Is DevOps the Wrong Name?

The invisible, yet critical, work of developers needs its own name

I have to admit I was late to the world of DevOps. Having been in startups for several years, the idea of shipping code fast was simply how things got done. There were no approval processes, fixed deployment schedules, or hundreds of steps to release code. As soon as code was checked in, it was ready to deploy, usually without any human intervention at all.

Then I got to experience how big companies get things done. During my time at Stack Overflow, I would meet with many leaders of engineering organizations in larger enterprises. It was an eye opening experience as I toured the engineering departments. Antiquated and underpowered PCs. uninspired cubicle farms, disconnected tools that required many manual steps, endless meetings, and other roadblocks in getting things done. It could be weeks or even months before code would be deployed to production.

One of these big companies was trying to change how their engineering teams did things. They brought in a well-known leader who had helped transform the engineering organization for a larger retailer. When we finally had a chance to talk, he said to meet him at DevOpsDays. I had no idea what that was, but I figured I would sign up since it was local and I needed to meet him if I was to make any progress in having this big customer come on board as a customer.