the biggest skill gaps currently exist and within which roles, such as leaders, developers or operations.
2. How skill gaps are identified across the IT industry.
3. How upskilling is done, funded and executed.
While each person has their own unique experience, expertise, examples of execution or outcomes and various tolerances for exploration, for the fourth year, we are setting out to explore what the must-have skills are within different skill domains. This year we are focusing on the skills needed within modern IT organizations today and in the future.

There are a variety of roles that are involved in recruiting, hiring or working within IT organizations. We are setting out to highlight and understand which must-have, nice-to-have and optional skills are essential within key skill domains. The skill domains include Automation, Human skills, Technical skills, Functional skills and knowledge, Process skills and framework knowledge, Business skills and leadership skills. We are targeting the community of IT leaders, developers, practitioners, team leaders, consultants, human resources and other individuals who are familiar with modern IT best practices, such as DevOps. We are targeting all industry verticals and all company sizes. Our survey questions are developed with input from a variety of team members and experts, and our goal is to achieve a sample size of 4,000 individual responses across North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America.

Help us shape the future of IT and DevOps and make your voice heard by completing the survey now.

The survey will remain open until January 31, 2022. We look forward to hearing from you.

Take the survey now: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Upskilling2022Blog
September 28, 2021
Learning DevOps: All You Need Is a Browser

One of the most exciting things about a career in IT is the constantly changing landscape, providing almost infinite opportunities for learning. But this is also one of the great challenges IT careers: It’s just so hard to stay on top of everything. Hence, it’s not uncommon for people to learn some skills, find a niche and get comfortable there. The trouble is that comfortable niches get squeezed shut over time, and the opportunities fade away. This is where upskilling becomes important—to grow new skills, find a new niche and enjoy fresh comfort.

As DevOps has become such an important part of today’s landscape, DevOps skills are in high demand. Thankfully, the DevOps community recognizes the need to develop talent. As Dr. Richard Cook put it in the IT Revolution Symposium of Safety Culture, Lean, and DevOps, ‘’DevOps is not simply the practice of fixing problems or generating velocity. DevOps is also the practice of building a community of people who do DevOps.” There are many ways that this can work: on the job coaching and mentoring, meetups, conferences, training courses and certifications. The trouble is that many of those are difficult to scale due to demands on people’s time and places to get together, and that was before we faced the challenges imposed by social distancing.

Thankfully, the last few years have seen the rise of interactive online training platforms that provide an easy-to-access browser-based entry point for users. Behind the scenes, the platforms harness cloud-based infrastructure or containers as a service to provide realistic environments and scalability. Course content is generally structured in markdown or similar, along with files that define flow, mini-quizzes and any challenges that students are expected to complete. This allows training to be delivered at web-scale, reaching much larger audiences than in-person workshops and at a much lower cost per student. It also provides a safe environment for students to try things out and explore away from the packaged course flow. That safety is a crucial support for the third DevOps way of continuous learning by experimentation because it allows students to try things without any concerns about messing up an environment or running up a bill with a cloud provider. It’s also worth noting that a DevOps learning journey is generally more of an iterative process in smaller pieces because the three DevOps ways of flow, feedback and continuous learning by experimentation apply as much to learning DevOps as they do to practicing DevOps.

In some cases, course content has been open sourced, which allows an inquisitive student to see how things work behind the curtain (and maybe suggest improvements or fixes). Open source also provides an opportunity for course content to be modified and remixed to different environments and use cases.

Sample code for environment configuration from shift left on security module

Courses can also make use of API-based interconnectivity between systems through mechanisms including webhooks and identity tokens. That enables systems outside of the training platform, such as collaborative source control, to be incorporated into the overall experience. It also means that training environments can be customized to use the particular tools and practices adopted by an organization so that people can work in familiar ways (or get used to new ways of working).

Web-scale online training platforms first arrived to help people learn about tools and platforms. But now the range of things that we can do with them has expanded dramatically, which means they’ve become a valuable resource for learning more about DevOps. Whether you’re just getting started with DevOps or looking to develop deeper skills, there’s likely to be something online that can help. The courses also tend to come in bite-sized modules, meaning you can run through a whole bunch if you have time on your hands, or chip away that them while waiting for a build to complete or a huge upgrade to download.

