The Jenkins OpenTelemetry plugin enables monitoring and observability of Jenkins jobs and pipelines, allowing developers to shift left and improve their DevOps practices. The plugin integrates with New Relic, providing visualizations of key metrics such as job duration and error rates, distributed tracing, and alerts for pipeline issues. To set up the plugin, users need to install Jenkins and configure the OpenTelemetry settings, including authentication and OTLP endpoint. Once configured, users can send data from their Jenkins pipelines to New Relic, providing visibility into the build and deployment phases of the DevOps lifecycle. With this integration, developers can gain insights into their pipeline performance and make data-driven decisions to improve their development workflows.