Inside DevOps with Matt Ash

In a discussion with Matt Ash, a Staff DevOps Engineer at a leading HR software platform provider, he shares insights from his decade-long journey transitioning from application development to DevOps engineering, emphasizing the importance of automation in removing manual operations to achieve scalability and predictability. Ash describes the role of his DevOps team, which supports over 900 engineers, as akin to Platform Engineering, focusing on enabling developer self-service within secure guardrails. He highlights the challenges of managing variability at scale and the crucial role of tools like Octopus Deploy in achieving enablement and scalability, particularly through features like Octopus Runbooks. Ash underscores best practices such as seeking automation opportunities, ensuring testability in automation scripts, and the importance of writing testable code, drawing from his experience with C#. For those beginning their DevOps journey, he advises starting small by automating repetitive tasks and taking script engineering seriously. Additionally, Ash recommends the book "Accelerate: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations" for further reading and shares his personal interest in travel, having visited six continents.