July 9, 2020
Digital Transformation Efforts Hindered by Lack of Upskilling

There’s no digital transformation without a staff transformation. The people skills that helped bring successful enterprises to where they are today won’t be the skills that will make them successful tomorrow. Fortunately, Leadership Suite readers are well aware at how important it is for the success of their organizations to close the gaps between the skills their employees have today and the skills they need to carry the enterprise forward.

According to the Upskilling 2020: Enterprise DevOps Skills Report from the DevOps Institute, based on 1,300 respondents, more than 50% of enterprises find challenges with all aspects associated with managing the people, processes and technologies that make DevOps possible.

The report found 58% of enterprises have a tough time actually finding those with the right DevOps skills and 48% said it’s difficult to retain skilled DevOps professionals.

With that in mind, it’s no surprise the report found DevOps salaries on the rise. According to the Robert Half Technology 2020 Salary Guide, salaries for experienced DevOps engineers can reach beyond $179,250. Survey respondents said that the skillsets necessary for DevOps practitioners skillsets should be multifaceted, including process skills and knowledge (69% of respondents), automation skills (67%) and interpersonal skills (61%). The 2019 survey found automation skills to be the top skill, followed by process skills and knowledge.

The survey contends that successful DevOps professionals will have expertise that consists of both breadth and depth of knowledge, along with tangible and intangible skills that help them both dive into the details of a situation while also understanding the big picture. The 2020 Upskilling survey cited three highly sought horizontal skill categories: automation, functional knowledge and technical skills.

A second grouping of skills—process and framework skills—is a vertical skillset which focuses on flow and understanding of different practices and methods such as scrum, agile development and value stream mapping. Another vertical skill category focuses on human skills such as collaboration and interpersonal skills.

“People, process and technology have always been the trifecta needed to execute DevOps successfully,” stated Shawn Ahmed, senior vice president and general manager of the Software Delivery Automation business at CloudBees. “As we strive to enhance the culture needed to predictably deliver better software faster at CloudBees, it’s been important for us to identify which skills are considered ‘must-haves,’ which are ‘nice-to-haves’ and which are ‘not important’ across teams, roles and regions.”

“As the report underscores, upskilling is now more important than ever to enable meaningful collaboration between all teams to truly deliver software at an elite level,” said Ahmed.

The survey also found that adoption for Agile is at 81%, DevOps 75% and ITIL is at 25%. Organizations that employ SRE rose to 15% this year from 10% in 2018.

— George V. Hulme

March 19, 2020
Human Transformation Breeds DevOps Skills and Success
As part of its mission to advance the human elements of DevOps, DevOps Institute has released its 2020 Upskilling: Enterprise DevOps Skills Report. The year-over-year data builds on the inaugural 2019 project but it’s more insightful and more regional than last year. DevOps Institute is grateful to the 1,300 respondents this past year who took the time to share their insights that allowed us to present this important research to the community.

One thing that is abundantly clear is that human transformation is the single most critical success factor to enable DevOps practices and patterns for enterprise IT organizations. Traditional upskilling and talent development approaches won’t soon be enough for large enterprises to remain competitive. This is because the increasing demand for IT professionals with core human skills is escalating to a point that business leaders have not yet seen in their lifetime. If there is but one call to action from the report this year is that we must update our humans through new skill sets as often—and with the same focus—as our technology.

Thoughts on Skills

What we continue to see is a well-recognized gap between the skills needed for digital transformation and the skills available in new and existing talent. According to 58% of the Upskilling report respondents, finding skilled DevOps individuals is a huge challenge, whereas 48% of respondents say the retention of skilled DevOps individuals is a challenge.

Unfortunately, the term “skill” is so broadly generic, which fuels the belief that there is a single stack of competencies that will guarantee enterprise success. That’s simply not true. The modern IT professional has to possess a set of skills across at least four categories: process, function, automation and core/human skills. Within each category, individuals must know which skills are considered must-have, nice-to-have or not as important—which leads to the question: How do you know? Seeking the answer to that question is the genesis of DevOps Institute’s Upskilling: Enterprise DevOps Skills Report project.

Additional Takeaways from the 2020 Upskilling: Enterprise DevOps Skills Report
- The DevOps journey is difficult for at least 50% of respondents since it changes the traditional structure of IT.
- The DevOps human must have a hybrid set of skills since process skills and knowledge (69%), automation skills (67%) and human skills (61%) are the top three must-have skill categories in 2020.
- Upskilling needs attention now since only 31% of respondents had a formal upskilling program while 38% do not, 21% said they were working on standing up a program.
- Agile, DevOps and ITIL are getting strong competition from Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) which grew by 5% from 2019. Value Stream Management and Systems Thinking are also gaining traction.
To learn more, download the Upskilling 2020: Enterprise Skills Report. The data is very granular and can serve as a waypoint for individuals and enterprises trying to plan their upskilling initiatives.

