Posts Tagged ‘DeveloperProductivity’
[DevoxxUK2025] Platform Engineering: Shaping the Future of Software Delivery
Paula Kennedy, co-founder and COO of Cintaso, delivered a compelling lightning talk at DevoxxUK2025, tracing the evolution of platform engineering and its impact on software delivery. Drawing from over a decade of experience, Paula explored how platforms have shifted from siloed operations to force multipliers for developer productivity. Referencing the journey from DevOps to PaaS to Kubernetes, she highlighted current trends like inner sourcing and offered practical strategies for assessing platform maturity. Her narrative, infused with lessons from the past and present, underscored the importance of a user-centered approach to avoid the pitfalls of hype and ensure platforms drive innovation.
The Evolution of Platforms
Paula began by framing platforms as foundations that elevate development, drawing on Gregor Hohpe’s analogy of a Volkswagen chassis enabling diverse car models. She recounted her career, starting in 2002 at Acturus, a SaaS provider with rigid silos between developers and operations. The DevOps movement, sparked in 2009, sought to bridge these divides, but its “you build it, you run it” mantra often overwhelmed teams. The rise of Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), exemplified by Cloud Foundry, simplified infrastructure management, allowing developers to focus on code. However, Paula noted, the complexity of Kubernetes led organizations to build custom internal platforms, sometimes losing sight of the original value proposition.
Current Trends and Challenges
Today, platform engineering is at a crossroads, with Gartner predicting that by 2026, 80% of large organizations will have dedicated teams. Paula highlighted principles like self-service APIs, internal developer portals (e.g., Backstage), and golden paths that guide developers to best practices. She emphasized treating platforms as products, applying product management practices to align with user needs. However, the 2024 DORA report reveals challenges: while platforms boost organizational performance, they often fail to improve software reliability or delivery throughput. Paula attributed this to automation complacency and “platform complacency,” where trust in internal platforms leads to reduced scrutiny, urging teams to prioritize observability and guardrails.
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[DevoxxUK2024] Productivity is Messing Around and Having Fun by Trisha Gee & Holly Cummins
In their DevoxxUK2024 talk, Trisha Gee (Gradle) and Holly Cummins (Red Hat, Quarkus) explore developer productivity through the lens of joy and play, challenging conventional metrics like lines of code. They argue that developer satisfaction drives business success, drawing on Fred Brooks’ The Mythical Man-Month to highlight why programmers enjoy crafting, solving puzzles, and learning. However, they note that developers spend only ~32% of their time coding, with the rest consumed by toil (e.g., waiting for builds, context-switching).
The speakers critique metrics like lines of code, citing examples where incentivizing code volume led to bloated, unmaintainable codebases (e.g., ASCII art comments). They warn against AI tools like Copilot generating verbose, unnecessary code (e.g., redundant getters/setters in Quarkus), which increases technical debt. Instead, they advocate for frameworks like Quarkus that reduce boilerplate through build-time bytecode inspection, enabling concise, expressive code.
Trisha and Holly introduce the SPACE framework (Satisfaction, Performance, Activity, Communication, Efficiency) as a holistic approach to measuring productivity, emphasizing developer well-being and flow over raw output. They highlight the importance of mental space for creativity, citing the brain’s default mode network, activated during low-stimulation activities like showering, running, or knitting. They encourage embracing “boredom” and play, supported by research showing happier developers are more productive. The talk critiques flawed metrics (e.g., McKinsey’s) and warns against management misconceptions, like assuming developers are replaceable by AI.