October 2017 Summaries

The concept of Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) has evolved over time, with its origins attributed to Benjamin Treynor Sloss at Google in 2003. The role is defined as hiring software engineers to design and run operations functions, aiming to meet the challenge of complex systems operating at scale. As a result, the SRE function has proliferated rapidly across various industries and companies, including tech firms and non-tech companies like GE and Chase. With its core trait being automation, the SRE role is in high demand, with LinkedIn naming it as the most promising job in tech for 2017. At New Relic, the SRE role took off in 2015, with the team focusing on bringing more software-based approaches to operational work, rather than traditional IT operations methods. Today, New Relic SREs are embedded in product and platform teams, working towards a common goal of reliability through automation and self-healing practices.

The role of Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) has become increasingly significant in the tech industry, evolving from its origins at Google, where it was defined by Benjamin Treynor Sloss as a software engineer's approach to operations. Unlike traditional roles like software developer, the SRE role lacks a universally accepted definition, which can be advantageous as it allows for adaptability and variation across organizations. The key characteristic of SREs is their focus on automation to enhance efficiency and reliability, making them essential in managing large and complex systems. The demand for SREs is growing rapidly across various industries, with companies like New Relic integrating SREs into both site engineering and product teams to foster automation-first practices that minimize manual intervention and improve system reliability. This trend reflects an industry-wide shift towards embedding reliability and automation into software and infrastructure processes, underscoring the critical role SREs play in modern technology environments.

New Relic has adopted Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) as its content management system to improve digital customer experience and deploy updates more frequently while maintaining stability. The migration process is underway, with the company relying on New Relic for monitoring, which helped them learn valuable lessons along the way. By configuring New Relic Browser in the authoring UI, migrating traffic progressively to minimize disruptions, and monitoring general web transactions, the team was able to identify issues before they affected users, ensuring a smooth transition to AEM. The use of New Relic's Digital Intelligence Platform has been essential in tracking digital customer experience and implementing solutions when issues arise.

New Relic has adopted Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) as its new content management system to enhance its digital customer experience and improve operational efficiency. The transition from a manually built Ruby on Rails website to AEM allows non-technical users to create and publish content while maintaining site stability through New Relic's infrastructure monitoring tools. The migration is phased to minimize disruptions, with performance monitored using New Relic APM to ensure smooth traffic transitions and troubleshoot issues proactively. Additionally, New Relic Browser and APM help identify and address errors, such as those from external dependencies, ensuring a seamless user experience. This strategic shift emphasizes New Relic's commitment to delivering a reliable digital experience by leveraging both Adobe's and their own monitoring capabilities.

The New Relic team successfully implemented mob programming, a variation of pair programming where one computer is shared among an entire development team, to boost collaboration and productivity. By rotating drivers every five minutes and encouraging distracted team members to step away, the team maintained high energy levels, intellectual interaction, and focus on producing quality software. Mobbing increased social interactions across the team, fostered a culture of consensus-building, and ensured that all team members contributed equally to the development process. The team also established working rules, such as putting phones away and being present, to maintain focus during sessions. Mob programming resulted in record time for building new features, improved software quality, and enhanced collaboration among team members.

New Relic's Insights team adopted mob programming, a collaborative approach where the entire development team works around one computer, to enhance both the quality and velocity of their software development process. This method, which involves rotating the "driver" every five minutes, allows team members to contribute equally and encourages those who are not engaged to step away temporarily, maintaining high energy and focus among active participants. Despite initial concerns about potential conflicts, the team found that mob programming fostered a collaborative environment where diverse opinions were valued, and consensus-driven decisions were made with management stepping in when necessary. The team also implemented the concept of the Minimum Marketable Feature to keep focused on developing small, valuable features, and benefited from group-oriented pull request reviews that ensured knowledge dissemination and awareness of changes. Ultimately, mob programming proved to produce high-quality software rapidly, leveraging the collective expertise of the group in a way that individual efforts could not match.

The popularity of programming languages fluctuates annually, with Java remaining a top choice for employers and JavaScript being the most commonly used language by coders. However, emerging trends like microservices architecture are shifting interest towards specialized languages such as Scala, Kotlin, and Apache Groovy that run on a Java Virtual Machine (JVM). The growing adoption of microservices is driving demand for languages that can handle asynchronous communications more effectively than traditional languages like Java. Employers are also looking for developers with skills in emerging technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT) and machine learning. Meanwhile, coders tend to favor languages they learned first, as well as those offering cutting-edge innovation and fast performance. Functional programming is gaining traction, with languages like Haskell, Erlang, Elixir, Elm, and Clojure gaining popularity. Polyglot programming remains a valuable skill, with developers leveraging multiple languages for different purposes. Overall, while familiar players still dominate the top spots, newer languages and trends are significantly affecting the choices made by individual programmers and software development teams.

Programming languages experience shifts in popularity influenced by trends such as the rise of microservices and functional programming, according to New Relic's annual survey. Java remains the most sought-after skill among employers, while JavaScript is the most used by developers. The demand for languages like Scala, Kotlin, and Apache Groovy is fueled by the shift towards microservices, which favor asynchronous communications. There is also a growing interest in functional programming languages like Haskell and Clojure. Despite the stability in demand for established languages such as Java, Python, and .NET, developers are increasingly adopting a polyglot approach, using multiple languages to meet diverse development needs. This trend is supported by the emergence of the "full-stack developer" role, which requires proficiency across a range of languages and technologies.