— Jayne Groll
March 12, 2020
Building Your Data Science Team from Within

The global machine learning (ML) industry is increasing at a compound annual growth rate of 42% and will be worth $9 billion toward the end of 2022. Despite this figure, there are many cases of data science teams’ failure to deploy a reliable artificial intelligence (AI) product or service.

Part of the failings and shortcomings of AI concern the ramp or process for getting there. For an AI project to succeed, it is critical to have your data fully deployed, available, structured and cleaned. You also must have some algorithms (ML/deep learning/natural language processing) ready to pull the insights and focused data, effectively putting the intelligence into AI.

This requires a very specific skill set and talent pool.

Empower Your Data Analysts

With so many different technology fields colliding, machine learning is a difficult area to master. Deep reinforcement learning (DRL), natural language processing (NLP), AutoML tools, ML Ops, neural networks and model-based reinforcement learning are just some of the subjects required to master ML.

With a shortage of talent and shortfall of data scientists, this is easier said than done. Part of this is because the demand far outweighs the supply, with Bloomberg estimating job postings for data scientists rose 75% from 2015 to 2018. Almost every organization shares this same urgent need.

When faced with a skills gap in their teams and stiff competition in recruiting, how can organizations effectively build a data science team?

One way is to start by looking at your data analysts. They are often swimming in disparate, federated data sources, operating on legacy databases, working with mixed data sources and using Excel to do things it was never intended to do. There is an enormous opportunity to empower data analysts to become data scientists.

From Data Analyst to Data Scientist

Companies looking to hire data scientists from within need to think about how to upskill, reskill or preskill their data analysts to perform the roles needed to implement AI and ML fully. I’m a believer that if you provide prescriptive and progressive curricula around the essential topics a budding data scientist needs, you can equip them with the skills and knowledge to make a difference and move them forward in the organization.

However, it’s not enough to simply equip these employees with a curriculum; the program should have numerous twists and turns. Why? When thinking about how you can train the prototypical ML expert of the future, you must consider all the deep tech skills needed. You also want the business and social skills that are required to attain the expert moniker. A well-rounded ML architect will see the business imperatives, understand how to communicate with engineering and business, and have the tech skills to deploy ML models that benefit your business and customers.

When organizations take roles commonly found in the workplace, such as data analysts, provide them with a sequenced path of instruction that moves them toward an aspirational role, they’ll be well-positioned to realize the full potential of AI and ML.

— Mike Hendrickson

October 23, 2019
Upskilling: The Enterprise DevOps Skills Survey and Report

There has been a lot of recent reference to “T-shaped” IT professionals—individuals whose core competence (the stem) is supplemented by a broad range of other knowledge including soft skills (top of the T). T-shaped talent is in such high demand with a limited supply that recruitment efforts have become very competitive for those with upskilled and cross-skilled transformational know-how.

Unfortunately, the migration from a deeply skilled specialist to a T-shaped practitioner is leaving many confused about what skills they should be acquiring and hiring and when. That’s why DevOps Institute (DOI) recently launched the 2019 “Upskilling: Enterprise DevOps Skills Report” community survey to help individuals and enterprises better understand the current and future state of DevOps skilling across the global IT community. Using data science coupled with hiring manager interviews, DOI’s goal in fielding the report is to provide tangible insight into why and where IT practitioners, managers, leaders and business stakeholders should focus their efforts in growing personal and organizational skills portfolios.

Eveline Oehrlich, a former vice president and research analyst at Forrester, is bringing her data science expertise as the lead analyst for the report. Founding Platinum sponsor Electric Cloud and founding Gold sponsor Cloudbees are also sponsoring this important project. The “Upskilling: Enterprise DevOps Skills Report” will be a year over year project, and the results will be published in Q1 2019.

The global survey will remain open until Dec. 7 and can be accessed through the following link: https://www.research.net/r/K9WD2XC

We encourage everyone in the DevOps community to complete the survey so that the data samples truly reflect the global state of DevOps skills. Any organization that has at least 20 people complete the survey will get a personal snapshot of the data results. All respondents who complete the survey will be entered into a drawing for four $100 Amazon gift cards.

— Jayne Groll

November 27, 2018