A recent survey on engineering velocity and release practices highlights the struggles of engineering organizations due to inadequate automation, particularly in the context of managing microservices, which, while beneficial for scaling, have introduced significant complexity in deployment processes. The survey, which encompassed a range of engineering and operations teams, revealed that many teams are still experiencing slow release cycles, with over half releasing monthly or slower, and few expecting improvement in the near term. A significant shift is occurring as deployment responsibilities move from operations to application engineers, yet a lack of comprehensive automation remains a substantial barrier to faster deployment. The survey underscores the importance of automation in increasing developer velocity, which not only enhances competitiveness and job satisfaction but also delivers greater business value by enabling faster and more frequent changes. A case study within the survey demonstrated a 24-fold improvement in the code/build/release cycle through automation, emphasizing its critical role in optimizing engineering processes and financial outcomes. Additionally, the survey notes the growing adoption of serverless technology.