Developer shortage hampering shift to DevOps

Computing research finds a lack of suitable developers and designers is preventing organisations from building ideal DevOps teams

Organisations are struggling to shift to DevOps due to a lack of appropriately skilled developers, designers and other IT staff, according to Computing's latest research.

The DevOps Report 2016 found that 31 per cent of respondents claimed that a lack of developers and designers was preventing them building the ideal DevOps setup, while 28 per cent said that programmers, coders and database administrators are similarly hard to recruit.

Many organisations have successfully implemented DevOps, and the Greater London Authority's IT chief recently claimed that it has been a "game changer" for his organisation.

However, the research revealed that figures are only slightly better for organisations that had already implemented a DevOps culture. Some 28 per cent of that group also cited a developer and designer shortage as a hindrance.

An IT consultant in finance explained that he is looking for staff with an understanding of the business allied to technical ability. "I think the most important are the people that are sort of hybrids, so technical business analysts, someone that understands the business and the technology. What's less important is somebody that's just a pure technician," he said.

A CIO, also from finance, explained that his strategy is to over-recruit, then lose all but the best in a ‘try before you buy' approach. "It's a bit like being a Premier League team manager. You are managing superstars, but unlike the Premier League, our approach has always been you hire 20, you try them out for up to three months," he said.

He continued: "You can rarely tell from a CV, and you can never tell from an interview, all the ones that seem right for you. We find that out of every 10 or 14, we will reject all except one.

"It's very time intensive, but it's the only way to get the right people. Once we get them, we make sure that we look after them. Because of the nature of the staff we take on, what one of our people could do would take seven or eight people at a normal company to do."

Another finding from the research is that more organisations are planning, adopting and successfully implementing DevOps.

The full report will be available on the Computing website shortly.

Computing's DevOps Summit 2016 will be held in central London on 5 July. Attendance is free to qualifying end users.